Maximizing Your Chances for Data Recovery
The ideal way to do data recovery is to replace the lost or damaged file with a good version from your backup volume or remote backup. No fuss or bother. But in spite of our best intentions, we all sometimes find ourselves in a situation where we’ve lost a file, a directory, or maybe a whole volume and can’t get it back. Our recovery service can help you, but when you discover the failure, you can do certain things to give us the best shot at recovering everything. Maximizing your chances for data recovery is something that can only help, here’s how:
There are certain things you should never do. If you realize you’ve just done something bad, don’t turn off or unplug the computer in a panic. The computer’s faster than you; it’s already too late. Turning off a running computer without going through the normal shutdown procedure will leave the disk in an inconsistent state and make things worse.
However, do shut down gracefully as soon as you can. When a computer deletes a file, it doesn’t overwrite the data; it just marks its storage as unused. If you don’t do anything else, the chances are good that the data will still be there. A recovery service should be able to get the file, or most of it, back.
If you start seeing a lot of disk error messages, stop normal operations as quickly as possible and run the computer’s disk repair utility. Errors like these tend to cascade and can do increasing damage as time passes. If the repair utility can’t fix it, or if important files are still missing when it’s done and you can’t recover them from backup, then avoid doing anything else with that machine until a recovery service can look at it.
When you’re injured, proper first aid can save a trip to the emergency room, and if you still have to go it will give you the best chance for a quick recovery. The same applies whether you’ve got a broken arm or a broken file system. To learn more about our services, please contact us.