Data recovery is the process of salvaging data from damaged, failed, corrupted, or inaccessible secondary storage media when it cannot be accessed normally. Often the data are being salvaged from storage media such as internal or external hard disk drives, solid-state drives (SSD), USB flash drive, storage tapes, CDs, DVDs, RAID, and other electronics. Recovery may be required due to physical damage to the storage device or logical damage to the file system that prevents it from being mounted by the host operating system.
Many casual computer users never give much thought to or even know about data recovery, but Imagine that you are an author writing a book, a novel, and that you have saved all of the chapters of the book on your computer. Now imagine that you are near completion of the greatest novel of your life and your publisher is waiting for the manuscript when something goes haywire and all of the files on your system unexplainably disappear! Not necessarily a pretty image, but it’s something that happens all too frequently, and it is at just that time you may wish to know something about data recovery. Sometimes the problem is simple—resetting the computer system to an earlier period; defragmenting the computer; and, in some instances, utilizing the scan disk option on a computer will be enough to get the computer operating properly again—but in some instances the problem is far worse. What are some of the typical causes for the loss of files on a computer? Viruses, worms, Trojans, power failure, corruption of data, and even acts of God can cause people to lose files on their computer—files that may be extremely vital, especially if the computer user needs the files for proficient business operations.When a computer user loses all of the files and data on their computer due to a technological issue or to some sort of disaster, it may become necessary to hire a company that handles data recovery. Data recovery specialists can attempt to retrieve the lost information from the hard drive of the computer. Data recovery specialists have the expertise to get the job done and swiftly—this ensures the necessary files are accessible to the computer user in the fastest time possible. Though actual physical damage to the computer’s hard drive may mean that complete recovery of the data may not be possible, many people are surprised at how much data recovery specialists can do, even in the most difficult of conditions.