| How many times have you experienced that | | | | to do with the hardware part. Logical errors |
| sickening feeling when your hard drive | | | | can occur due to corruption of the file |
| suddenly fails? How many times have you | | | | system on the hard drive or improper entries |
| experienced that your hard disk just does not | | | | in the file allocation table. |
| boot and all the data may be gone forever? A | | | | |
| hard drive failure is one of the most common | | | | In case of hard drive failure it is vital to |
| problems and worst nightmares faced by | | | | call the data recovery experts. In most |
| computer operators all over the world. | | | | cases, the information on the hard drive is |
| Precious data is lost either at home or in | | | | important and you cannot bear to lose it. The |
| big corporate environments. What can be done | | | | experts enhance the possibilities of hard |
| in these situations? Well, there are certain | | | | drive recovery in the case of failure of hard |
| solutions that can be performed by you in | | | | drive due to software malfunction, virus |
| order to revive your hard drive. We will talk | | | | attacks and other reasons mentioned above. |
| about the solution later. First, let us | | | | Data can be recovered on any type of |
| discuss why a hard drive fails. | | | | operating system including all versions of |
| | | | Windows as well as Apple Macintosh, Novell, |
| Whether the data on the hard drive can be | | | | Linux, Unix and also on all types of file |
| recovered or not depends on the extent of the | | | | systems like FAT, FAT32, NTFS, NTFS5, HFS, |
| problem. A hard drive can be damaged due to | | | | HFS+, NWFS, EXT2 and EXT3. The experts may |
| firmware corruption, electronic failure, | | | | take the hard drive to their workshop in |
| mechanical failure or a logical failure. Many | | | | order to recover the lost data and then |
| times your hard drive may lose data due to | | | | return it to you in a few days. Most of the |
| the combination of the above mentioned | | | | data recovery experts have their own |
| factors. A hard drive may also develop bad | | | | laboratories that are involved in testing the |
| sectors due to which the data on those | | | | hard drives and repairing them. |
| sectors is lost or becomes unreadable. | | | | |
| | | | Loss of data is the last thing that you as |
| Firmware refers to the information used by | | | | the customer would ever want. This is where |
| the computer to interact correctly with the | | | | the data recovery experts come into the |
| hard drive. If the firmware fails or becomes | | | | picture. They cannot extract only data from |
| corrupted, then important data on the hard | | | | hard drives, but recover data also from tape |
| drive is lost. In case of an electronic | | | | drives, cds, dvds and other important storage |
| failure there maybe occur an electrical surge | | | | media. You as the consumer can take up some |
| that can knock out the controller board on | | | | preventive measures like backing up all your |
| the hard drive and make it unusable. However | | | | important data at least once a week. Windows |
| data can be recovered by data recovery | | | | has its own feature rich backup program. |
| experts who use special data recovery | | | | There are other backup software programs |
| software. Swapping the controller board with | | | | available in the market that can avert a |
| another one can prove to be dangerous as the | | | | possible disaster. |
| information on the controller board is unique | | | | |
| to the hard drive on which it is fitted. In | | | | Besides the concern of recovering your data, |
| comparison to electronic failure a mechanical | | | | another problem is the time it may take for |
| failure can turn out to be worst as data | | | | an expert to help. This can be a slow and |
| recovery can almost become impossible. | | | | tedious process. I recommend having a second |
| Mechanical failure includes head crash and | | | | complete computer source such as a laptop |
| also read/write head failure. Head crash can | | | | (for portability) that you can continue your |
| occur due to physical shock, power surges and | | | | work. This way you are never completely down |
| movement of the computer. Next come the | | | | and you can share important data between the |
| logical errors. Logical errors have nothing | | | | two. |