Posts Tagged ‘Tips’

Computer Repair Tips: Broken Hard Drive? How to Recover Your Data Files

If you need to recover your important files quickly and easily from a dying hard drive then you can’t afford to miss reading this article…
“Technology… is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ” ~C.P. Snow
It’s an accepted fact that hard drives are the weakest link in computer technology. The hard disk is where the operating system and all software applications are stored. Because of this, a properly working drive is essential in the operation of any computer.
But since these drives are basically just an electro-mechanical devices, and like any other machine they will eventually breakdown and fail.
And then oops, without backups, all your family photos, legal documents and important emails are gone!
There are three levels of data or file recovery for a dying or broken hard drive:
1) Basic Level: The drive is working (your can hear it spin up but it will not boot to Windows)
This usually means that some essential Windows files have been comprised or damaged in some way. With the right software you can view your files and even copy them. You have to choices…
Use a Rescue CD: You can grab a bootable CD with hard drive utility software already installed on it. You can then make repairs or copy your files from your bad drive to a replacement. A good name brand rescue CD for Windows is the “Ultimate Boot CD”
Move the Drive: If you don’t have a way of burning a rescue CD and don’t want to wait for a copy to shipped to you; you can always move your bad drive and place it in another working desktop PC. Once installed you should be able to view all your files on the drive from a secondary slot (normally where the CD or DVD drive live.)
2) Intermediate Level: The drive works but you can’t see the files you want using the methods above.
Okay, things are not going good. You at this point have to get out the big guns. You will have to download and run a data recovery program such as “Active UNDELTE”, “Recover My Files”, etc. Both of these programs are powerful, reliable, and easy to use and won’t cost you an arm or a leg to buy.
With Active UNDELETE you can also make a bootable CD to run on a PC if you can’t move the drive to another computer. Both have technical support options if you need further help.
3) Advanced: You have tried everything above but you still can’t find that Last Will from Aunt Sue…
At this point you have probably spent several hours (if not days) without your PC and invested just over a $100 in software if you used all of the above products. Now, is the time for you to decide to either use a professional level recovery application or throw in the towel and take your drive to a recovery specialist.
If you have the time but not a lot of cash (understand that hard drive recovery services can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars) then you can ratchet it up a notch and buy a copy of the home version of EasyRecovery from Ontrack. Ontrack is one of the leading data recovery companies in the world.
But if time is more critical and money is no obstacle then bite the bullet and take your drive to a local computer shop that does recovery work. Or if that is not possible then contact a big service like Ontrack and ship your hard drive to them.
Data recovery can be expensive no matter who does it, so to be on the safe side and make file backups frequently and fully.

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Tips to select a Storage Backup Software

Today’s software market offers a plenty of products designed for automatic backup, and it may appear quite difficult to decide which one we need. However, it is possible to deduce basic criteria that should be taken into account when selecting backup software for our usage. This article lists some of those criteria to select the good storage backup software for our office or personal purpose.

There are two principal methods of backup: “files-based backup” which performs data copying through common file system queries and “image-based backup” which implies physical hard disk copying. Both backup methods are useful depends on the requirement. The first one is used for personal backup or single computer backup arrangements. This will be performed manually. The second one is used to do backup for large systems and network backup arrangements. Normally this Image based backup can be done automatically or through software interference like every day evening the backup schedule to be done.

One of the most useful features in backup software is capability to backup different types of data: system registry, application settings, databases, and other.

Another factor of supreme importance is where we are going to store backups. This should be considered depending on amount of data we need to back up, available hardware and security policy.

There are several possible types of backup that may be involved in different backup media rotation schemes. Do depends the type of requirement, we need to select our backup software utility.

Choose a program that provides an easy and comprehensible way to automate all backup processes on the organization.

A good backup tool must offer a full-featured trial period to let decide if it fits our needs or not. After the trail version usage, we can purchase a compel product. No need to go with initial full payment software product.

Every software product must have a maintenance support for their products. So before buying the software product, make sure that the product comes with all necessary support and we will receive qualified assistance if we encounter any problems.

Money is the main factor to buy better storage backup management software.

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