Basic Data Recovery

A Backup Article Contributed by Andrew Whitehead

Basic Data Recovery

Have you ever wondered how much data is stored in your PC, and how much time and energy would go into its recovery? Your computer almost certainly contains a lot of personal data - financial data, names, addresses, and telephone numbers, bank account information, photographs and much more. It may seem safe, but accidents do happen!

Why Did the Data Go?

The three most common causes of total data loss are a failure of your operating system, a mechanical malfunction of your hard drive, or a failure in the software that controls your hard drive. Should any of these happen, there are some data recovery steps you can take yourself, and if these fail there are plenty of data recovery specialists to choose from.

You should consider that attempting to restore lost data to your hard drive carries a risk of causing more damage to it, making further data recovery more difficult or impossible.

Data Recovery after Operating System Failure

An operating system failure is a failure to recognize your hard drive, this usually shows as a Disk Boot Failure error message on start up. If this happens, and you have the boot disk that should have come with your PC, insert that to boot from the floppy disk or CD instead. Have a look around now, and if you find your boot disk has vanished, you should visiting www.bootdisk.com and get a replacement immediately. It will make any attempts at data recovery a lot easier.

Once you have your PC booted, you will have an A:> prompt on the screen. Enter c: to swap drives, then enter "dir" to view the data on your hard drive. Hopefully the data on your will be intact, showing that the problem is with your operating system. Back up any critical data, and then reinstall your operating system.

Data Recovery after a Mechanical Failure

An imminent mechanical disc failure announces itself by your hard drive making unexpected noises while accessing data. If you hear any, it is probably a mechanical failure of one of the many components in your hard drive. If this happens do not try to service the drive yourself! Return it to the manufacturer for data recovery, especially if it is still under warranty

Data Recovery after a Software Control Failure

Often the problem is with the software connected with your hard drive. The most common problem here is fortunately very simple to solve; the backup battery on your motherboard dies causing your PC to forget the settings that control your hard drive. Data recovery is then a case of replacing the battery on your motherboard and manually re-entering the settings. Follow directions from your handbook when re-entering the settings at boot up.

The menu is commonly reached by holding down the F10, Del or Esc keys during the boot process, or it may be via a disk provided by the manufacturer. Work through the menu options until you find your hard drive settings, and you will find an option to automatically detect the correct settings. Select this to reset the controls.