What is data recovery ?

Data recovery is

the restoration of access to
inaccessible data.

Before a data recovery job can begin, procedures must be performed to determine what the causes of the failure are and any repairs or remediation processes to rectify the problems are identified, only then can recovery of the data begin.

The process follows procedures to ensure consistency and to avoid diagnosis errors. A mis-diagnosis of a fault can often mean that the data is not recovered properly or at all. We have seen hundreds of drives that had been mis-diagnosed by other companies and by using the correct analysis procedures have resulted with us, in most cases able to recover the data.

Remember that a recovery can not start without knowing the precise reasons for the failure. Failures may also be compounded, for example, if a hard drive has a seized motor bearing and the bearing is replaced, it is only then that the heads can be tested fully to see if they are working as expected.

The data recovery process starts with identification and separation of the two major causes of error.

• Logical failure. such as deletion of data, virus damage, malware, etc.
  
  
• Physical failure. Dropping a laptop computer or external hard drive. read/write head faults, seized motor bearings, platter damage, electronic failures, firmware issues, fire or water damage, bad media, etc.

Once the failure mode is known and any repairs are made then the data recovery may commence. The recovery process is a 4 stage procedure consisting of.

1. Analysis and repair
2. Cloning of media
3. Testing recovered data
4. Copy and encrypt data

Each of these stages is described below.