If you are wondering how to
recover data from an erased or a dead drive, it would be quite heartening to
learn that if you give it some time, utmost care and use the right tools, you
would be able to recover some lost data from the drive.
Gather
Your Tools & Assess the Drive’s Condition
First of all, you must have the
necessary tools for connecting this drive to some other computer safely.
Ideally, you should be having some type of SATA/IDE to your USB cable or any USB
drive enclosure or maybe a sled for mounting the drive and connecting the
computer without any hassle. In case, you are having a desktop, you could
consider installing the drive simply as an internal drive. However, you must
never forget that an external connection promises to be much easier and faster.
You need to assess the drive
thoroughly. You must determine if the drive is broken or damaged? Ensure that
the drive is in a condition where you could attempt recovery of data without
the risk of further damaging it. If you find the drive badly damaged and
physically in a very bad shape, you would be requiring to adopt more drastic
strategies. Meanwhile, if the drive is in a good shape physically, and if you
have all the necessary tools and equipment, you could go ahead. Simply connect
your drive to your system and once you do that, you could proceed further. If
you have any doubts, get in touch with a competent data recovery Bay Area firm.
Catch
Hold of Effective Data Recovery Software
Before proceeding any further,
you must make sure that all your antimalware and antivirus tools are updated.
You have absolutely no idea as to what you would be finding on this drive.
Obviously, you would not like it to start acting mischievously once the drive
gets connected to the active system. When it is done, you should start
downloading and installing effective data recovery tools. Grab some useful data
recovery software. Get started by connecting the drive. Here are some of the
most popular ones:
FileSalvage (OS X,
$80) for Mac is pretty expensive, but it is definitely, one of the most
effective tools for pulling data from a connected hard drive on OS X. It is
effective in recovering virtually all kinds of files on the multiple partition
kinds. It is exceptionally good for recovering from corrupt media and damaged
drives. If you are looking for an alternative, you could consider Data Rescue
for Mac, $100.
TestDisk (Win/OS
X/Linux, Free) is actually, an effective open source utility which could
function against almost every partition type or platform. It is brilliant in
recovering data quickly. It does not involve needless writes against the
recovery drive.
Recuva
(Windows, Free) has been really indispensable. Created by the makers of
CCleaner, Recuva is known to make data recovery easy and simple. In case you
are simply willing to browse and restore selected files from the drive, you
could consider Recuva. Alternatively, you could opt for Undelete Plus meant for
Windows.
Bootable
Linux distros is meant for
drive recovery. If you do not wish to mess up with apps or if you are just not
interested in paying for them, you could burn a bootable USB key or CD with
BackTrack, SpinRite, or Bart PE on it, so that you could boot to some OS, which
is not really your primary drive. Avoid touching or writing in the drive, you
wish to recover from. You could go on running a number of forensics and
recovery tools against the specific drive you need to recover from. These tools
are super-effective and come to you fully free. A host of these tools is
effective in recovering from formatted drives, particularly, if the data is not
yet overwritten.
Get
Professional Help
If your drive has been damaged
physically, overwritten or wiped or when nothing seems to work and you really need
to recover the lost data from it, you could consider getting in touch with the
experts. If you are ready to pay, simply seek professional assistance and
advice.
Author Bio: Sylvester Stratford is an engineer and the
owner of a data recovery Bay Area company. He specializes in recovering deleted
or lost data from damaged drives. He has also started a blog for quick tips,
tricks, and workarounds.
