 PC Advice
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Data Recovery |
The initial cost of a PC and its associated peripherals notwithstanding, the data retained on media such as hard disks and Flash memory may be far more valuable, depending on its nature and relevance. Files such as word processing documents and spreadsheets often have a monetary value based on the work required to produce them, while electronic mail folders could represent the cumulative result of years of correspondence. Digital photos and other image data are often valuable from the point of view of the memories they represent, either of a family vacation or a special event closer to home.
From a business viewpoint, legal requirements may mandate the retention of certain files for a fixed time period; loss of such information may expose a business to fines, censure, or prosecution. Tax records, legal documents, and other important information is often more easily organized and located when in digital format than in a file cabinet, but also involves a "single point of failure." Should a disk crash, or a computer be lost or stolen, years worth of files could be irretrievably lost. Of course the same applies with paper media, though this similarity is often overlooked. What's the difference between losing years worth of data in a computer crash, or in a house fire that destroys the file cabinet containing all that paper?
Electronically stored data can, in fact, be made safer if proper backups are made and stored in a different location (while storing backed up data next to the PC protects against a disk crash, it won't help if the building burns down or thieves make off with everything in sight). But what happens if a hardware failure occurs, and you haven't backed up a critical piece of information? The answer may vary, depending upon the nature of the failure. A word processing document, for instance, is just a single file. Electronic mail messages are often stored in folders, or in a specialized format that may prevent efficient recovery using standard OS backup techniques. Image files such as photos could be accidentally deleted, either from your hard disk or from a Flash memory stick.
Obviously the easiest solution, as I've said on numerous occasions, is to maintain good backups on reliable media so you can simply restore the lost files as needed, but sometimes an error can occur between backups or on offline media such as Flash sticks. Happily, numerous tools exist to help users who suffer from data loss or file corruption; these tools can locate lost files on disk (those that were accidentally deleted, for instance) and restore them as if they'd never been lost to begin with. Others can actually determine the type and content of lost file fragments, and will attempt to reassemble them in order to restore most, if not all lost data. In this series, we'll talk about three specific cases: electronic mail, photos, and the repair of generic files such as documents and spreadsheets.
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Free Scan
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Scan and recover deleted files including documents, pictures, email, and any other file type from your hard drive, memory cards, and more!
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