File Recovery Guide

If you’re not sure, this page will help clear up some questions you might have. If your computer is suffering from any of the symptoms on this page, your hard drive may have been deleted and you’ll need to see a hard drive recovery specialist.

Hard Drive
Before we get started, let’s define what the hard drive is and its function. The hard drive is the computer’s main storage media tool. It is also sometimes called a hard disk drive. It consists of one or more hard disks inside a casing. Most hard drives are stored permanently in an internal drive.

It is important to keep in mind that while you think your life may be over because your hard drive has been erased, information can be retrieved most of the time, depending on the extent of the damage. Several factors can cause hard drive failure, including a computer virus, defective hardware, a hard disk crash, or accidental deletion of data. If your hard drive has been affected, your computer will not boot and the drives (or partitions) will not be accessible.

In some cases, use can use software to recover the lost data but sometimes that is not enough. Before you decide to forego the software and go straight to a data recovery specialist, ask yourself the following:

• is the drive still spinning?
• is FDISK unable to recognize the drive?
• are there unusual noises?
• is the system bios unable to recognize the drive?

If you answered yes to these questions, then contact a data recovery specialist.

There are some typical signs that might indicate hard drive failure which you should look out for. They are:

• partitions reformatting accidentally
• grinding or ticking noises coming from the drive when trying to acess files or powering up.
• after powering up, you get a black or blue Windows screen
• unable to load data from normal applications
• inaccessible C drive
• folders appearing empty
• corrupted files and data

If your computer has any of these problems, then disconnect all power to the system so as to prevent any permanent data loss.

Most situations resulting in data loss from a hard drive malfunction can be recovered. Usually, the data will still be on the drive but the user is unable to access it due to some problem. The important thing to remember when you have lost data is not to write anything to the affected drive. In other words, don’t save anything new.

Some people may confuse hard drive recovery with that of file recovery. The difference is simple. File recovery refers to the recovery of individual files that are lost although the computer and storage devices are still functional. Whereas with hard drive recovery, it is the recovery of data from a failed or damaged hard drive.

Also see data recovery.