It can be a very frustrating and unpleasant experience when a hard drive crashes. However, the truth is that even when the hard drive crashes, it is still not the end of the world. You still have the ability to recover all those important data, memorable files and documents that would have otherwise been lost.
Hard drive recovery is what you can do yourself if you have the skills or hire an expert to get it all fixed for you. Whichever method you decide to use, there are very useful tips that can come in handy when it comes to hard drive recovery.
1. Know the Precise Cause
When it comes to hard drive crashes, two principal causes can be blamed, and these are mechanical failures or logical issues. By knowing the exact cause of the hard drive failure, you are going to know the most excellent strategy to deploy.
2. Disk Must Be Disengaged Immediately
It is very vital to know that the disk must be disengaged immediately. You should stop making use of the drive and this is the step that must be taken irrespective of the cause of disk failure. There is a very good reason for this.
As a result of the fact that the file system has been corrupted, making use of the disk can lead to more damage. In fact, when you attempt to make use of the compromised drive, some parts of the can be overwritten or deleted by error. Even something as simple as even trying to open a single file can lead to damage in other parts. What you should do at this point is to totally stop using the hard drive. If possible, unmount and remove the disk from the computer without delay.
3. Backup Always Vital
Of all the tips that are listed in this piece, this is probably one of the most important. Once a hard drive crashes, the next step that is to be taken is to swiftly get a backup of the data done. This process should be repeated as many times as possible. The more frequent the backups are, the lower the chances of running into more problems later on.
Google Drive and DropBox or even an extra hard drive are very good options for backups. One very good thing with backups is that you do not even have to wait until the hard drive fails before you decide to do the backups. Backups should always be done even when there are no issues at all with the hard drive. It is a very simple step but one that can help a lot in the future when the time comes for recovery.
4. Put Effort into Locating the Files
Even in a situation where you find it virtually impossible to delete a file, all hope is not lost. When this is the scenario, making use of the file undelete option often works. This is particularly true of files that have just been deleted. Another thing about this option is that when it is applied, the file length, timestamp, physical location and other details of the file metadata are preserved.
The condition is a bit different when the hard drive recovery has to do with fragmented files. This is because a simple deletion will not work. The same thing applies to unusual files, partitioned files or even files that have been deleted from the latest operating systems. But even if that is the case, there are still alternatives for a solution. By doing a proper analysis of the disk, it is easy to get the location of the deleted files. However, there may be a need for a more sophisticated data recovery tool to be able to fully recover the file back to its original status.
5. Establish a Disk Image
In a situation where it happens that you are getting the data recovery done by yourself, it will be very necessary for you to have an image created on the disk. This is even more important if the nature of the fault is mechanical. There are very good programs like R-Drive Image that one can make use of for this step. This step is practically cloning your hard drive and the clone is referred to as a disk image.
