Data Recovery from Hard Drives: What You Need to Know

Hard drive damage is a problem faced by thousands of users worldwide. Unfortunately, the modern computer industry produces storage devices of not very high quality. For a number of reasons, data from a hard drive can be lost either partially or completely. Data recovery is among those tasks that are not advisable to perform on your own. These jobs require extensive experience and professional skills. If it is a matter of minor data belonging to a private user, the loss will result in only small inconveniences. When this happens to corporate clients, however, the outcome can be dire: kilobytes of information disappear forever, whose value and importance are simply impossible to assess.

Data recovery falls into two major categories: with the use of special equipment or without it. In general, before starting the work, specialists diagnose the technical condition of the storage device, which includes analyzing the operation of its surfaces and checking the controller. There can be two results: the disk is damaged or it is not. Let’s briefly consider the course of action in each case.

If the hard drive is intact, data recovery takes place at the logical level. A specialist can manage without special utilities, using only DiskEdit. With extensive experience and appropriate qualifications, it is indeed possible to recover data via interface commands. Of course, even a true professional is unlikely to guess the sequence of clusters on the first try. Using high-quality utilities speeds up the process; however, the software is quite expensive.

If the disk is damaged, all operations must be performed only after preliminary copying. In service centers today, data recovery from a faulty disk is carried out using adaptive copying technology. Its principle is based on quickly copying information from undamaged areas and then repeatedly (more than 100 times) reading data from damaged locations. As a result, it is possible to recover a significant amount. As mentioned above, all work on hard drive recovery (hard drive recovery) should be performed only after creating a copy. The fact is that the spindle motor speed exceeds 15,000 revolutions per minute. The disk spins very fast, so the tiniest fragments damage the undamaged areas. This process is cascading in nature, so within two or three hours all information may be irretrievably lost. Many devices have now been developed for hard drive recovery—more precisely, for the information it contains. To prevent possible problems, below are the main causes of hard drive failures: platter surface damage (the most dangerous and common), improper thermal operating conditions, high indoor humidity, factory defects, head crashes due to external impacts, prolonged intensive operation. Troubleshooting may be carried out either with a breach of the drive’s sealed enclosure or without it. The main procedures performed without opening the case come down to hardware replacement. You need to find a completely identical hard drive and remove the necessary parts from it. When the chamber needs to be opened, under no circumstances should you do this in home or office conditions.