Data Recovery Tips & Guides

Use these handy tips and guides to learn the best methods to help you recover your lost data, drives and volumes. Remember, prevention is better than cure and even the best data recovery tools are no substitute for a good back-up strategy. But, should disaster strike, don't panic, follow the hints, tips and guides on these pages to give yourself the best possible chance of recovering your precious data. And if all else fails, know that you can rely on Stellar Phoenix, world leaders in Integrated Data Recovery Systems. Trust only Stellar Phoenix.

Hard Drive Failure - Basic Do's & Don'ts

ensure-data-recovery-from-a-crashed-hard-drive-by-following-this-basic-guideIs your hard drive making a funny noise? Does it sound like a family of crickets has just moved into your PC? Are you seeing strange system messages when you start up or does your PC just fail to start at all? Odds are, you're hard drive's history! Read on to find what you should and shouldn't do to maximize your chances or recovering your precious data and restoring it safely.

All hard drives will fail - eventually. Just like death and taxes, you can take it as a given. It's not a matter of "if" but "when". Of course prevention is better than cure as they say and a good back up strategy is always the best method of ensuring you can quickly and easily access your data again should you suffer catastrophic hard drive failure. But, humans will be human so when your hard drive fails and you have no back-up copies of the data on the disk, follow these fundamental Do's and Don'ts to ensure you have the maximum chance of successfully recovering your data.

Do's

So, you think your hard drive has failed? Follow these simple steps to confirm that the dive itself definitely has failed and it's not some other problem that's causing the issue. You can then asses your chances of successfully recovering any or all of your precious data.
  • Check all power and data cable connections to your PC
  • Check all power and data cable connections to the drive. This may involve opening your PC's case if the fault is with an internal drive.
  • Try connecting the drive to another PC. DO NOT attempt to do this with an internal hard drive if you are uncomfortable or unfamiliar with the steps necessary to remove and install an internal HDD
  • If the preceding steps fail, check and confirm the controller card is ok.
  • If all of the above steps fail, try scanning the drive from another PC using Stellar Data Recovery.

Don'ts

Of course, in desperation when facing valuable data loss, it's all too easy to panic and resort to physical "coaxing" in an attempt to get your drive going. And the internet is full of myths and "sure fire" home brewed remedies - most of which will, if attempted, almost certainly guarantee your data will be gone for good. Whatever you do, don't experiment on your failed drive and never attempt the following:
  • Never drop your hard drive or toss it around. Assume it's more fragile than an egg and make sure you treat it that way.
  • Don't get physical with your hard drive. Never be tempted to just give it a little tap with a screwdriver and never, ever hit it.
  • Never heat your drive and NEVER freeze it. Don't believe everything you read on the internet. Suddenly moving your hard drive from a freezer to room temperature can cause considerable condensation build-up on the drive's platters. Your hard drive is a finely tuned precision electronic device and this kind of abuse will definitely decrease any chance you might have had of recovering your data.
  • NEVER ever be tempted to open your hard drive. Not unless you have a computer engineering degree and are working inside a Class 100 clean room that is! Open your hard drive and you can pretty much kiss goodbye any chance you had of successfully recovering your precious lost data.

Don't Ignore The Warning Signs

A dying hard drive usually gives plenty of warning before it throws in the towel for good. Unusual clicking, ticking, buzzing, chattering, grinding or scraping sounds, slow read/write speeds, the drive taking a long time to boot or even the dreaded "blue screen of death" are all pretty good indicators that something bad is going on and data loss is imminent. You'll have much more success restoring data from a failing hard drive if you don't ignore the warning signs and attempt to back-up or copy your data as soon as possible. Once you suspect there may be an issue with your drive, limit the number of times it's accessed as each time it's turned on or off, you increase the likelihood of permanent failure.

Use Data Recovery Software

Of course, should the data on your drive become corrupt or the drive has been reformatted and you need to recover lost or deleted files and data, then you'll need to recover deleted files with good file data recovery software. Stellar Phoenix make a diverse and versatile range of superior data recovery products across a variety of platforms and operating systems. Whether you need to recover deleted files, recover your photos, restore deleted documents or even recover your music files from a corrupt iPod, Stellar can provide the support and tools you need to quickly, safely and easily, rescue, repair and restore all your lost files and data. Stellar Phoenix really are the experts in file data recovery.