2024-12-25

The Relationship between Data Recovery and Computer Forensics

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM55 mins

Data Recovery & Computer ForensicsData Recovery is a process of recovering the data from hardware or software components after various data disasters. Data access becomes void after some disaster and special data recovery techniques are usually needed to access this lost data again.

Computer forensics, also called cyber forensics, is the application of computer investigation and analysis techniques to gather evidence suitable for presentation in a court of law. The goal of computer forensics is to perform a structured investigation while maintaining a documented chain of evidence to find out exactly what happened on a computer and who was responsible for it. A computer can be the target of the crime, it can be the instrument of the crime, or it can serve as an evidence repository storing valuable information about the crime. Moreover the hard disk is the core carrier of all important information. In some sense, hard disk is a very precise micro-computer. Only with the normal running of the micro-computer, can we access to the OS,

Data recovery can be a vital aspect of Forensic Examinations since some drives may be corrupt and impossible to image.

The reasons which cause the hard drives corruption/impossible to image:

1. Logical Malfunctions:
• Accidental Disk Format
• File Deletion
• Partition loss or corruption
• Lost or Missing files and folders
• Re-formatted or re-partitioned drive

2. Physically Malfunctions:
• PCBA malfunction
• Motor/bearing failure
• Parking element failure
• Platter surface scratch
• Head Problem
• FW problem

How to using data recovery skills & tools to assist computer forensics work?

1. To the Logical Disk Crash problems: there are many famous computer forensics software in the market, such as Encase, X-Ways, FinalForensic, F-Response and so on. They are very good at data retrieval, analysis, auto-report and data archiving. With the development of science they will be more professional.

2. To the Physically Bad Hard Disk problems:

PCBA malfunction: You just need to find an identical donor hard drive which has the same model number, at least first 3 digits of Serial Number and PCBA version number, the best the motor number. And then swap the PCBA by using professional tools, such as ACE: PC-3000; SalvationDATA: HD Doctor Suite, etc.

Motor/bearing failure: You can exchange the platters and head stack to the hard drive which has good motor/bearing by using the professional tools. In my opinion the HD HPE PRO is the best choice. You also need to find the identical donor hard drive.

Parking element failure: Exchange the failed head stack with a donor hard drive by using HD HPE PRO.

Platter surface scratch: Bad sectors are a common problem we faced during traditional imaging. It will cause system death, HD irresponsive, even directly destroyed during image process. To the problem, you should use the disk imaging tools, such as: ACE: UDMA DE; SalvitonDATA: Data Compass; DeepSpar: Disk imaging, etc. These tools can help you retrieve the data from partially damaged bad sectors.

Head Problem: The head stack is totally damaged: You should swap the head stack with a donor hard drive by using HD HPE PRO.

FW problem: ACE: PC-3000; SalvationDATA: HD Doctor Suite can help you repair the damaged firmware or the firmware module disorder.

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Free Computer File Management Utilities

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM23 mins

Attribute changer
This application is designed to automate mass changes to file and folder attributes. It add’s itself to the context menus for folders and drives. You can establish filters and exceptions to fine tune the search process.

Fast File Renamer
A free program which can help you with the tedious task of renaming large numbers of files. It can be used by anyone who needs to keep large collections of files organized (such as mp3 files, image and graphics files, web-site-related files, system files).

FreeCommander
Free dual-pane Windows-Explorer replacement.

Media Convert
Free online media-file converter. Converts sound, video and text files to other formats.

ShellGem
A small free program that makes moving and copying files in Windows 95/98 easily. Once you install it, just right-click-drag any file, and ShellGEM opens a list of the drives on your system. You can then move through an unfolding tree of your system’s folders (no clicking required), and move or copy the file wherever you want.

The Rename
Program that allows you to rename a batch of files simply and quickly with many options.

Total Commander
Not free. A highly recommended shareware Explorer replacement program for Windows. Improved access to your local files through a two-pane interface, convenient access to remote FTP sites, access Zip files as directories, enhanced search, quick view, etc. Much better than the standard Windows explorer.

UnLock IT
Freeware program which enables you to unlock the files that are locked by some processes in your system. For Windows.

xplorer2 lite
Free file manager for Windows.

XXCopy
XXCOPY is a powerful superset of XCOPY using the same syntax. Command-line program for DOS and Windows.

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CD Optical Storage Glossary of Computer Terms (Letter A)

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM73 mins

Access time
In mass storage devices, the time elapsed to read or write to or from a device.

Additive color system
A color reproduction system in which images are reproduced by mixing appropriate amounts of red, green, and blue lights.

Animation
A synchronized sequence of graphics that conveys action.

Antialiasing
The process of reducing the visibility of jagged edges by using gray scale pixel values to smooth and feather contrasting intersections of bitmapped objects.

Application
A computer program written for a specific purpose.

Aspect ratio
The ratio of width to height of an image. The standard aspect ratio of broadcast television and most computer displays is 4:3. The 35mm slide standard is 3:2.

Asymmetric system
A video system that requires more equipment to store, process, and compress a digital image than it needs to decompress and playback. Intel’s DV I and Phillips/Sony’s CD-I systems are asymmetric in full fidelity mode.

Audio track
A CD- DA track with digital audio samples encoded as 16 bit numbers.

Audio
Sound portion of a video signal. or separate sound used to; annotate objects on frames including text, graphics, animation and still images.

Authoring language
A high- level programming language using English or mnemonics and simple commands specifically designed for developing multimedia applications. Often included as a subset of an authoring system.

Authoring system
A software product designed to allow users without specific programming skills to develop and test multimedia applications.

Averaging
The process of smoothing the selection or image by averaging the values of the surrounding pixels over a specified radius.

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Free Hard Drive Erasing Tools

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM05 mins

If you need to remove sensitive data totally from your harddisk, simply deleting these files is not enough! Using advanced methods, it is even possible to recover data that’s been overwritten, unless it has been overwritten using carefully selected platterns!

Operating systems usually do not totally delete the file, but just mark the file as being ‘deleted’ so it can not be accessed when you view the contents of a directory. This means that you can not see the file anymore with normal tools, but specialized recovery tools can still access your data.

To prevent this from happening, you need to totally erase your files, using one of the specialized data removal tools you can find in this section. These removal tools totally erase your data by replacing the contents of your files with effective data-patterns before deleting them the normal way.

After Work
Free Windows utility which can be used to wipe sensitive data from your computer, such as: temporary internet files, IE history, visited sites, opened documents, started programs, temporary registry values.

CleanDisk
Non-free. Total deletion of files, clean the Windows swap file, clean temporary files. Contains disk viewer to view the real contents of your disk including ‘deleted’ entries. Suitable for Win95, Win98, WinME, WinNT, Win2000, WinXP.

Eraser
Freeware for Windows. Eraser can remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it with carefully selected patterns. You can drag and drop files and folders to the on-demand eraser, use the convenient Explorer shell extension or use the integrated scheduler to program overwriting of unused disk space or, for example, browser cache files to happen regularly, at night, during your lunch break, at weekends or whenever you like.

HandyBits file shredder
Freeware for personal, non-profit use. Can overwrite files with random data up to 15 times. Multi-language support, integration with Windows Explorer, with icon on desktop to use as recycle bin, etc.

How to destroy a CD or DVD
Don’t just throw away your CD’s and DVD’s when they contain personal or sensitive data. First you need to make sure that the data is unretrievable.

KillDisk
Harddisk, floppy and partition eraser. Free and non-free editions are available.

No File Recovery
Free disk wipe utility for Windows.

SuperShredder
Freeware. SuperShredder gives you the ability to delete files using not only common methods such as Gutmann and NISPOM (DoD), but can be completely customized to give you all the security and/or performance you may need. It can receive files via drag-and-drop onto the application or the icon, selecting files from inside the program, command line, and can even add a shortcut to your ‘Send To’ menu inside the Windows Explorer so it’s simple to delete files in a secure and convenient fashion.

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Free Remote File Storage/Sharing/Backup

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM42 mins

The services listed in this section enable you to backup, store and/or share your files on the Internet for free.

4shared.com
1 Gigabyte of free space to share files.

DriveHQ
Free 1Gb of remote storage space including FTP access and file-sharing. The non-free plans range from 2 Gb for $ 2.99/month up to 20 Gigabytes for $19.99/Month

File Hamster
Free real-time backup and archiving of your files while you work, monitor specific files on your hard drive and automatically create incremental backups, etc.

FLASHspace
Remote storage space which presents itself as simply another disk-drive inside your Windows computer (no software needs to be installed).The 50 Mb package is free. The non-free packages start from $ 2 per month for 500 Mb.

Huddle
1GB of free file storage space.

I(2) Drive
500 Mb storage, 1 Gb transfer for $ 9.99 per month

Internet Virtual Storage
A list of sites providing internet based storage solutions, i.e. remote virtual hard drives or remote virtual storage space, both free and commercial.

myDataBus
5 Gigabytes of free file storage, maximum file size: 500 Mb.

Orbitfiles
6 Gigabytes of free online file storage, backup and file-sharing.

Sharemation
5 Mb of free file storage.

Webdrive.dk
100 MB free space, share folders with other users, access zip files online.

Xdrive
Non-free, 15 day free trial. Integrates with the Windows explorer as an extra drive. 5 Gb secure storage for $9.95 per month; 25 Gb Xdrive work-group storage for $ 99.95 per month.

Yahoo Briefcase
30 Mb of free files storage. Save Yahoo! Mail attachments directly to your Yahoo! Briefcase.

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RAID Array & Server Glossary of Computer Terms (Letter U)

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM01 mins

Usable storage capacity
Disk array capacity that is usable for data storage (vs. for mirroring or parity data). For example, under mirroring (RAID 1 and 0/1), usable storage remains a constant fifty percent (half of storage is always used for redundancy). This is in contrast to other RAID levels such as RAID 5, in which usable storage capacity is determined by the formula of “n-1”. “n” is the total number of disk drives and “1” is the number of disks worth of capacity used for parity (redundancy) overhead. So, as the number of disks in the array grows, the usable storage capacity percentage increases in relation to parity (redundancy) information.

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RAID Array & Server Glossary of Computer Terms (Letter W)

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM02 mins

Write-Back Cache
A caching strategy whereby write operations result in a completion signal being sent to the host operating system as soon as the cache (not the disk drive) receives the data to be written. The target disk drive will receive the data at a more appropriate time in order to increase controller performance. An optional cache battery backup can be used to protect against data loss as a result of a power failure or system crash.

Write-Through Cache
A caching strategy whereby data is written to the SCSI drive before a completion status is returned to the host operating system. This caching strategy is considered more secure, since a power failure will be less likely to cause loss of data. However, a write through cache results in a slightly lower performance.

Warm swap
The ability to remove and replace a disk drive while the power is on. All bus activity must be paused (usually done through a utility within the array management software) to maintain data integrity during removal or replacement. Typically used when hot swap is not supported by the server or storage enclosure drive tray.

XOR
Exclusive “Or”, a computer language function that generates parity in RAID systems; “this or that but not both

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RAID Array & Server Glossary of Computer Terms (Letter T)

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM01 mins

Terminator
A part used to end a SCSI bus.

Termination
A method of matching transmission impedance of a bus to eliminate signal reflections from the physical ends of the bus.

Throughput
The number of I/O requests satisfied per unit of time (usually per second).

TPC-C, Tpm-C
The Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC) is a standards organization that measures transaction throughput of systems. One of their benchmarks is Tpm-C, which reflects price and performance metrics. TPC-C reflects new order transaction rate, a benchmark for transaction speed. Mylex products have won consistently high TPC-C results.

Transfer Rate
The rate at which data moves between the host computer and storage, input, or output devices, usually expressed as a number of characters per second.

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