Hard Drive Data Recovery Resources
Have you ever experienced a massive hard drive failure? Did you experienced this hard drive failure on a drive containing a years worth of work on your privately financed independent feature film (in addition to gigabytes of videos, audios, and photos?) If this has ever happened to you, then you truly understand despair.
I have experienced more than one hard drive failure in my life and quickly remembered all the lost backup opportunities that I let slip away. Then, as the numbness wore off I begin to wonder if all was truly lost.
Many of us now entrust our precious photos and videos to our computers. You may also have years of personal emails, pages of documents and presentations you’ve written, and maybe even all of you financial records stored there as well. Every one of them resting comfortably in the magnetic coating on a little metal platter nestled inside your computer. While I would never discourage you from regularly backing up your files, all is not lost if you experience a hard drive failure.
A growing list of companies is dedicated to recovering data from discs that have experienced a wide range of failures. From accidental erasures to bullets and floods – some or all of your data can be recovered by these companies.
A computer hard drive is hermetically sealed, so dust, water, and other physical contaminants have to work hard to get anywhere near the inner workings. Even if a portion of the disk is damage, it is possible to recover data in other portions. In one of my personal failures, a data cable shorted out while Windows was attempting to update the disc’s directory.
Poof – Everything disappeared!
The story ends happily. I was able to recover everything. It wasn’t easy or cheap, but it was far better than trying to rebuild from scratch and replace the lost data.
If you find yourself weeping over a failed hard drive and wishing you had only made more time in your relationship for backups, try giving one of these companies a visit:
- Kroll Ontrack: http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com
- SalvageData: http://www.salvagedata.com
- First Advantage: http://www.datarecovery.net
I wish you years of blissful data integrity – but don’t forget to backup!
The Go-To Guy!
P.S. If you know of other reliable companies/software that can help recover lost data from a damaged hard drive, please leave a comment and a link below! I’d also love to hear your personal data recovery stories too.
Hey Andrew, great post!
I’ve got another excellent software product that is amazing at recovering data from a busted hard drive.
It’s called SpinRite.
Here’s the link: http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm
I had a laptop that was having disk problems. I would periodically run the standard windows tools; ScanDisk and chkdsk. That usually did the trick but then the problems would reoccur. Well, one day, my laptop would not boot. I tried everything including some disk tool software that I had purchased just for occasions like this. Nothing worked. Until I purchased SpinRite. After running SpinRite my laptop is working great. Still the same hard drive after more than a year and no more disk problems!
Jim,
Thanks for the recommendation. There is nothing worse than that feeling when the disc won’t start up (except, maybe, that horrible chattery noise you hear just before a massive head crash – ouch!)
I’ll have to check this one out.
The Go-To Guy!