If your hard drive is having any of these seven symptoms then you must take immediate action to backup your files...
A computer's hard drive is the central storage within the system and its failure will bring all practical functions to a complete halt.
If your PC is experiencing any of the following signs of impeding doom then you must run (not walk) and grab CDs to burn backups of all your essential data.
Sign 1 - You hear high-pitched whining, loud clicking or grinding noises coming from the drive
A normally operating drive will make a smooth "whirling" sound as is spins up or down. But if a drive has a grinding or clicking sounds (the Read/Write heads scraping too close to the magnetic platters), then your drive is sick and is on the way out.
Sign 2 - You see the infamous "Blue Screen of Death", repeatedly
BSODs (Blue Screens of Death) are actually called "Stop" errors and they only appear when your Windows System is experiencing severe software or hardware issues. Often BSODs can cured with a careful "Repair Install" of the Windows operating system or by removal of a bad device driver. But if these software fast fixes don't seem stick, then your hard drive is usually on its last legs
Sign 3 - Your computer keeps re-booting on its own
I admit, I have only seen this problem a few times in my 18+ year career and in all instances it was due to hardware issues. Once it was a dust covered motherboard, and another time an overheating processor. But all the other times it was due to bad drives.
Sign 4 - Your system keeps having frequent freezes or hang ups
You are working along just fine, and then suddenly everything comes to a halt. The program freezes up on you. Your mouse and keyboard seem to stop responding. The only solution is to reboot.
Sign 5 - Error message: hard drive is not formatted
This a fun message that you will get when you start up your machine. You maybe able to restart and get it to boot into Windows a few more times but this error is "fur-sure" sign that you drive is very close to death. And by the way don't try to format the drive! You will lose all your data.
Sign 6 - Error message: boot drive or device not found or drive cannot be accessed
This is another favorite of mine. You can check the CD/DVD trays or the floppy drive to make sure no stray disks are stuck inside. You can also check the BIOS to make sure the system is booting from the hard drive first. If all these tests are no-good, then the drive is a goner.
Sign 7 - Errors: Operating system not found or Missing Operating System
This is a bad one. Even the Microsoft technichal support knowledgebase has only got a few causes for this error message. Basically your PC can no longer detect the hard drive or the drive is too severely damaged to read (DOA).
What to do if your drive has any of these symptoms:
1) First, listen up, if possible, BACKUP YOUR FILES NOW!
2) Create a boot disk and run Windows Scandisk and set it to automatically fix errors. If it finds more than a few bad sectors then see the point above
3) If possible download and use a hard drive diagnostic program. All the major hard drive manufacturers have free utilities on their websites. Repair what you can and see point 1.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Sunday, September 26, 2010
RAW Hard Drive Recovery
Very rarely we come across a situation when we try to retrieve our data from our computer hard drive, but instead of data we get some error messages and the drive is displayed as RAW. In those situations, our important files and data can not be accessed from the RAW drive.
When the hard drive becomes RAW, it might be detected by the following symptoms:
When the hard drive becomes RAW, it might be detected by the following symptoms:
1. "Invalid media type reading drive. Abort, Retry, Fail?" Error message
2. File names contains strange characters.
3. Your operating system may prompt you to format the hard drive. For
example, Windows gives you "Disk is not formatted. Do you want to
Format it now?" error.
4. Hard drive file system is shown as RAW.
5. "Sector not found" error message while accessing any file.
To tackle such situations, the only option we have is to go for RAW Hard Drive Recovery. It is possible with the help of Hard Disk Recovery Software which are designed in a specific manner to meet different user’s Hard Drive Recovery requirements.
Such softwares are capable of extracting our lost, missing or inaccessible hard drive volumes/partitions and data from them.
While selecting Hard Drive Recovery software, we should always bear in mind that not all data recovery softwares can perform RAW Hard Drive Recovery. Most of them require file system references and that are not available because the drive is RAW.
One such Hard Disk Recovery software offered by Stellar Information Systems Limited is the ultimate solution for all your Data Loss problems. This software allows the user to get his precious data back by carrying out RAW Hard Drive Recovery in few simple steps.
With commanding scanning abilities, it gives incredible results. This Hard Drive Recovery software is available for most of the computer operating systems including UNIX, Linux, Novell, Windows and Mac OS.
2. File names contains strange characters.
3. Your operating system may prompt you to format the hard drive. For
example, Windows gives you "Disk is not formatted. Do you want to
Format it now?" error.
4. Hard drive file system is shown as RAW.
5. "Sector not found" error message while accessing any file.
To tackle such situations, the only option we have is to go for RAW Hard Drive Recovery. It is possible with the help of Hard Disk Recovery Software which are designed in a specific manner to meet different user’s Hard Drive Recovery requirements.
Such softwares are capable of extracting our lost, missing or inaccessible hard drive volumes/partitions and data from them.
While selecting Hard Drive Recovery software, we should always bear in mind that not all data recovery softwares can perform RAW Hard Drive Recovery. Most of them require file system references and that are not available because the drive is RAW.
One such Hard Disk Recovery software offered by Stellar Information Systems Limited is the ultimate solution for all your Data Loss problems. This software allows the user to get his precious data back by carrying out RAW Hard Drive Recovery in few simple steps.
With commanding scanning abilities, it gives incredible results. This Hard Drive Recovery software is available for most of the computer operating systems including UNIX, Linux, Novell, Windows and Mac OS.
Friday, September 24, 2010
SATA Primary Hard Disk Drive 0 failure
SATA stands for Serial ATA(Advanced Technology Attachment). It is a storage interface that offers standards for connecting a hard drive to the computer system. SATA interface follows two specifications SATA and SATA II. SATA offers a speed of 1.5 Gbps (or 150 MBps) and SATA II offers 3 Gbps(or 300 MBps). It follows serial signaling technology and hence offers fast data transfer. SATA hard drive provides various advantages over its counterparts including flexibility, less cable-bulk and hot swapping. On the other hand, these fast data accessing and transfer rates become indirectly responsible for hard drive failure. Hard drive may fail to be recognized by the system and hence Hard Drive Recovery becomes necessary.
While failure, SATA hard drives show different error messages together with noise, such as:
“SATA Primary Hard Disk Drive 0 Failure - Strike F1 to continue F2 to run the setup utility”
In certain scenarios, the nature of problem can be logical too. In such cases, system does not recognize the hard drive and hence we need to use Recovery Console or other similar solutions. If problem persists, backup all the data, format the drive and reinstall Windows. However if backup fails, repair and recover it through Data Recovery utilities.
If BIOS doesn’t recognize the hard drive, we need to check for the connecting cables, BIOS settings and Motherboard integrity first, before looking for any Hard Drive Recovery help. Physical hard drive failure results when the hard drive is made to operate under conditions like environmental heat (viz. direct sunlight), humidity, high pressure , condensation, fluctuating weather conditions etc.for prolonged duration. Such factors introduce defects in hard drives. More reasons include:
- Read/write head crash
- Electronic failure
- Actuator arm damaged
- Spindle motor crash
- Platter misalignment
In typical physical hard drive failure, disk recoveryservice is the solution that can help extracting lost data. It includes experts’ supervision, repairing hard drives as an intermediate step and Clean Room environment. The failed hard drive is operated on component level, with the original data on disk platters remains intact. After knowing the cause, the appropriate procedure is applied to extract lost data.
Stellar Information Systems Limited offers the finest Hard Drive Recovery service through Class-100 Clean Rooms. Stellar’s experts carefully analyze the media for reason of failure and deploy suitable tools and techniques. Stellar has a wide range of solutions to retrieve lost data. It also offers logical Data Recovery software for Windows, Mac OS, Linux , UNIX and Novell Netware.
Easy Methods To Defragment The Harddrive
Some style to keep your computer system healthy is to de-fragment its disc drive. It helps increase the efficiency of the pc. De-fragmenting is just a trouble-free factor to carry out.
Before discussing the method of de-fragmentation, permit us figure out firstly concerning fragmentation. It's the condition which transpires as soon as the operating windows system breaks a software program into parts. This might be as a effect of not sufficient amount within your storage mechanism the place the software program was kept originally. For instance, you changed a pc software that was kept and it grew to be higher than its unique amount. Therefore, it cannot be restricted in its unique physical volume. The working windows system then breaks the pc program into two or essentially the most parts however shops these into different storage regions. Automatically, the windows system saves a record of the places where the software fragments are kept. The program system it employs is either NTFS or FAT (Computer program Allocation Table). These pc software procedures are like libraries that keep a lot of various information in addition to documents. But if the kept pc software is desired, the operating windows system will ask the software program windows system in regards to the position of the fragmented program. The scanning process within your file system plus the reuniting of the fragmented pc software components into its a few original file is called defragmentation.
The process of defragmentation is from time to time time consuming. But, it is commonly used since it is an trouble-free step to supercharge the procedure of the computer system. Hence, you need to have sufficient time ahead of starting the process. It could very last half-hour or even specific hours depending on the frequency of utilization of the pc from the final done defrag.
Here are the steps in defragmentation:
1. Primarily, close all working applications, even always functioning computer programs such as anti-virus utilities as well as screen savers. You may also use the command Ctrl+Alt+Delete to check on some functioning application. Click on the functioning pc software and click on "End Task" at the bottom to close it.
2. Click and open the "Start" menu.
3. Browse through "Programs," then through "Accessories," to "System Tools," and last of all, "Disk Defragmenter."
4. The Select Drive will appear. Click on "Settings."
5. Select both "Check the drive for errors" and "Rearrange program files so my programs start faster."
6. Choose that drive to defrag from the pull down menu and press "OK."
7. Highlight that drive you need to defrag by doing a left click on the disk. Press "Analyze" to figure out if the hard drive needs defrag or not.
8. If it indicates that the hard drive requires defragging, click "Defragment." Once pressed, the defrag process starts and it is also able to take 30 minutes or more to do the procedure. It depends on the drive size.
9. If the defrag utility can't defrag your selected hard drive and says there is an error, run the Scandisk utility. You may execute this by clicking on the "Start" button, hovering over "Programs," then "Accessories," then "System Tools," and "Scandisk."
10. Close the utility once the defrag operation is completed.
11. It is advisable that you activate the defrag code at least once a month.
12. Additionally, it is advised that the you run it after downloading or adding new file.
At all times learn instructions before starting to be safe.
Before discussing the method of de-fragmentation, permit us figure out firstly concerning fragmentation. It's the condition which transpires as soon as the operating windows system breaks a software program into parts. This might be as a effect of not sufficient amount within your storage mechanism the place the software program was kept originally. For instance, you changed a pc software that was kept and it grew to be higher than its unique amount. Therefore, it cannot be restricted in its unique physical volume. The working windows system then breaks the pc program into two or essentially the most parts however shops these into different storage regions. Automatically, the windows system saves a record of the places where the software fragments are kept. The program system it employs is either NTFS or FAT (Computer program Allocation Table). These pc software procedures are like libraries that keep a lot of various information in addition to documents. But if the kept pc software is desired, the operating windows system will ask the software program windows system in regards to the position of the fragmented program. The scanning process within your file system plus the reuniting of the fragmented pc software components into its a few original file is called defragmentation.
The process of defragmentation is from time to time time consuming. But, it is commonly used since it is an trouble-free step to supercharge the procedure of the computer system. Hence, you need to have sufficient time ahead of starting the process. It could very last half-hour or even specific hours depending on the frequency of utilization of the pc from the final done defrag.
Here are the steps in defragmentation:
1. Primarily, close all working applications, even always functioning computer programs such as anti-virus utilities as well as screen savers. You may also use the command Ctrl+Alt+Delete to check on some functioning application. Click on the functioning pc software and click on "End Task" at the bottom to close it.
2. Click and open the "Start" menu.
3. Browse through "Programs," then through "Accessories," to "System Tools," and last of all, "Disk Defragmenter."
4. The Select Drive will appear. Click on "Settings."
5. Select both "Check the drive for errors" and "Rearrange program files so my programs start faster."
6. Choose that drive to defrag from the pull down menu and press "OK."
7. Highlight that drive you need to defrag by doing a left click on the disk. Press "Analyze" to figure out if the hard drive needs defrag or not.
8. If it indicates that the hard drive requires defragging, click "Defragment." Once pressed, the defrag process starts and it is also able to take 30 minutes or more to do the procedure. It depends on the drive size.
9. If the defrag utility can't defrag your selected hard drive and says there is an error, run the Scandisk utility. You may execute this by clicking on the "Start" button, hovering over "Programs," then "Accessories," then "System Tools," and "Scandisk."
10. Close the utility once the defrag operation is completed.
11. It is advisable that you activate the defrag code at least once a month.
12. Additionally, it is advised that the you run it after downloading or adding new file.
At all times learn instructions before starting to be safe.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Choosing The Right Harddrive Size and RPM
There are two important considerations when looking at hard drive specifications for your computer and notebook,hard drive size and hard drive RPM.
Hard Drive Size
Hard drive size simply refers to the data storage capacity of a hard disk drive. Desktop computer hard drives offer sizes of up to 500 gigabytes (GB), while notebook computer hard dives offer sizes of up to 160 GB. Notebook computer hard drives are more expensive than desktop computer hard drives with more than twice the capacity of the notebook hard drive. This is due to the engineering difficulties inherent in making high-capacity hard drives for the smaller notebook computers form-factor.
A notebook computer's hard drive size indicates how much data a notebook computer can store. If you are interested in storing large amounts of movies, pictures, or music, you want to go with a larger hard drive to avoid running out of space.
A hard drive's size has very little to do with its performance, unless the drive is almost full. The Windows NTFS File System requires a minimum of 10% of the hard drive to be free space for optimum performance, and it frequently requests as much as 15%. This means that, on a 40 GB drive, Windows prefers that you use a maximum of 34-36 GB, leaving 4-6 GB of space unused. On a 160 GB drive, Windows prefers that you use a maximum of 136-144 GB, leaving a massive 16-24 GB unused. If you start to go over these Windows storage limits, you may notice your computer's performance taking drastic hits.
Hard Drive RPM
Hard drive RPM is a hard drive's rotational speed, measured in revolutions per minute (RPM). Desktop hard drives now have speeds as high as 15,000 RPM. Notebook hard drives, on the other hand, currently have an RPM ceiling of 7200 RPM.
A hard drive's RPM indicates how fast the drive's spindle will move or how fast the hard drive platters will spin. The higher the spin rate is, the shorter the seek time and latency will be. This translates to quicker data access and transfer.
How Large and How Fast
The greater the free space and the higher the RPM, the better your notebook computer's performance will be, so go for a slightly-more-than-comfortable size and the highest RPM for your notebook computer's hard drive. A large hard drive gives you the option to expand in the future, and you can never go wrong with a notebook computer that can give you fast access to your stored data.
It is even more crucial that you go with the top-of-the-line hard drive size and RPM for your notebook computer if you are fond of computer games, you have a lot of multimedia files, or you want to be able to easily upgrade your programs. These games, content and programs take up a lot of space. A high RPM hard drive can also cut down on game load times, giving you more time enjoying your games and less time staring at loading screens.
This article may be republished freely as long as this copyright notice and box of resource links are included at the bottom.
Hard Drive Size
Hard drive size simply refers to the data storage capacity of a hard disk drive. Desktop computer hard drives offer sizes of up to 500 gigabytes (GB), while notebook computer hard dives offer sizes of up to 160 GB. Notebook computer hard drives are more expensive than desktop computer hard drives with more than twice the capacity of the notebook hard drive. This is due to the engineering difficulties inherent in making high-capacity hard drives for the smaller notebook computers form-factor.
A notebook computer's hard drive size indicates how much data a notebook computer can store. If you are interested in storing large amounts of movies, pictures, or music, you want to go with a larger hard drive to avoid running out of space.
A hard drive's size has very little to do with its performance, unless the drive is almost full. The Windows NTFS File System requires a minimum of 10% of the hard drive to be free space for optimum performance, and it frequently requests as much as 15%. This means that, on a 40 GB drive, Windows prefers that you use a maximum of 34-36 GB, leaving 4-6 GB of space unused. On a 160 GB drive, Windows prefers that you use a maximum of 136-144 GB, leaving a massive 16-24 GB unused. If you start to go over these Windows storage limits, you may notice your computer's performance taking drastic hits.
Hard Drive RPM
Hard drive RPM is a hard drive's rotational speed, measured in revolutions per minute (RPM). Desktop hard drives now have speeds as high as 15,000 RPM. Notebook hard drives, on the other hand, currently have an RPM ceiling of 7200 RPM.
A hard drive's RPM indicates how fast the drive's spindle will move or how fast the hard drive platters will spin. The higher the spin rate is, the shorter the seek time and latency will be. This translates to quicker data access and transfer.
How Large and How Fast
The greater the free space and the higher the RPM, the better your notebook computer's performance will be, so go for a slightly-more-than-comfortable size and the highest RPM for your notebook computer's hard drive. A large hard drive gives you the option to expand in the future, and you can never go wrong with a notebook computer that can give you fast access to your stored data.
It is even more crucial that you go with the top-of-the-line hard drive size and RPM for your notebook computer if you are fond of computer games, you have a lot of multimedia files, or you want to be able to easily upgrade your programs. These games, content and programs take up a lot of space. A high RPM hard drive can also cut down on game load times, giving you more time enjoying your games and less time staring at loading screens.
This article may be republished freely as long as this copyright notice and box of resource links are included at the bottom.
Monday, August 30, 2010
How to Change a Laptop Hard Drive
If you want to change or upgrade laptop hard drive, follow this instruction :
click for watch youtube video
Materials Needed:
click for watch youtube video
Materials Needed:
- Screwdriver
- laptop hard drive
- backup software (optional)
- backup CDs or DVDs
- laptop hard drive
- backup software (optional)
- backup CDs or DVDs
Step 1
The first step in changing the hard drive is finding the right one. Most laptop hard drives sold nowadays follow the 2.5-inch-wide hard drive form factor and have about 4,200 to 7,200 rpm. Having the right hard drive for your laptop is crucial for it to work properly and safely, so it is best to consult your laptop’s operational manual first before going out and buying a new hard drive.
Step 2
Once you have purchased a new hard drive, the next step is to back up the files from your old laptop drive into the new one. You can either do this by using file backup software or by transferring the old files onto a CD, DVD or a portable storage device. You can also use online file backup services such as MozyHome Online Backup (www.mozy.com) to store your data until the new drive is installed.
Step 3
Remove the laptop from the plug and detach the battery to avoid electrical damage to yourself and to the laptop's motherboard when replacing the hard drive.
Step 4
Search for a drive release mechanism or a removable panel on the back part of the laptop. A typical laptop drive is usually found at the side or bottom of the chassis and is released either by pressing a lock and unlock button or unscrewing the drive from the laptop. However, if you are unsure on how to remove the drive, read the laptop’s manual for instructions.
Step 5
Install the new drive on the laptop in a reverse manner of the old hard drive's removal. If the laptop utilizes a slide-in drive mechanism, it will slide without a hitch and make a faint clicking sound when the connectors are properly set. However, if the drive sits loosely in a panel located on the laptop's bottom, you need to first insert one edge in order for it to fit snugly. If you experience any resistance when installing the new drive, do not force it in. Always look for possible obstructions and make certain that all the guiding rails are installed properly and the screws are fitted correctly.
Step 6
When the drive has been properly installed, turn the laptop on. The laptop BIOS should immediately detect the new hard drive.
Try it ^^
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Hard Drive Buying Guide
Although hard drives are among the most popular upgrades for personal computers, buying one these days isn't as easy as it used to be. In addition to storage space, there are many other factors you need to consider before choosing this vital PC component. Thankfully for consumers, the cost of Hard Drive or any storage system for that matter-is at an all time low.
Speed- A hard drive's read speed is a measure of how fast it can deliver data to the motherboard. The general rule of thumb is the higher the rotational speed of the drive, the more data it can read and write at once. Keep in mind that the rotational or spindle speed (measured in RPM) is the main factor related to the hard drive's performance.
For desktop computers, 7,200 rpm seems to be the standard among most users, and 5,400 rpm is probably the lowest you should consider. Although 10,000 rpm drives are gradually becoming more commonplace, they're a little on the expensive side. Of course, hard drives are available even faster than these, but they usually require a different type of connectivity. On the other hand, laptops tend to have hard drives with slower read speeds, which produce less heat and consume less power.
Another factor that affects performance is the total amount of buffer on the drive, which is an amount of RAM that frequently stores accessed data. Because RAM is faster at transferring data than the drive head operation, it boosts the overall speed of the drive. Thus, a greater amount of buffer means less physical drive operation.
Storage Space- In today's PC market, it's no longer feasible to settle for a hard drive with less than one gigabyte (GB) of storage space. In fact, chances are you'll have a difficult time finding a hard drive of that capacity. Nowadays, the minimum appears to be about 20GB, while the standard for an average family is somewhere between 80 and 100GB.
For those involved in multimedia work or who consider themselves an extreme gamer, a 160GB drive is a more suitable choice. If you run a business with inventory programs or have high-memory applications such as DVD home movies, bigger is better and definitely worth the extra money. Even if you don't think you'll use the space, super-sizing your hard drive is never a bad idea.
Interface- Now that you're familiar with the speed and capacity features on a hard drive, the next aspect to focus on is the interface, or how it connects to your system. In general, SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) and IDE (or ATA) drives are the most common in small business and home computers. You might come across SCSI (Small Computer Systems Interface) connectivity, but these are generally used on servers in professional environments. There are numerous speeds available for IDE interfaces, ranging from ATA/33 to ATA/133. The number signifies the maximum bandwidth in megabytes per second (MB/sec) that the interface can handle. For example, an ATA/100 interface can support 100 MB/sec. The most important thing you need to do is make sure the hard drive description matches up with your computer's interface.
Another interface worth mentioning is RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks), which allows you to group all of your hard disks together so your CPU sees them as a single unit. Of course, this option is only available to those who have more than one drive. The advantage here is speed. As your system takes turns addressing each drive, you'll get some healthy performance gains. However, this can be a little risky because if one drive goes down, they all go down.
Maintenance & care- Once you've made a decision and properly installed the hard drive, there are a few routine maintenance tasks you can perform that will go a long way. For starters, keep your system cool at all times. You should never put your CPU in an enclosed cabinet or any sort of warm, confined space. If you live in a hot area, you may want to get an extra fan just for your computer system.
You should also dust off your PC every so often and spray the openings with canned air. Also, don't set your tower on the floor, especially carpeted floors, since it's more likely to collect dust. If the hard drive is making noise, check the mounting. Usually a clicking noise means a crash is imminent or it hasn't been installed properly. So if the hard drive is new, it's probably mounted incorrectly and needs to be fixed. As a general rule, it should be installed flat, whether it's horizontal or vertical doesn't really matter.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, you should protect and manage your drives by installing archive or recovery software. Essentially, hard drives are the core of your PC, so don't take any chances. In addition to installing security and utilities software, consider burning a permanent copy of all your documents and files onto some kind of storage media, such as CDs or DVDs. Keep these backup files in a safe place somewhere away from your house.
With a little common sense and proper care, your hard drive will run like a dream for an extraordinarily long time. Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of this technology and are aware of the main factors to consider before making a decision. So take the time to evaluate your options, and you'll be well on your way to purchasing a new hard drive.
Hard Drive Recovery: Logical and Physical
Hard drive recovery is the process of extracting data with the help of software utilities or disk internals level operations plus software tools from logically or physically corrupted hard drive. The best practice is to create a disk image before carrying out any recovery. A disk image is an exact copy of a hard drive or an affected partition/volume. It is created to avoid any data loss during the recovery procedure. We should always maintain an updated data backup on a secondary storage device like an external hard drive to avoid any recovery requirements. If we have all the data backed up, we can simply perform a clean reinstall and restore the data as per our last directory structure. In addition to this we should use hard drives with highest MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) rating and S.M.A.R.T (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) support. We need to enable the S.M.A.R.T option in system BIOS (Basic Input Output System) to make it check the hard drive for any physical issues and proactively inform us.
A hard drive is divided into various sub-parts. They can be broadly divided as moving and non-moving components. The moving components are: Spindle Motor and Spindle, Read/Write Head, Actuator Arm, Head Actuator and Platters. The non-moving components are: 1.) Hard Disk Controller 2.) Head/Disk Assembly 3.) PCB (Printed Circuit Board) 4.) Input/Output Connector etc.
The Hard drive Recovery can be done by following these two approaches as per logical or physical drive failure:
i.) Hard Drive Recovery Software: These are utilities that are developed based on file system structure information to enable the software to find the files, file signature information to recognize the file header and footer and advanced scanning algorithms to efficiently scan the hard drive. A home user can easily use these Software to scan his hard drive after data loss. Some data recovery software also offer bootable media like CD or DVD to boot the system from them in case the system is not able to boot. We need to attach an external hard drive (USB/Firewire: IEEE 1394) or flash drive (USB). We can boot the system using the bootable media and scan the hard drive. We can even preview the lost files in good quality data recovery software and then save the files in the external hard drive or flash drive.
ii.) Hard Drive Recovery Service: The Hard Drive Recovery service for of lost data is carried out by Data Recovery experts with rich industrial experience and exposure to the hard disk internals. Such recovery procedures often deal with dismantling the hard drive and repairing or even replacing certain components like the read/write head, actuator arm if they have failed. The Hard Drive Recovery is performed under sterilized environment of Clean rooms. The lab environment of Clean rooms offer controlled temperature, pressure, humidity and no dust particles to ensure maximum protection to hard disk internals.
The data that we save in the hard drive actually gets stored on the platters. The less these platters are the easier it is to recover the lost data. In case, a platter has physically failed has developed physical bad sectors we cannot retrieve our lost data from that platter and the area affected by physical bad sectors will become unavailable for recovery due to unreadable media. Such physical bad sectors cannot be repaired or removed like the logical bad sectors.
Hard drives offer large storage capacity and are very cost effective as compared to other storage media. Today hard drives are available in the market up to 2 TB of storage. When we delete data in any operating system like Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS or Linux, the files don't get deleted in actual. It is just the file reference that gets removed by the operating system. In other words, the files still remain on the hard drive though we cannot access them using the operating system. The same is true in case of lost or corrupted data but the corrupted data files need to be repaired as well.
The partition or volume loss also follows the same rule that is the data still resides in the partitions or volumes but we cannot access them. The common reasons behind such errors are system software conflicts, erroneous deletion, operating system warning related to partition health, virus infection etc. If we face any of the above issues and the hard drive data becomes inaccessible, we should not use the hard drive any further other than Data Recovery from it in order to avoid any disk overwriting. After the lost files get replaced by any erroneous user operations like overwriting the drive with some new files like by a paste operation, it becomes impossible to recover the files as their start and end points get changed by the new files.
Monday, August 23, 2010
What to Do After a Hard Drive Crash
It's catastrophic when a disaster of hard drive crash strikes your computer. The aftermath can range in scope from a few corrupted files to the loss of the whole enchilada. If you have a bad hair day and become a victim of hard drive crash, there is bad news and good news for you: the bad news is that your important files, valuable photos and so on are all gone; the good news is that you still have a good chance to get them back taking the steps as follows!
Data Recovery Step 1: Buy a New Hard Drive
When you lose data during a hard drive crash, it typically means your hard drive—at least in part—is trashed. Moreover, although it's often possible to get some hard drives working again, it's best to start fresh with a new, more reliable hard drive, rather than continue risking more data loss.
Data Recovery Step 2: Create "Master" and "Slave" Drives
Once you've purchased and installed your new hard drive, you'll want to reload your operating system onto it. The next step is to install your new drive as your master (or primary) hard drive and reassign your original hard drive as a slave (or secondary) drive-this allows you to run your computer from your new Harddrive but still gives you access to your original.
Data Recovery Step 3: Attempt to Recover Lost Data
After you have your computer up and running, you can attempt to recover the data off your slave drive by using data recovery software. This kind of software such as wGXe data recovery professional is designed professionally to recover data that's been deleted during a crash or was stored in sectors of a hard drive that have become damaged. Computer level in this field is advancing rapidly day by day and till nowadays, data recovery utilities can do data recovery work perfectly no matter what reasons for the data loss are. What's more, such software is easy-to-use and does not require any specialized knowledge or software operating experience. Although the Computer novice may require help performing some of the aforementioned steps, doing so can help you turn a moment of total, data-loss devastation into pure, data-recovery delight.
Friendly reminder: If you have any difficulty using the above recommened software wGXe data recovery professional, you can log on to its official website(http://www.wgxe.com/ ) for using tips.
Thanks to the above "trilogy", especially the help of wGXe data recovery professional, I believe your headache over data loss may be greatly relieved or spared.
Data Recovery Step 1: Buy a New Hard Drive
When you lose data during a hard drive crash, it typically means your hard drive—at least in part—is trashed. Moreover, although it's often possible to get some hard drives working again, it's best to start fresh with a new, more reliable hard drive, rather than continue risking more data loss.
Data Recovery Step 2: Create "Master" and "Slave" Drives
Once you've purchased and installed your new hard drive, you'll want to reload your operating system onto it. The next step is to install your new drive as your master (or primary) hard drive and reassign your original hard drive as a slave (or secondary) drive-this allows you to run your computer from your new Harddrive but still gives you access to your original.
Data Recovery Step 3: Attempt to Recover Lost Data
After you have your computer up and running, you can attempt to recover the data off your slave drive by using data recovery software. This kind of software such as wGXe data recovery professional is designed professionally to recover data that's been deleted during a crash or was stored in sectors of a hard drive that have become damaged. Computer level in this field is advancing rapidly day by day and till nowadays, data recovery utilities can do data recovery work perfectly no matter what reasons for the data loss are. What's more, such software is easy-to-use and does not require any specialized knowledge or software operating experience. Although the Computer novice may require help performing some of the aforementioned steps, doing so can help you turn a moment of total, data-loss devastation into pure, data-recovery delight.
Friendly reminder: If you have any difficulty using the above recommened software wGXe data recovery professional, you can log on to its official website(http://www.wgxe.com/ ) for using tips.
Thanks to the above "trilogy", especially the help of wGXe data recovery professional, I believe your headache over data loss may be greatly relieved or spared.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Recover Data From Formatted Hard Drive
During this formatting we sometime format the wrong drive or we forget to take backup of important files. Or by accidentally formatting the whole drive instead of formatting a single drive, I have committed this mistake earlier.
So let’s start the process of recovering data, I would be using Stellar FAT & NTFS Data Recovery Software to recover from formatted drive.
Download the demo version from http://www.stellarinfo.com/partition-recovery.htm and install it in separate drive. And Follow these steps:-
Caution: Never save the data to the partition or drive from where you are recovering data, as it may result in overwriting of data, and would result in permanent data loss!!!
Click the Select 'Physical Disk' button on the Icon Toolbar
• A dialog box appears listing the physical disk(s) available.
• Select the physical disk that contains the formatted logical drive.
• Another dialog box pops up, select 'Search for logical drives' option.
• Another dialog box pops up, select 'Advance Search' option. (This process may take some time).
• Select the formatted logical drive from the list.
• Phoenix analyses the drive data structures and file system attributes and displays the directory tree.
• Some data structures are critically damaged after a drive format. It is HIGHLY recommended that you should use 'search for lost file(s) and folder(s)' option under 'Tools' menu to recover all the files and folders lost after drive format (This process may take some time).
• After 'search for lost file(s) and folder(s)' search process is complete you will find all the files and directories in the tree.
• Select 'Change Linking Mode' option from 'Tools' menu and further change the linking mode to Contiguous.
• Then select the file(s) and folder(s) you wish to recover and choose option 'Recover Selected' from toolbar.
I am sure by now you must have seen your lost data. If you could see the lost files then go for the full version otherwise I would recommend you to try this http://www.stellarinfo.com/file-recovery-software.htm . This is the advance version of Fat & NTFS Data Recovery software which works on file signature search.
So let’s start the process of recovering data, I would be using Stellar FAT & NTFS Data Recovery Software to recover from formatted drive.
Download the demo version from http://www.stellarinfo.com/partition-recovery.htm and install it in separate drive. And Follow these steps:-
Caution: Never save the data to the partition or drive from where you are recovering data, as it may result in overwriting of data, and would result in permanent data loss!!!
Click the Select 'Physical Disk' button on the Icon Toolbar
• A dialog box appears listing the physical disk(s) available.
• Select the physical disk that contains the formatted logical drive.
• Another dialog box pops up, select 'Search for logical drives' option.
• Another dialog box pops up, select 'Advance Search' option. (This process may take some time).
• Select the formatted logical drive from the list.
• Phoenix analyses the drive data structures and file system attributes and displays the directory tree.
• Some data structures are critically damaged after a drive format. It is HIGHLY recommended that you should use 'search for lost file(s) and folder(s)' option under 'Tools' menu to recover all the files and folders lost after drive format (This process may take some time).
• After 'search for lost file(s) and folder(s)' search process is complete you will find all the files and directories in the tree.
• Select 'Change Linking Mode' option from 'Tools' menu and further change the linking mode to Contiguous.
• Then select the file(s) and folder(s) you wish to recover and choose option 'Recover Selected' from toolbar.
I am sure by now you must have seen your lost data. If you could see the lost files then go for the full version otherwise I would recommend you to try this http://www.stellarinfo.com/file-recovery-software.htm . This is the advance version of Fat & NTFS Data Recovery software which works on file signature search.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Raid Server Fails ?
Raid server failure is one of the dreaded work hazards you may have to face sometimes at your workplace. You tend to become incapable and powerless when you are unable to access data with a click.
Data on a RAID array or volume can becomes inaccessible due to any of the following reasons:
• A faulty RAID controller
• Multiple hard drive crash
• Malfunctioning upgrade or faulty striping
• Defects with the MFT mount points.
• RAID controller failure or configuration changed
• Adding incompatible hard drives
• Hardware conflicts
• Software corruption
• Virus infection, software and operating system upgrades
In these above conditions, the following steps should be taken immediately to increase chances of getting critical files back:
• Shutdown the server and turn off the system. Do not try to reboot again. This may cause serious damage to your hard drive.
• Do not attempt to recover data by yourself, friends or PC repair shops. This may result in permanent loss.
• Do not continue to attempt a forced rebuild if you have already replaced a failed drive and tried to rebuild the array, but still can't access your data. This may wipe out your data. RAID data recovery utilities and software are not designed to restore data or rebuild RAID arrays from failing hard drives. This requires specialized equipment and professional training.
• Swapping hard drives or re-ordering drives in a multiple drive RAID array may cause overwriting the striping and parity. This makes it nearly difficult to reconstruct your RAID array and salvage your company's vital data.
• Seeking professional help from professionally trained data recovery engineers is the sanest solution. Most data can be recovered from crashed hard drives and malfunctioning RAID Server by these experts only.
What do Professional data recovery engineers do?
Professional data recovery engineers have specialized equipment, a thorough knowledge of hex, drive structures, MFT mount points and offsets.
The Professional engineers’ initial diagnosis determines whether each media device is accessible to their lab equipment. From all the data accessible to them from each media, they make a raw image onto a new media to help them analyse and assess the data loss. If some of the media is difficult to get hold of, they will test the components and closely check its internal condition to assess the level of physical damage sustained. The damaged components include electronics, read/write heads, magnets, drive motors and head assemblies.
The raw images of the entire server’s media are used for logical recovery by examining the low-level data sectors. Determination of both the exact layout of volumes, which span or are striped across multiple drives, is a must. Necessary fixes to the file system structures are to be decided upon to get access to important data.
Servers that work on multiple drives are usually “destriped” onto a different media so that file system repairs can be done and the data files retrieved. It may be necessary to extract data directly from one or more fragments of the destriped image.
Professional programmers in this field have created a full set of software tools used by data recovery engineers to analyse, destripe, fix & recover data from raw images drives to virtually all operating systems. The Validity of information is checked once a recovery has been successfully performed, and file lists created.
A file recovery list is produced when your data is recovered. You can verify that your critical files are recoverable. The process usually takes 3-5 days though emergency data recovery services are also available.
Data on a RAID array or volume can becomes inaccessible due to any of the following reasons:
• A faulty RAID controller
• Multiple hard drive crash
• Malfunctioning upgrade or faulty striping
• Defects with the MFT mount points.
• RAID controller failure or configuration changed
• Adding incompatible hard drives
• Hardware conflicts
• Software corruption
• Virus infection, software and operating system upgrades
In these above conditions, the following steps should be taken immediately to increase chances of getting critical files back:
• Shutdown the server and turn off the system. Do not try to reboot again. This may cause serious damage to your hard drive.
• Do not attempt to recover data by yourself, friends or PC repair shops. This may result in permanent loss.
• Do not continue to attempt a forced rebuild if you have already replaced a failed drive and tried to rebuild the array, but still can't access your data. This may wipe out your data. RAID data recovery utilities and software are not designed to restore data or rebuild RAID arrays from failing hard drives. This requires specialized equipment and professional training.
• Swapping hard drives or re-ordering drives in a multiple drive RAID array may cause overwriting the striping and parity. This makes it nearly difficult to reconstruct your RAID array and salvage your company's vital data.
• Seeking professional help from professionally trained data recovery engineers is the sanest solution. Most data can be recovered from crashed hard drives and malfunctioning RAID Server by these experts only.
What do Professional data recovery engineers do?
Professional data recovery engineers have specialized equipment, a thorough knowledge of hex, drive structures, MFT mount points and offsets.
The Professional engineers’ initial diagnosis determines whether each media device is accessible to their lab equipment. From all the data accessible to them from each media, they make a raw image onto a new media to help them analyse and assess the data loss. If some of the media is difficult to get hold of, they will test the components and closely check its internal condition to assess the level of physical damage sustained. The damaged components include electronics, read/write heads, magnets, drive motors and head assemblies.
The raw images of the entire server’s media are used for logical recovery by examining the low-level data sectors. Determination of both the exact layout of volumes, which span or are striped across multiple drives, is a must. Necessary fixes to the file system structures are to be decided upon to get access to important data.
Servers that work on multiple drives are usually “destriped” onto a different media so that file system repairs can be done and the data files retrieved. It may be necessary to extract data directly from one or more fragments of the destriped image.
Professional programmers in this field have created a full set of software tools used by data recovery engineers to analyse, destripe, fix & recover data from raw images drives to virtually all operating systems. The Validity of information is checked once a recovery has been successfully performed, and file lists created.
A file recovery list is produced when your data is recovered. You can verify that your critical files are recoverable. The process usually takes 3-5 days though emergency data recovery services are also available.
Reinstall Your Windows In 10 Minutes
How many times did you have to reinstall your Windows operating system because an application you had installed messed up your system and made it keep displaying erros? It can happen often especially if you are trying many applications on your computer,
The easiest and most simple solution would naturally be the default Windows System Restore tool but, and this is where comes a big but, this tool does not always work as expected, sometimes giving you more headaches than if you had just formatted your drive and reinstalled it.
Well, if this is the case one good and solid solution would be having a backup copy of your newly installed Windows saved and stored either on another partition of your hard disk or on a DVD or Blu-Ray disc depending on the Windows version you are using. As a comparative idea Windows 7 would require a double layer DVD disc to be backed up with drivers, an antivirus, video codecs and such regularly used software.
The software i'm proposing to be used is Paragon Backup & Recovery Free Edition 10.1 Build 9169, an application that i have personally tried and which i have been using to restore my Windows to its former glory in just a few minutes without having to reinstall all the drivers and programs i need for my usual use of the computer.
Paragon Backup & Recovery Free Edition is as its name says a free software designed to offer a full backup and recovery solution for the data from your computer including the system files.
The interface of the software is well designed providing access to the powerful features included through the use of wizard forms that will make the use of the program more user friendly and it will make it feel less complicated even if the program contains plenty of powerful and numerous tools.
Hard disk formatting and file trasferring is also possible making Paragon Backup & Recovery a suitable software for migrating your information from one hard disk to another as well as deleting information for a drive that is no longer necessary.
The file systems that are supported cover the most used formats available on the market giving you full read/write access to FAT16/FAT32 partitions; full read/write access to NTFS (Basic and all five types of Dynamic Disks) under Windows 95/98/ME, Linux and PTS DOS.
Compressed NTFS files are also supported. You can also perform full read/write operations by having access to Ext2FS/Ext3FS partitions under all versions of Windows, DOS 5.0 and later. Basic partitioning operations (create, format, delete) are available for Linux Swap.
In order to have the program fully functional my advice is to created a DVD recovery disk which can then be easily used to backup and restore a disk partition or data from it even if your Windows is no longer working.
You will just need to boot up the recovery disc and then point it to the backup files you previously created. In just a few minutes your backup will be restored and you will have a brand new Windows ready to be used without having to go through the time consuming process of reinstalling all your system drivers and favorite applications.
You can find Paragon Backup & Recovery Free Edition 10.1 Build 9169 on our newly created website along with many other useful tools and application by simply following this link: www.bstdownload.com
Paragon Backup & Recovery Free Edition 10.1 Build 9169
The easiest and most simple solution would naturally be the default Windows System Restore tool but, and this is where comes a big but, this tool does not always work as expected, sometimes giving you more headaches than if you had just formatted your drive and reinstalled it.
Well, if this is the case one good and solid solution would be having a backup copy of your newly installed Windows saved and stored either on another partition of your hard disk or on a DVD or Blu-Ray disc depending on the Windows version you are using. As a comparative idea Windows 7 would require a double layer DVD disc to be backed up with drivers, an antivirus, video codecs and such regularly used software.
The software i'm proposing to be used is Paragon Backup & Recovery Free Edition 10.1 Build 9169, an application that i have personally tried and which i have been using to restore my Windows to its former glory in just a few minutes without having to reinstall all the drivers and programs i need for my usual use of the computer.
Paragon Backup & Recovery Free Edition is as its name says a free software designed to offer a full backup and recovery solution for the data from your computer including the system files.
The interface of the software is well designed providing access to the powerful features included through the use of wizard forms that will make the use of the program more user friendly and it will make it feel less complicated even if the program contains plenty of powerful and numerous tools.
Hard disk formatting and file trasferring is also possible making Paragon Backup & Recovery a suitable software for migrating your information from one hard disk to another as well as deleting information for a drive that is no longer necessary.
The file systems that are supported cover the most used formats available on the market giving you full read/write access to FAT16/FAT32 partitions; full read/write access to NTFS (Basic and all five types of Dynamic Disks) under Windows 95/98/ME, Linux and PTS DOS.
Compressed NTFS files are also supported. You can also perform full read/write operations by having access to Ext2FS/Ext3FS partitions under all versions of Windows, DOS 5.0 and later. Basic partitioning operations (create, format, delete) are available for Linux Swap.
In order to have the program fully functional my advice is to created a DVD recovery disk which can then be easily used to backup and restore a disk partition or data from it even if your Windows is no longer working.
You will just need to boot up the recovery disc and then point it to the backup files you previously created. In just a few minutes your backup will be restored and you will have a brand new Windows ready to be used without having to go through the time consuming process of reinstalling all your system drivers and favorite applications.
You can find Paragon Backup & Recovery Free Edition 10.1 Build 9169 on our newly created website along with many other useful tools and application by simply following this link: www.bstdownload.com
Paragon Backup & Recovery Free Edition 10.1 Build 9169
Sunday, August 15, 2010
How to Connect IDE Hard Drive to Laptop / Notebook
USB is a glorious thing. It allows you to hook up a wide variety of products ranging from temperature monitoring equipment to keyboards and mice to headphones to drives and far beyond.
IDE hard drives were the standard internal Hard Drive for desktop computers until the mid 2000's, when they began to be replaced by SATA hard drives. As a result, many computer users are left with old IDE hard drives when they upgrade old computers with a new laptop or desktop. It is possible to connect an internal desktop IDE hard drive to a laptop externally with the use of a USB to IDE adapter, essentially transforming the internal IDE drive into an external hard drive.
IDE hard drives were the standard internal Hard Drive for desktop computers until the mid 2000's, when they began to be replaced by SATA hard drives. As a result, many computer users are left with old IDE hard drives when they upgrade old computers with a new laptop or desktop. It is possible to connect an internal desktop IDE hard drive to a laptop externally with the use of a USB to IDE adapter, essentially transforming the internal IDE drive into an external hard drive.
- Set the
IDE hard drive next to the laptop, near a USB port.
- Plug the appropriate IDE connection on the adapter into the back of the old hard drive.
- Plug the power cord that came with the adapter into a wall socket. Pllug the other end of the power adapter into the four-pronged power plug on the back of the hard drive. Wait several seconds for the hard drive to spin up.
- Plug the USB cord from the adapter into the laptop. On the laptop, the drive should appear automatically as an external drive, just as if you'd plugged in a USB flash drive or external hard drive.
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