Do - It - Yourself Disaster Recovery
A Backup Article Contributed by Ashley Lister
Do - It - Yourself Disaster Recovery
With something as valuable as a hard drive full of information, it sounds ridiculous to promote do - it - yourself disaster recovery. Yet, given the cost of this expensive procedure it might be worth considering it as an alternative to the more costly method.
Disaster Recovery is a Complicated Procedure and Should Not Be Undertaken by Amateurs or Those with Little or No Technical Knowledge. a Computer's Hard Drive is Not Only an Expensive Piece of Equipment but, When Working with Any Live Piece of Electrical Equipment, There is Always a Danger of Electric Shock.
However, in a situation where there is nothing to lose, a careful user might be able to retrieve information that would be otherwise lost forever.
The First Step in Do - It - Yourself - Disaster Recovery Should Always Be to Disconnect the Damaged Hard Drive from the Computer. When a Computer Starts up Certain Files are Accessed and Can Often Be re-Written. If Sectors Have Been Corrupted, or File Allocation Tables are Misreading/Misreporting Cluster Locations, This Rewriting Process Could Easily Wipe out and Eradicate Information the User Wants to Retrieve.
If a user is still intent on performing a do - it - yourself disaster recovery, the second step of the procedure should be to establish that the hard drive is no longer serviceable and its warranty has expired. Manufacturers will be perfectly within their rights to contest accusations of component failure if you present them with a hard drive that has suffered a crude and amateurish form of examination and repair.
If the hard drive's warranty has already expired, or if you believe there is little point in pursuing the failure with the manufacturer and you wish to press on with the do - it - yourself disaster recovery, the next step should be to establish the exact fault.
Professional disaster recovery specialists are equipped with laboratories and diagnostic equipment to help understand the problem they are working with. The amateur attempting disaster recovery is unlikely to have these facilities on which to fall back. The failure could be due to a fault on the integrated controller board. Amending this is relatively simple and is usually managed by replacing the faulty integrated controller board on the damaged hard drive with a working one.
A common problem with older drives is when the spindle motor refuses to spin. Disaster recovery can be negotiated under these circumstances by manually turning the spindle but, as always, this can come with a risk of electrical shock.
In all cases, if any data can be accessed during an amateur attempt at disaster recovery, that information should be immediately copied to a safe location.
