| Hard drive recovery is the process of extracting data | | | | service for of lost data is carried out by Data |
| with the help of software utilities or disk internals level | | | | Recovery experts with rich industrial experience and |
| operations plus software tools from logically or | | | | exposure to the hard disk internals. Such recovery |
| physically corrupted hard drive. The best practice is to | | | | procedures often deal with dismantling the hard drive |
| create a disk image before carrying out any recovery. | | | | and repairing or even replacing certain components like |
| A disk image is an exact copy of a hard drive or an | | | | the read/write head, actuator arm if they have failed. |
| affected partition/volume. It is created to avoid any | | | | The Hard Drive Recovery is performed under |
| data loss during the recovery procedure. We should | | | | sterilized environment of Clean rooms. The lab |
| always maintain an updated data backup on a | | | | environment of Clean rooms offer controlled |
| secondary storage device like an external hard drive | | | | temperature, pressure, humidity and no dust particles to |
| to avoid any recovery requirements. If we have all the | | | | ensure maximum protection to hard disk internals. |
| data backed up, we can simply perform a clean | | | | The data that we save in the hard drive actually gets |
| reinstall and restore the data as per our last directory | | | | stored on the platters. The less these platters are the |
| structure. In addition to this we should use hard drives | | | | easier it is to recover the lost data. In case, a platter |
| with highest MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) rating | | | | has physically failed has developed physical bad |
| and S.M.A.R.T (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting | | | | sectors we cannot retrieve our lost data from that |
| Technology) support. We need to enable the | | | | platter and the area affected by physical bad sectors |
| S.M.A.R.T option in system BIOS (Basic Input Output | | | | will become unavailable for recovery due to |
| System) to make it check the hard drive for any | | | | unreadable media. Such physical bad sectors cannot |
| physical issues and proactively inform us. | | | | be repaired or removed like the logical bad sectors. |
| A hard drive is divided into various sub-parts. They can | | | | Hard drives offer large storage capacity and are very |
| be broadly divided as moving and non-moving | | | | cost effective as compared to other storage media. |
| components. The moving components are: Spindle | | | | Today hard drives are available in the market up to 2 |
| Motor and Spindle, Read/Write Head, Actuator Arm, | | | | TB of storage. When we delete data in any operating |
| Head Actuator and Platters. The non-moving | | | | system like Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS or |
| components are: 1.) Hard Disk Controller 2.) Head/Disk | | | | Linux, the files don't get deleted in actual. It is just the |
| Assembly 3.) PCB (Printed Circuit Board) 4.) Input | | | | file reference that gets removed by the operating |
| Output Connector etc. | | | | system. In other words, the files still remain on the hard |
| The Hard drive Recovery can be done by following | | | | drive though we cannot access them using the |
| these two approaches as per logical or physical drive | | | | operating system. The same is true in case of lost or |
| failure:i.) Hard Drive Recovery Software: These are | | | | corrupted data but the corrupted data files need to be |
| utilities that are developed based on file system | | | | repaired as well. |
| structure information to enable the software to find the | | | | The partition or volume loss also follows the same rule |
| files, file signature information to recognize the file | | | | that is the data still resides in the partitions or volumes |
| header and footer and advanced scanning algorithms | | | | but we cannot access them. The common reasons |
| to efficiently scan the hard drive. A home user can | | | | behind such errors are system software conflicts, |
| easily use these software to scan his hard drive after | | | | erroneous deletion, operating system warning related |
| data loss. Some data recovery software also offer | | | | to partition health, virus infection etc. If we face any of |
| bootable media like CD or DVD to boot the system | | | | the above issues and the hard drive data becomes |
| from them in case the system is not able to boot. We | | | | inaccessible, we should not use the hard drive any |
| need to attach an external hard drive (USB/Firewire: | | | | further other than Data Recovery from it in order to |
| IEEE 1394) or flash drive (USB). We can boot the | | | | avoid any disk overwriting. After the lost files get |
| system using the bootable media and scan the hard | | | | replaced by any erroneous user operations like |
| drive. We can even preview the lost files in good | | | | overwriting the drive with some new files like by a |
| quality data recovery software and then save the files | | | | paste operation, it becomes impossible to recover the |
| in the external hard drive or flash drive.ii.) Hard Drive | | | | files as their start and end points get changed by the |
| Recovery Service: The Hard Drive Recovery | | | | new files. |