Too many times I have had people come to me with their computer not working and quite literally begging me to save their photo's, music, what have you...  Sometimes it turns out to be a happy ending, other times not so much.  Thankfuly we have come a long ways in what we can do to recover data from 10 even 5 years ago, but some cases are lost without calling drive professionals like Drive Savers.  Although they are a great company, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart, its a costly route.  So in this article we are going to cover what you SHOULD do to protect your data, and what your options are if the worst ever happens.

Backing up your Data

First of all, the best case senario is that you have all your files backed up, and you have a lot of different options when it comes to backing up your data.  Lets cover some of them here.

1. Backing up to CD or DVD
   • This is a good option, but discs have a limited life.  Within 5 years or less the data on that CD or DVD may no longer be readable.
2. Backing up to USB memory stick
   • Now this device which can range in price between $30 - $60, is going to last much longer.  Not only is it going to last longer but it can transfer your files to any computer that you work on.  Many of them now come with encryption which means your data will stay private.
   • The down side is that they are small and can easily be lost.
3. Backing up to an external or network hard drive
   • This has the advantage that you can store a lot of data on them, from 500gb to 1tb (500gb is about the same as 715 CD for the technically challenged.)  That's a lot.  Many network data backup drives also come with 2 hard drives that allow for something called RAID.  Basically its 2 copies of your data in the same place, so if one drive fails, your data is still there.
   • One of the down falls is that many single drive setups tend to use compression, so you're reliant on specialty software to retrieve your data.  The other draw back is that these devices tend to be a little larger and less likely that you will ever remove the unit from your home.  Which is not  a problem - unless there is a fire or flood.
4. Online backup
   • Ok so I have a personal beef with things like facebook, but that aside its a great place to store photos, and you are able to keep them private on their system.  In that respect it is a good idea to back up the really important ones of the kid's birthdays and such to some sort of system like facebook.
   • Also since the "Cost per mb" came down a number of years ago, places like Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo! mail have increased the size of your free mailboxes.  Most of them now come with a standard 1 gb ( about a cd and a half), worth of space.  In this instance you could email yourself special documents that you have compressed, ( google winzip ;) and they could be stored there indefinitely.
   • The last online option I will cover are some of the free file storage systems online, there are a lot of them.  The best suggestion I can make here is do your research and shop around.
   • Now for the downside.  Servers crash, and companies go out of business, both without warning. Never trust an online storage service with the only copy of your vital data. Also, while all of these services take measures to lock down your data, the privacy and security of your files is ultimately up to you.

The most important thing to remember about backing up your data is that you should do some kind of backup.  Yes even to floppies if you still have a drive in your computer.  It's no guarantee that your files will always be there, but at least you have taken steps to ensure they will be.  Trust me, you never feel dumber then the moment you take your computer to someone to recover your data and that inevitable question comes out, "do you have any backups."  Yep I have been there too.

Now I have a backup, now what?

Excellent, now make a copy and take it somewhere safe, a parent's house, safety deposit box, your place of business, your hosue (visa versa).  Not all data loss comes from computers crashing.  Like I stated above, if there is a fire, flood, theft... what have you, your backup is no good.  Thatss why itss recomended that you store your data off site from your computer just in case.

The other thing you will want to do is check your backups.  There are a lot of software utilites out there for backing up automatically to external drives or network locations such as the internet.  Every so often check that backup, most of these utilites use some sort of compression, and if it fails - your data you thought you had backed up, might not be.

What casuses data corruption?

Personaly I think its all Microsoft's fault, but then again I blame Microsoft for everything in the computer world... but I won't get into that here.  Most of the time data loss is caused by one of 3 things.  Either hardware failure, software failure, or some form of virus / spyware.

Hardware Failure

When its a case of hardware failure such as your hard drive (the device that holds all of your data on your computer) there is only one call to make, and thats to Drive Savers.  But call Silvergateway first, we have a discount code you can use to save 10%.  The way you can tell is that the hard drive will either:

1. Not spin, you can normaly hear it, if not you can feel it if you open up your computer case
2. Or drive will be making a clicking nose

Either one is BAD news.  If you have any of these issues, don't let any two bit hack play with it.  You know the guy who says "oh yeah, I can save your family photos", yeah, no he can't and if you let them try they will make sure no one can.

The other thing you will see is that the operating system (Windows, or better yet Linux) will not startup and likely give you some sort of error such as the system volume can not be found.  This does not mean that the hard drive is dead, all the time.  It could be related to a software issue.  But we will cover that next.  Now if you're lucky the hardware issue is something to do with your motherboard, or a cable.  In cases such as a system hardware piece burning out on you, you're still going to have to reinstall the operating system (unless you run linux. ;)  And we are still going to have to recover your data, but its not mission critical.

Software Failure

When it comes to software failure, the most common cause of data loss, it usually comes down to a make believe word that tech-like people call "Operating System Decay."  Over time as you install software, download music, games, and other items, your computer is constantly adding deleting to and from the registry.  (Windows only, The registry is the Windows system database for everything, its what links your pictures to the photo program that you open them with, it stores all of your prefrances, file locations.... everything.  Its one of the main items to get corrupted.  Other systems like Linux and Mac operating systems use seperate files to store this data.  So if something gets corupted that file can be replaced, not the whole system.  That's why data corruption on a Mac is called a dead hard drive.)  Anyway, among other files that are constantly used in your day to day life with your computer, these files will get corrupted, either by not being closed correctly (ie. shutting off the power to your computer rather then shuting it down throught the start menu,) or by power failures or crashes that seem to happen a lot with Windows systems.

In the end, your operating system is no good any more and we or you are going to need to recover the data and reinstall the operating system.

Now sometimes this can be an underlining hardware issue that looks like a software issue.  Any good service provider is going to take the time to scan your hard drive and memory.  Either one of these componets, with even the slightest problem will corrupt data as well.

Viruses and Spyware

Well there is not much to say, if you get some sort of malicious software on your computer, its going to do what it was programed to do.  Best case is you should be running some sort of Virus and Spyware software.  (AVG anti-virus & Ad-Aware being my top picks).

So I lost my Data, what do I do now?

Well depending on what happened and why dictates our course of action.  If the hard drive is not making any noise and the issue seems to be mostly software in origin then we get an external hard drive and boot your computer up to a Linux Boot CD.  If everything is looking up we can simply copy your data from your hard drive to the external hard drive and we are done, with the data anyway.

The reason we use a linux boot CD over one of the many different windows recovery programs (that will cost your first born by the way) is that Linux runs everything as a file - even the hard drive.  Not only that but it will mount your hard drive in a read only format.  Which means its not going to do any further damage to the drive unlike some other software that will be invasive and corrupt your data even further.

If the data is corrupt, then there are a few special Linux programs that we can attempt to use to recover the data.  But most cases your looking at sending the drive to Drive Savers.

Now if the drive is making noise, ticking, banging, scratching, stop everything your doing.  Turn off the computer and send the drive in.

I hope you find this article helpful, if you have any questions please feel free to contact us.