Hard Drive File Recovery And You

Data loss is a natural situation for most PC users, and hard drive file recovery can be costly. Many people simply let their important data go because they can't justify the cost. Preparing for data loss is always your best move, and these 10 tips will provide you with a great head start.

1. Always use virus protection and either Windows or external firewalls on your computer to protect your system.

2. Do not defragment your hard drives if there is a deleted file that you want to recover. You should consider software for data recovery first. This is likely to increase the likelihood that you will be able to recover your lost data.

3. In most cases, using utilities like CHKDSK, Scandisk or Norton Disk Doctor will not help you to recover your data completely. In fact, they can actually destroy your data by recovering it incorrectly.

4. If you find that you are unable to start your system see if you can get it to start in safe mode, then try to uninstall or disable any of the applications you have installed recently because they may be causing the problem. Another idea is to run the system restore and see if that fixes the problem.

5. Before purchasing software for data recovery, research and make sure that you are aware of exactly the kind of data that it will retrieve. You need to know what data you are looking to recover and then search for the software that is going to get the job done. This will save you time and hassle.

6. Know what file system your computer runs on right off the hop. If you're using a Windows based system, it's likely that you're on NTFS (for versions XP and after), or FAT32 (Windows 98). If you're running a Mac, you probably are using HFS Plus or HFS.

7. Backup all important files on a portable, external hard drive. Do this on a scheduled basis, and your files will be good to go.

8. Backup is not a complete and 100% solution, as it will skip some recent files. Still, it's better than nothing.

9. If you have a hard drive failure while you are working on something, you shouldn't try saving the file since this could eliminate any data which was saved earlier.

10. Before going to the experts in hard drive file recovery, ensure that you know about any relevant details, such as your operating system actions, what was happening before the failure of the hard drive, and if the drive is still seen by the computer.

Hopefully you will not have a hard disk crash which causes you to need hard drive file recovery. But if you do, now you know that there are actions you can take and you don't have to despair that all of your files and data is gone. But remember that prevention is the best way.

As in any situation, being prepared is always your best bet.

Maureen Davies is webmaster for http://www.harddriverecovery.org and a technician with specialized experience with laptop and RAID data recovery. Read more here about mac hard drive recoveryand how to save yourself from data loss.