Archive for Data Recovery
Comparison Websites – Good For Products, Laughable For Data Recovery Services
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Is it possible to compare the cost of data recovery without an initial assessment
You only have to do a quick search on Google for Data recovery to get a true glimpse of how competitive an arena this particular sector of the IT industry actually is, and if you dig a little deeper it becomes very apparent to the trained eye the tactics and strategies many companies go to, to capture the market the latest of which is cost comparison websites.
Cost comparison sites are springing up all over the world and to a great extent most of these will give a fair comparison of the market given any defined set of terms.
Doing a cost comparison is reasonably easy especially if you are comparing out of the box products, and /or you have a number of manufacturers or suppliers that are happy to supply their best price to the comparison website.
All very fair and reasonable but what if the services offered will vary or the end solution will depend on the problem in the first place. Also what if the companies being compared have not even agreed to be in the comparison scheme in the first place but are being falsely compared using comparative information that is as loose as a gaseous cloud to say the very least.
The big question here is where does it leave the consumer who is in most cases urgently looking for the best solution to a data loss problem in the first place, surely this would be classed as a blatant attempt to mislead the consumer to the fact that they are dealing a reputable company and getting a fair price to boot.
Most reputable data recovery companies will of course not wish to see customers put in this situation.
Without question data recovery requirements and solutions will vary from case to case and drive to drive, and each recovery will need to take into account many other deciding factors as well that without an initial evaluation simply cannot be properly assessed.
Product comparison websites are very well suited to products for example comparing the cost of one hard drive to exactly the same drive from another supplier, but when it comes to any solution based service be it data recovery or even automobile repair, until you know the root cause of the problem it will be impossible to truly compare one business against another.
Product comparison websites of data recovery services simply will never be accurate as not enough details are known upfront and actual solutions can be too varied so these comparison sites should be avoided or taken with a big dose of salt.
Is DIY Data Recovery The Quickest Way To Data Disaster?
Posted by: | CommentsIn recent times with the “Credit Crunch” beginning to bite a lot of people may well be tempted to try to repair or recover their data from a failed hard disk drive or memory stick. Alternatively they try to use recovery software, which is easily available on the net, can be paid for and downloaded online.
In most cases this software will be a hard drive recovery programme for a hard disk drive that has suffered from some form of logical table corruption and will not assist with
- Mechanically failed devices
- Degraded hard Disk Drives
- Devices with electronic failures
This software will of course not be able to help and if the drive is degraded or suffering from a mechanical failure attempting to run this software will in most cases cause further damage to hard disk drives, potentially making the disk unrecoverable.
The software itself is very often very reasonable priced – usually under $100 but is only good for one purpose to recover either deleted or logically failed drives, so if you are not sure what you are doing trying to do a self recovery can in the long run cost a lot more.
There are of course a lot of IT experts around of course and you may even have some in your own business, but do they really know what they are doing when it comes to the serious issue of data recovery? You would think that your onsite IT support would be data aware bit this is quite often simply not the case.
In a typical case a drive was initially presented for diagnosis and duly diagnosed with a blown PCB – the drive seemed completely dead and would not spin at all. As an additional test a new PCB was placed on the board so that the response of the heads could be tested. The result of the diagnosis was that the hard drive read heads had been damaged following a power spike.
Upon further discussion, with the client, it transpired that the IT dept had decided to remove the HDD from the laptop and as it was an IDE device mount it as an external storage device by using an IDE connector. Unfortunately they plugged the HDD to the connector “upside down” meaning that crucially the drive received a huge power spike through it when the connector was hooked up to a PC.
It appears that the lack of care taken by the IT dept has caused the drive far more problems that what was probably a simple case of “bad sectors” on a hard disk drive. The cost of a simple bad sectors recovery has now become a full HDD rebuild with the search now on for suitable parts – causing delay and additional costs to the School concerned.
Many businesses need to get their data back as quickly as possibly so it is quite frustrating to have additional costs and additional downtime whilst you are waiting for data to be recovered
Sadly this is not an isolated case and data recovery companies the world over will have a whol;e collection of stories where simple recoveries were turned into data disasters by the DIY and have a go brigade
So the moral of this is that whilst many people will look for a quick and cheap fix for their hard drive recovery problems, they really are best leaving it to the experts.
The Do’s And Don’ts Of Data Loss Prevention
Posted by: | CommentsWe would all like to think that we are immune to a system failure and that our trusty computers will just keep on going without a hint of a problem. Sadly regardless of whether you’re are a home or business user, systems are prone to boot up failures and these often result in unexpected data loss of varying degrees.
If you have been here before then at least you will have a vague or depending on your experience a deeper level of knowledge here, but for many potential data loss scenarios are a new computing horror to overcome, so what typically should we be looking out for?
Your computer appears to be starting normally but fails to present the log in window: Typically this can be put down to a number of different causes that could be either hardware or software centric. What this means is that it may be a mechanical problem such as a hard drive failing, or could be one of your drivers failing or a corrupt system file. Starting in safe mode may help but not always.
Computer starts to become slow: When we first get our new computer there is very little on it when it comes to programs and games for example, and over time the operating system due to the way it is designed becomes cluttered. Registry repair utilities can help operating system problems but data loss is always a risk. In extreme circumstances a total ODS re-install is the best option.
Virus or Malware infection: Computer viruses and other Malware applications, if not properly handled from the start, will inevitably lead to situations whereby a full reinstall is the only option to truly remove all trace of the malicious software from the system.
So we come back to how we handle a problem when it arises. How do we prevent data loss when we inevitably have to reinstall our current operating system or upgrade to a new one?
The answer to preventing data loss is incredibly simple: backup, backup, backup. You would however be simply amazed at how many computer users at home or work fail to follow this simple protocol when backup today is so simple.
External hard drives can be purchased in most computer shops now days and a quick search online for online backup will also give you a number of remote back up options.
So what options do you have to get your important or vital data back? If things seem really bad and saving the data is crucial, don’t take any risks and contact a data recovery specialist. They will have a whole host of solutions available to save your data and whilst it cannot be guaranteed, they do stand the best chance of success.
You can find more great advice on data recovery and in particular for businesses raid data recovery here.
