How to Recover Hard Drive Data

Posted on July 14th, 2009 by Marck

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Whether it’s a power failure or hardware failure, data and files that you’re working on can be compromised. There’s always the chance that your data may be recovered, but in most instances the data may be lost. It’s not impossible to recover data from your hard drive if you follow these steps.

Automatic Data Recovery

Most applications have an automatic data recovery function to restore your files in the event of a power or system failure. Autosaves are particularly useful for small files like documents. Suites like Microsoft Office and Open Office, as well as browsers like Mozilla Firefox, have built-in autorecovery functions that may save data at RAM to be written into the hard drive.

Undelete

Most of the time, automatic data recovery is not enough. You may have “permanently deleted” a file by accident, and you want to restore that particular file. Undelete programs and utilities are useful for restoring files. Some of these include paid programs like Diskeeper Undelete and Novell Netware, or freeware like FreeUndelete.

Undelete software works in two ways:

Salvage. The Recycle Bin is replaced with a separate utility that retrieves all deleted files no matter how they were deleted. In the event that you accidentally delete a file, you can access the utility and retrieve data.
Disk scanning. Some undelete software may scan your disks thoroughly to find traces of lost data. While the results and recovery will not be perfect, you can retrieve bits and snippets of lost data that you may be able to piece together.

Remember that undelete programs do not offer a 100% guarantee that all your files will be recovered, unless you have installed a salvage utility before the accidental file deletion.

Disk Recovery

“Lost data” may not actually be lost, and is just overwritten in the sectors of your hard drive. Computer technicians use advanced hardware and software to retrieve data, even from older hard drives. You may need to consult a computer technician for disk recovery options.

Recovering hard drive data can be complicated and may take a lot of time. With these tips, you can have a better chance of recovering a file you have accidentally deleted or lost