Data recovery is a tricky process. You never know when you'll need to recover lost data and the process can take hours or days depending on your situation. Data recovery is a difficult subject to research, so there's often a lot of confusion about what causes data loss and what steps should be taken to recover it. If you find yourself with a failed hard drive, don't panic! There are many steps you can take to fix the problem. This article will walk you through six common data recovery cannot be completed and how to fix them.
Recover data from a failed hard drive
One of the most common data recovery scenarios is when your hard drive fails. It's important to know what makes a hard drive fail and how to recover the data in that situation.
A hard drive can fail for many reasons. For example, it might happen because of a virus or because you spilt something onto your computer. In this case, the hard drive will have bad sectors on it that aren't working correctly anymore. The more bad sectors there are, the harder it is to recover data from your drive. If you've spilt something onto your computer, you need to turn off power as soon as possible and remove all batteries from the laptop or desktop PC as well as any devices plugged into the USB ports.
This will protect any data that is still on your machine by not powering up anything where remnants of liquid could remain. Next, disconnect all devices from the laptop or desktop and gently clean off anything that was spilt with a cloth dampened with water. You should also use a vacuum cleaner to suck up anything left behind on your computer's keyboard, mouse and monitor screen; wipe down those areas with water afterwards.
If your hard drive fails due to problems like these, you'll need to contact a professional service provider who specializes in data recovery services for help recovering lost files from your failed device.
Fix a startup error
If you're trying to start up your laptop or computer and it's freezing, the startup error may be caused by a corrupt boot sector. If this is the case, you need to use a startup disk or CD that has the Windows operating system on it in order to fix the problem with your hard drive.
To create a startup CD, simply download a bootable ISO file from Microsoft and burn it onto the CD. You should be able to find this on their website under “Bootable Images”. Once you have created the CD, restart your computer and insert the CD before clicking "enter" to begin the repair process.
Fix data corruption
If your data has been corrupted, you'll need to run a program like chkdsk or scandisk. These programs will attempt to fix the corruption and recover some of your lost data.
If these programs don't work, you may also consider using a data recovery program like Recuva. Recuva is a free program that scans for deleted files and attempts to restore them.
Recover data from an inaccessible or unformatted partition
If your hard drive is not accessible or has an unrecognized format, you will need to use disk recovery software. There are many types of disk recovery software that can be used for this situation. However, most of them will require the assistance of a professional.
Repair a damaged file system
A damaged file system is when your hard drive or partition becomes inaccessible or unreadable. This may be caused by a virus, physical damage to the drive, errors while writing data to the drive, or other unknown reasons. There are a few steps you can take to repair this type of problem.
1) Boot up your computer using a live CD operating system like Ubuntu and run fsck -y on the drive. This will repair any problems with the file system and make it accessible again.
2) Run chkdsk on Windows 10 from within the Command Prompt. Open the Command Prompt by holding Shift + Right Clicking on your Desktop > Selecting "Open Command Window Here". Then type in chkdsk C: /f and press enter. This will check for any errors on your hard drive and fix them automatically if possible.
3) Run SpinRite over your entire hard drive as quickly as possible to try and recover any deleted files before they are overwritten with new ones.
Recover data from a mobile device
If you find yourself with a failed mobile device, one of the best things you can do is to use an app that allows you to back up your data. This will allow you to recover any lost files or photos that were not backed up.
It's also important to make sure your phone is properly backed up and set to sync automatically. Your phone should have a back-up file on your computer, so if it's stolen or damaged, you'll still be able to retrieve some data from it.