High tides and strong winds combined to defeat flood defences and damage many shops and businesses in Hull this week. Companies, shops and houses were evacuated as flood water disrupted computer systems causing them to crash and their data to be lost. Subsequently IT support companies have been called into many businesses to restore failed computer systems such as RAID servers, stand alone PC and Mac computers. Recovery work is also underway across the region as companies try to restore their computer data and get their businesses back up and running again.

Flooding causes widespread disruption to computer systems and large scale data loss. Hard drives that have been involved in floods are often water damaged and have to be cleaned and carefully dried before attempts to access the data on them can be made. The drying process has to be very carefully managed as once a hard drive begins to dry out its components begin to oxidise. Oxidation of the hard drive must be prevented as it will prevent any type of successful data recovery result. One of the worst things that can be done is for a water damaged and oxidised hard drive to be powered up. Doing so will damage the platters of the drive and destroy the data.

Water damage will frequently break the hard drive controller board by causing a short circuit. Swapping the controller board will no work because controller boards are now unique to the hard drives they are shipped with and contain data unique to that hard drive.

A recommended data recovery company like Data Clinic are specialists in recovering the data from flood and water damaged hard drives. With many years experience in hard drive faults and data recovery they are often the company of choice for many UK businesses and individuals. With regional offices throughout the UK, customers can call in and have their hard disk assessed or take advantage of a countrywide free collection service. Drive faults and damage is assessed and then a price given for the recovery of the data. It’s then the customer’s choice whether they wish to proceed with the recovery or not.

With all the bad weather around the UK at the moment it’s not only Hull that is suffering, many businesses on the East coast of England are also taking the brunt of the poor conditions with shops staying shut and business data going offline. Computers and hard drives are resilient to many things but bad weather is not one of them, and those businesses without data backups are in for an agonising wait while the data recovery firms work at repairing their hard drives and recovering their data.

Whether it’s for your business or personal use, you can’t go wrong backing up your data.  You should always create a backup of your data at least once a month, even more than that if you have a lot of important information that you add to your laptop on a frequent basis. To put it in simple terms, nothing in the computer industry is fool proof.  Hard drives can crash, computer hard disks can get stolen, or be dropped and rendered useless. To ensure that we are never left without our valuable data, we should always create a backup of our information. There are several methods available that ensure data is backed up. Online services that back up data remotely can be used, alternatively so can external hard drives. Another cheap way to back up data and files is to burn them to a data CD or DVD. If you don’t have that much data to back up you could also use a USB memory stick. Preserving data is something you should really look into, especially if you have business material on your hard drive.

As mentioned above, the easiest and quickest way to backup important data is to use an online backup service.  Depending on your internet connection this can take from several minutes to several hours. It is time well spent though because at least you’ll know your data is safely stored to somewhere other than your hard disk should the drive crash. It would be an interesting study to discover how many businesses and households have lost data because of the recent flooding, what percentage of them had made backups and what percentage had to use data recovery services to rescue their data from their flooded hard disk drives.

Protect your Data! – Ok so it’s a picture of Commander Data from Star Trek TNG… It’s my idea of humour…

No matter what you are doing, if you are using a PC or Mac you’ll be creating and working with data and that data is saved on a hard disk drive. Let us say for instance that you are a journalist.  Journalists use computers to assist them in creating brilliant story-lines and characters for scripts, novels, stories and a lot of other things each day. Picture the scene: you are composing 100 pages of a new novel each day, just to wake-up one-day and discover your hard drive has destroyed it. In the event you weren’t ahead thinking enough to create at least one duplicate of it, you’d be crazy with worry.

It’s good to know there are some of top quality data recovery businesses out there you may call to help recall data similar to this. However, there are means to preserve your writing in the very first place.

Make duplicates of the data – You always need to get a copy of it should you spend hours creating something. Additionally, ensure that copy is offsite, or at least on another hdd. Ideally you ought to save a copy to the cloud if your entire computer chooses to crash.

Upgrade your data copies frequently – It’ll automatically make all of your copies aged if you work in your master copy. So make certain they all get updated each single time you work in the master copy. Be diligent with this – it just takes a couple minutes to-do but should you don’t remember or can’t be troubled, it decreases the ability of the copies.

It’s worth protecting, particularly if you’re in the midst of a big piece of work. Moreover it doesn’t issue in the event you’ve had work released yet or not. You nevertheless wouldn’t need to get rid of a whole novel should you’ve taken time to create one, would you?

Enter normal and great routines – This essentially means make sure you follow the instructions above. Additionally, you ought to occasionally assess the copies are really updating. You may perhaps do this once per week. The final thing that you need is to believe your copy and lose data is excellent – just to open it and discover it is 6 months old.

In a nutshell, take care of your work and understand who to ask for assistance in the event you actually are unlucky enough to loose your data.

Whilst browsing my way thru many of the data recovery web sites last night my specific aim was to see if any of them had anything different to talk about. Appearance wise they are much the same – but how far do you trust a snappy looking web site? Well it seems to me that many people will judge the quality of the company’s data recover service by the look and feel of it’s web site. This is an unfortunate situation as some of the worst data recovery companies have the best web sites. My advice in these situations is always to DYOR – Do Your Own Research.

It’s not difficult, just go to Google and type ‘<name> review’, or even if you want a reviews site type something like ‘data recovery reviews’. Interestingly enough there already is a site called this and it provides visitors with the names and contact details of recommended UK data recovery sites. My opinion is that it’s a valuable resource and I’ve used it a couple of times – it’s helped me.

As there are a lot of computer users and data in London I notice that Data Recovery London dot net now has a new web page all about Mac data recovery. Good! a valuable extra information resource to a good website. So now in addition to the general hard disk drive repair and recovery service, their specialist RAID and server support recovery they now have everything Mac related to, so the next time my MacBook Air looses data, I know where to go.

Also I read that Google is now looking at hashtags and maybe integrating them into it’s search results… does this mean I have to start writing #datarecovery after everything? As an interesting experiment I’ll try it for a while and see what happens. In the meantime, thanks for reading and I hope you check back again soon.

If you’ve ever suffered from hard disk failure or data loss you know what it’s like. Your family photos may be stored on an external hard drive that you’ve accidentally dropped, or your important business data was safely stored on the company NAS or RAID server until the server crashed and your data went with it.

I can think back to the turn of the century when the business of data recovery was extremely niche: there were only about 5 or so companies in the entire UK who specialised in recovering data from failed hard disk drives. The irony is that there still is this number BUT now there are hundreds of other companies who claim to be able to recover data.

When a hard disk fails it usually means that a part inside the drive has broken No software is going to be able to do anything about this because there’s a part that is physically damaged. The only way to recover this data is that have the part replaced and the drive rebuilt. This is an extremely technical process and requires specialists who know what they are doing.

But if your hard disk has broken and you need the data off of it how do you know you are sending it to a good company? Fortunately in the UK there is now a new website that provides up to date reviews of UK data recovery companies. If a company is good, the web site will tell you. If another company is bad, the web site will tell you. It’s a very good and trusted data recovery resource.

Hashtag: #datarecovery

This weeks thoughts are about computer failure, or to be more specific, broken hard disks. I’ve chosen two decent quality links for you:

> Data Recovery Services by DataClinic – who are a UK based company> Hard Disk Drives – on Wikipedia

If you have ever had a hard drive on your computer crash, you know what it means to have that sudden sickening feeling, wondering if you have anything backed up anywhere. The average life of a hard drive is about 5 to 8 years, before it gives up the ghost and crashes, or ceases to work. Yet, here you might have half of your life stored on that hard drive, and that is a sobering moment in anyone’s life.

While it is wise to backup our information on another storage device, it doesn’t always happen that way, and the backups are not always perfect. If you are one of the fortunate ones who has your information backed up, you can breathe a sigh of relief. If not, then things could be bad.

In the early days of computing, a hard drive crash meant that the read/write head on the hard drive had come into contact with the magnetic disc, which is spinning. This would cause a whole lot of damage, thus the use of the term, “crash.” Modern discs are pretty well protected against that now, and are less vulnerable to many of the problems that used to surface.

In these days, a similar situation can happen, but it is a problem with software, more than hardware. It can also be loose connecting cables, which can be easily checked, but if not then a partial recovery is still possible. Most of the time the problem stems from a file system that become corrupted, and usually it has to do with the files that communicate from the drive and the hardware of the PC, or the operating system. In this case the actual files that are stored on the hard drive will still be intact, in most cases, so they could possibly be transferred to another PC by a USB caddy, or another portable hard drive. If a virus is causing the problem, it might not be wise to transfer the data, because you will be transferring the virus as well.

Most data loss events are caused by human or mechanical error. The human part also includes not properly protecting systems from malicious viruses and such types of programs. The recovery of data can be performed by commercial services that can get to the bottom of what caused the problem. It can sometimes be expensive, depending upon the extent of the problem.

Recovery of file systems can usually be handled by system administrators or by users. Sometimes files may have been corrupted to the point of having their entry code changed, and it is a matter of changing it back to its original state. The file was not lost, it was just not talking. In these cases, once the file is repaired, then it can be accessed.

The best way to avert the problem is to store important data somewhere else in a separate location. In recent years, some commercial capabilities have offered their services to do just that, and more recently service has been made available for storage in the cloud.

RAID data arrays are crucial for storage, advice and data protection strategies for small companies, large companies and personal computer users with considerable amounts of data to get and save. Almost all modern servers use some sort of RAID technology to save and handle data.

Question: Just what does RAID stand for?

Answer: Initially the “I” stood for Affordable, but nowadays it is become Independent.

Question: And what’s it?

Answer: A RAID array is actually a host of disk drives that are joined to your own pc system or server in such a fashion that every one of the drives work as just one storage component. This really is called data redundancy. Usually, RAID arrays are used as huge file servers which keep and handle data in the event of the hard-drive failure.

Question: What precisely are RAID levels?

Answer: The sort of RAID you select dictates the method the data will probably be saved across all of the disks which compose the set. RAID 0 is also commonly encountered but supplies no redundancy whatsoever, therefore an individual disk failure brings a whole RAID 0 system down. These are able to be fairly slow for writing substantial quantities of data for their drives but on the flip-side, RAID 5 provides a great number of fault tolerance, meaning your data can often be recovered with a data recovery company from many other drives inside the array if just one drive fails for any purpose.
Data is saved using numerous techniques including reflecting, striping and storing parity data. Reflecting is the process of making an exact replica of the block of data and preserving it on two separate hard drives.

Question: What are nested RAID levels?

Answer: Nested RAID levels are mixes of two different RAID configurations providing the benefits of both strategies.

Question: Are the any disadvantages to using RAID?

Answer: Additionally, if you want to enhance your RAID level, you must disassemble the array, back-up your personal data and start over. Some newer systems circumvent these problems, but have constraints in their own. Generally RAID is a strong way of enhancing functioning, storage capacity and data protection.

Question: Where might I get a Server?

Answer: All modern server systems, for your NAS boxes you can purchase within the main street for the company servers offered by HP and Dell are obtainable in a broad selection of RAID configurations.

Here’s a company you may be interested in if you have an HP or Dell server >>

We attend to every RAID recovery as high priority, collection of your server or broken disks can be within 60 minutes of your telephone call – day or night 365 days of the year. We are specialists in HP Proliant and Dell RAID Server recovery.

The initial step is to establish whether or not the storage device may need to come to our market-leading laboratory facilities. If this is so, we will look to create an image of the available data onto new media, so that we can complete a logical investigation to understand the exact nature of the computer data loss problem. We often recover, recover and reinstate information every single day and consistently restore defective RAID arrays and servers within 24-48 hours if required.

Should any data files are unavailable, our lab will diligently test every one of the components to decide whether or not there has been any physical problems. Typical components that can cause mechanical failure include read / write heads, electronics, disk drive motors, head assemblies and magnets.

Should any of the elements have failed, or been damaged, we can replace them in our ISO 3 clean room. We can then use specialist hardware and software to build a raw image of the data to be recovered.

If data has been lost due to a logical issue, our data recovery technicians will analyze the low-level data sectors to identify the layout of volumes which are striped over more than one drive. They will additionally determine the fixes that are needed to the filesystem structures, to permit access to the missing data.

We will ‘de-stripe’ several hard drive servers to permit filesystems to be fixed, to ensure that the missing data files can be recovered. Should the filesystem structures are missing or impaired to the point of being useless, we will seek to acquire the data directly from the destriped image.

Over time, our data recovery engineers have constructed a collection of bespoke methods that allow our technicians to examine, de-stripe, fix, and recover data from, raw images from pretty much any operating system.

Once the data has been correctly recovered, we will provide a complete file list so that you are able to determine that we have been successful in repairing all lost files.

About Data Recovery

At some stage of time, everybody who has a pc will encounter the trials and tribulations of hard drive malfunction. The reasons behind it differ, and will include everything from a human error to damage resulting from flood or water. Computer viruses can play a part as well, together with many other factors. For many years, the need to retrieve data that has been lost or destroyed has made computer data recovery such an extremely valuable asset.

Just about all hard drives can be recovered. Generally, in the event that the drive is making a ticking or a scratching noise, you may use specific software applications to recover the data. Sometimes, as a result of age or bad parts, the aperture arm in the hard drive may fail, or the platters may become damaged and lose the data that they hold. If you can’t retrieve the data with software, you’ll need to send the hard disk drive off and have it either rebuilt or have technicians recover your data.
Data recovery is always a choice, from hard disks which are 80GB in capacity to the largest of over 4TB capacity. Regardless of what size hard drive you have, the files can generally be recovered. Take into account that if you’ve had a computer crash, you’ll need to send the hard disk off to get the data recovered by specialists.

Among the key benefits of data recovery is the fact that data can also be retrieved from the recycle bin too. Partition recovery, and even information that has been misplaced somewhere on the disk can be retrieved too. Even though it might appear like your data files are gone permanently – the experts that specialise in data recovery can retrieve it.

From Windows to Mac, everything is generally recovered. There are varied file structures and formats, including NTFS and FAT32. These are common Windows filing structures, and hold records to all of the information for your hard disk.

Individuals that have several hard disks in your computer, can rest assured that RAID servers can be recovered. Should an individual hard disk drive on the RAID configuration fails, the RAID setup will absorb the blow and there won’t be a loss of data. On the other hand, if the entire RAID set up crashes, it will crash big time. If this happens, you’ll need to send it off and have experts restore both the RAID hardware and software.

Anytime your hard disk happens to crash or malfunction, data recovery is there to enable you to get back your data files. Whether they are personal data or very important files that are required for business – you can put your trust in data recovery and know that you’ll get everything the returned the way it was.

Recommended Link: http://www.data-recovery-london.net