Data Recovery Tips - Do's and Don'ts During Data Loss

Do's and Don'ts During Data Loss

  Hardware failure and data corruption can cause panic, confusion, and bad decisions in a very short period of time. Please stop what you are doing right now and take a minute to read the following. For data recovery of nearly any system, there are right and wrong ways. We can assist you in recovering lost data across a number of different platforms. Below are some tips and information on what to do and what not to do regarding data recovery.

A free external hard drive or USB drive with every completed recovery

Consult an Expert +8613356713007

Standalone Hard Drive Failure & Data Recovery:

• DO NOT open your hard drive and expose its internal media!!! There is nothing inside for the average user or do-it-yourself repair person to handle. Only a qualified data recovery engineer in a certified cleanroom environment should open a hard drive.
• DO NOT try swapping circuit boards on modern hard drives. There may be firmware/system area conflicts that could cause major problems.
• DO NOT put your hard drive in a freezer and then try to power it up. Moisture may condense on the media surfaces. If it does, this will cause head contact and destroy the drive.
• DO NOT listen to friends' advice or continue searching online for home remedies (like the one mentioned above). If you value the lost data, seek professional help.
• DO NOT repeatedly power up a hard drive that is clicking or unresponsive; it will not work for you and may render the drive unrecoverable. The chances it will "come ready" for you and load your operating system are extremely slim.
• DO NOT install recovery software on the same hard drive/partition where you lost files; the installation process can overwrite those files.
• DO NOT run the recovery CD/DVD that came with your PC. Most OEM tech support personnel do not care about your data; they just want the hardware back in working order.
• DO try connecting your hard drive as a slave in a working system to check its readiness and file system integrity. If only the operating system is corrupted or there is a hardware issue with the original host computer, you may be able to copy data without problems.
• DO try downloading a demo version of undelete software from the web to see if the data you are looking for is recoverable, and if so, purchase the tool.
• DO seek professional help if you are not 110% sure what you are doing. You can learn basic recovery procedures on an unrelated system.
• DO back up your data early and often. The question is not "if" you will lose it, but "when."

RAID Array Crash & Data Recovery:

• DO NOT take the advice of any OEM tech support personnel unless they configured the system originally and no changes were made thereafter.
• DO NOT attempt to rebuild the array unless you know exactly which drives failed, why they failed, and most importantly, when they failed. Recalculating a RAID with old data from the first offline drive will corrupt all your data. About 30% of all RAID 5 recovery cases we receive fall into this category.
• DO NOT attempt any operations unless you are very familiar with the drives, configuration, and controller routines.
• DO stop immediately and call FixmyData at +8613356713007 if you value the data on the array.
• More information on RAID data recovery

SQL Database Corruption & Data Recovery:

• DO NOT back up the database to the same hard drive.
• DO NOT use the disk or array that caused the database corruption due to hard drive failure, RAID crash, bad sectors, or disk check utilities.
• DO NOT restore the database before copying the current database files. Sometimes backups are outdated or corrupted, and the restore process will overwrite the actual data.
• DO copy the database and log files to another physical hard drive before doing anything.
• Read more about SQL data recovery

Exchange Database Corruption & Data Recovery:

• DO NOT attempt to attach or repair a corrupted database without backing up all .edb, .stm, and .log files. This applies to any repair utility from Microsoft or third-party developers. They can cause further data loss as objects within the database may be deleted even if they are actually salvageable.
• DO NOT attempt to defragment the data store unless the mail server was shut down properly. This often results in an inconsistent data store, which can lead to corruption if defragmentation is attempted.
• DO NOT open a tech support case with Microsoft or send a corrupted database to any recovery company without backing up the mail data store.
• DO back up your data store frequently. Daily incremental backups plus a full backup once or twice a week are sufficient.
• Read more about Exchange Server data recovery