Technically Easy

Category: Data Recovery

  • Why My Data Hard Drive Errors Didn’t Affect Me

    Why My Data Hard Drive Errors Didn’t Affect Me

    My external hard drive is where I store all my important files such as photos, videos, and personal information. Most, if not all, of the files I store on that drive cannot be recreated, or would be very difficult and time-consuming to recreate. This is why I am always ensuring that drive is available for use, and protected.

    Of course, as with most things in life, nothing lasts forever. This is especially true with hard drives. In this case, my external hard drive started to give me problems, causing me to be concerned for my data files.

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  • How to Run SpinRite in VirtualBox

    How to Run SpinRite in VirtualBox

    SpinRite is a popular hard drive maintenance and data recovery software from Gibson Research Corporation, and costs $90 to own. While I haven’t extensively used the software, it has helped me recover data from hard drives when I thought the data was lost. It is a small application, and you also don’t need a powerful PC to use the application.

    The once aspect of SpinRite that makes it different from other drive maintenance and data recovery tools is that you are required to boot up your computer using SpinRite to launch the application. SpinRite loads a copy of FreeDOS, detects the disks on your system and then allows you to perform specific scans of the disks.

    Of course, if you need to scan a hard drive, you will usually need to connect it to either the IDE your SATA interface within your computer, which requires you to open up computer, and then connect the hard drive to the correct interface so the FreeDOS operating system can find your hard drive. In order for you to connect the drive to the USB port of you computer requires you to load the USB drivers within FreeDOS in order for the hard drive to be detected.

    The alternative is to use a virtual system created by software such as VirtualBox to automatically setup and use a hard drive that is connected to a USB port. While the scanning may not be quite a fast, it is much easier to simply connect a hard drive to a USB port and then have SpinRite scan the hard drive in a virtual system.

    I outline the steps that you need to follow to run SpinRite in VirtualBox.

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  • Is Cloud Data Easier to Recover: 5 Cloud Data Recovery Concerns

    Is Cloud Data Easier to Recover: 5 Cloud Data Recovery Concerns

    Long before the cloud came around, individuals and companies alike were turning to Web based storage and data recovery. With a mix of software and Web based management controls, off-site data backup and recovery was finicky, non-mobile and not too much more cost effective than the on-site tradition.

    Now that the cloud is above, the nomenclature of the past no longer applies – cloud storage and cloud data recovery solutions are growing in maturity, offering capabilities in integration, management and control that the old Web based data storage providers just couldn’t offer.

    Regardless of the sky-high appeal of cloud storage benefits, it is not wise to turn to cloud driven business continuity haphazardly. While the perceived ease and cost performance of cloud storage and recovery is tempting, cloud storage and backup present considerable challenges.

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  • USB Flash Drive and How to Avoid Data Loss

    USB Flash Drive and How to Avoid Data Loss

    Technology has changed the way we do a lot of things. Sending of mails for example is one good example. Before, it will take days before mail can reach recipients who are thousand of miles away. But things have changed with the advent of the Internet as emails can be send and will be received in just a matter of seconds.

    The way we save and share files has changed too. Back in the days when computer was just a new technology, we use floppy disks that can save only kilobytes of files. Now, we can save thousands of Gigabyte of files in media as small as a thumb that can save up to 256 GB of data and more. This device is what we call USB flash drive.

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  • A Server is a Computer That You Can Create at Home

    A Server is a Computer That You Can Create at Home

    If you happen to have an old computer at home, then you can create a home storage server since a server is a computer.

    Most people tend to already have a network installed at home since many use broadband Internet with a router, so it may make sense to make use of an old computer to create a centrally located storage server.

    While the old desktop may not become a high performance file server, it can easily be converted to storing your file to help you backup your data.

    On top of that, you can also share the data stored on your home file storage server with any computer connected to the network.

    Create one or more backup file servers is easy to do, and I’ll touch on how you can go about doing it in this post.

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  • Functions and Resources of Memory Card Data Recovery Software

    Functions and Resources of Memory Card Data Recovery Software

    Without a dependable, preexisting data backup system, recovery from memory card failures, and the resultant data loss can be expensive and near to impossible. At times, even the best data recovery technicians encounter insurmountable complications. But do not despair. Sometimes the process of memory card data recovery can be as simple as rightly applying the correct memory card data recovery software.

    Data recovery solutions come in three formats: 1) Hire a data recovery specialist, 2) Purchase professional data recovery software, or 3) Download a free data recovery software package. This article addresses the second two methods of memory card data recovery.

    Concept of Data Recovery

    SD Memory Card

    Flash memory has a limited number of write cycles. Writing zeros to the location of a deleted file would senselessly reduce the life of the memory card. Thus when files are erased, the system merely modifies the file directory so that the file seems no longer to exist.

    In seeking to squeeze the most possible write cycles out of a flash card, the system applies equal usage to ever area of the card. Before deleted file space is reused, the remainder of the flash chip must be filled up.

    This overwrite process is very useful for flash memory card data recovery. In fact, this is a best-case scenario for file recovery. Unless the memory card is physically unreadable, the right software, correctly applied, can help you recover lost data.

    Most every data recovery software package addresses the same issues with similar methods. They go after the underlying data by ignoring the conventional Windows file system. They typically work out of RAM memory so as to avoid any risk of writing data to the target drive or flash memory card. Use them to:

    • Fix partition tables
    • Recover deleted partitions
    • Recover boot sectors
    • Fix FAT tables
    • Rebuild NTFS boot sectors
    • Undelete files
    • Copy deleted files to new sources
    • Repair MFT using MFT mirror
    • More.

    Memory Card Data Recovery Software

    I make the following software lists for reference rather than for detailed application processes. All are considered effective data recovery packages.

  • Do Not Lose Your Data – Learn How to Recover Hard Drive Files

    Do Not Lose Your Data – Learn How to Recover Hard Drive Files

    Sooner or later, each one of us will accidentally delete a file. Sometimes the recovery process is simple. Other times the process used to recover hard drive files can be extremely technical. In these few words, I am going to take you from the simple to the complex.

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