Data recovery

Title : Data Recovery
Source : http://www.backupanytime.com/whitepaper.htm
Posted : May 07
Copyright : backupanytime original content.
Redistribution as is : No permission required (with credits)
Modification : With written permission from backupanytime.

Given that you are reading this section we will assume that you actually have a data lost, missing, lock or corruption issue.

Please remember that panic is your worse enemy in a data recovery situation. Inform all interested parties that you have an I.T. issue at present and you will update them when you have investigated it.

If you are a backupanytime client, please contact us immediately. Our first action will be to establish if the data you have issue with is part of your scheduled online backups. If it is and the most recent copy is recent enough we will estimate a time to full functionality and you can report this to interested parties and get yourself a coffee.

If you are not a backupanytime client, check your own offline or online backups from a different system to the one at issue. If you do not have backups on or offline or if they are not recent or complete, seek data recovery expert assistance. Do not try to retrieve the data on your own unless you have considerable experience in the area of data recovery. Any failed attempt could worsen the situation or completely jeopardize any possibility of recovering your data.

Make the recovery experts job easy.
Call them without delay. Ensure your intended suppliers are data specialists. Inform them of all relevant information including any human error or failed recovery attempt. Your provider will be on your side. Do not try to cover yourself. The politics are a different issue. Your aim should be to recover the data.

Scope and type of recovery.
There are a number of levels to the degree of work and associated success rates when recovering data.

1. Accidental (or intentional) file deletion.
   This can relate to individual or group of files or folders which may have been deleted for a variety of reasons, recently or some time ago.
   
   Surprisingly for many people, accidental file deletion is not the worst type of data loss scenario. It is actually quite difficult to completely delete data from a computer. When you action a delete, the data is not actually deleted (typical computer surprise) but the system is told that that area of the drive is now available if needed and the data you chose to delete is no longer visually indexed. So, if you accidentally deleted a file, your chances of recovery should be good but are never certain. The period of time since deletion, any extra efforts to make the data unrecoverable, system activity and new software loading will all impact the recovery process, procedure, time requirement and likelihood of success.
2. System damage.
   If this pertains to the computer not starting at all, there is a possibility of the hard drive (the hard drive is a small device inside the system, not the "computer box" as commonly believed) being ok and readable from another system.
   
   If however the hard drive itself is damaged as indicated by zero drive activity, excessive hard drive noise, hard drive clicking sounds, hard drive whine or hard drive starting and stopping then you need to alert your provider to this as each attempt to start the system could damage it further. In this type of scenario your chances of recovery are not at their highest but the issue may be sortable. It will however involve time and cost.
3. System stolen.
   Apologies in advance for stating the obvious but if you have no backups and the source system is not available to you, there is little a data recovery specialist can do for you. You have the added very serious problem that not alone do you not have your data, but some morally challenged person or group of individuals does have your data which may involve confidential details of your clients. Some systems have a call home feature which causes your system to report its' external i.p. address (which can equate to a physical address with law enforcement support) when connected to broadband elsewhere. If you have it, it may help. If you don't, you have a stolen goods recovery requirement rather than a data recovery requirement.
4. Data unreadable.
   In this type of scenario, you have not necessarily lost the data per say but may have become corrupt, damaged or de indexed. This is not a job for an amateur and again, any amateur attempt may reduce any or all possibility of making the data readable again. Common data unreadable situations are unreadable mail files such as pst (outlook) or exchange files. They will need to be backed up in their current state and the software required to read the files will need to be loaded on to a new system along with any relevant conversion software (example, if you wanted to read exchange files on an separate unplugged workstation they would have to be converted to a pst) and expert recovery software.

In summary
Backup, backup, backup.

Do or don't, is only a matter of time before one of the situations above presents itself. If you have a backup when that time arrives, you will be in a much stronger position, data wise and politically.

You can contact backupanytime directly as per the contact page above with specific data recovery queries.

If you found this document helpful you may like to visit www.backupanytime.com/whitepaper.htm or our website proper at www.backupanytime.com

If you are a system administrator and would like technical details please register your interest on our contact page requesting membership of our private white paper area for I.T. Professionals.

"Data outages can not be totally avoided. They can and must be prepared for"
Think backup and think backupanytime.