If the specter of fire, floods and just plain computer failure is not enough for you to consider how to protect your data, you should also be aware of the potential for malicious destruction of your data caused by viruses and other malware. 

A computer virus is a self-replicating computer program that can copy itself and then transmit these copies to other files, programs or computers.  It is called a virus because it behaves similarly to a biological virus.  Viruses are one of the several types of malware, or malicious software.  Viruses can be destructive in that they can contain overtake the computer system and use up valuable resources.  They can also be designed to delete files and affect partition tables.

Other types of malware include worms and Trojan horses.  A worm is similar to a virus in its effects.  The difference is that a worm is self contained, and does not need another program for propagation.  A trojan horse is a piece on malware that is hidden inside a legitimate program. 

Some malware can be very dangerous as they can delete files, or steal personal information and transmit it to the programmer.  Malware has the potential of wiping out complete file systems, beyond the reach of data recovery software.

In order to protect your data from viruses and worms you will want to install anti-virus software that can detect and eliminate known viruses.  These programs work by examining the contents of the computer’s memory and checking for known viruses.   Some anti-virus programs will also scan all files as they are downloaded to help ensure that no virus has the chance to enter your computer.  You will also want to regularly update your anti-virus software and operating system.  Microsoft Windows, because of its dominant position in the market, is often the target of attacks by viruses.  Microsoft frequently issues patches and updates to fix any vulnerabilities found by malware. 

In addition to anti-virus software, common sense can be a useful tool when combating viruses.  So not download anything from the internet from sites that you do not have confidence in.  Do not open attachments on emails from people you have never heard of.  In fact, it is usually a good idea to avoid opening any unexpected emails, as some viruses can access your colleague’s computers and email themselves from their accounts.

And finally, the best way to protect your data from viruses is simply to back it up.  A malware attack, like a fire or natural disaster, can occur despite all your precautions.  By backing up your data you can recover it in case your originals are lost completely.

With the increasing reliance on computer based systems to manage all aspects of our lives, more emphasis is being placed on the development of backup systems as a necessary tool to promote rapid and reliable data recovery.  All computers and systems have the possibility of failure.  Planning for that failure can reduce the impact it may have on your business operations.

Traditional backups have usually consisted of tape-based systems that backup data and transactions on a daily basis.  For applications that require a higher degree of security, like credit card transactions or systems that process a large amount of data each hour, a daily back up may not be sufficient protection in the case of disaster.  Fortunately, continuous backup solutions exist.  Here data is automatically copied to a backup system every time a change is made to that data.  This is in essence how the Unix file system works by saving multiple versions of the same document.  Continuous backup allows the user or a system administrator to restore the data to any point in time.

There are many technologies that are designed for continuous backup.  There is considerable effort being done right now to create some sets of standards for continuous backups.  The key to continuous backup is the ability to record all data changes as occur, and to time-stamp them.  This means that one can reset the file to any point in time, rejecting any changes made after that.  Windows XP implements a form of continuous backup with their system restore function.  However the idea of full continuous backup is a much more powerful concept.

It is important to differentiate between continuous backup and what is known as taking snapshots.  Unlike snapshots, continuous backup does not store complete images of the drive taken at given intervals.  It just records the changes made to files.  Snapshots generally require far more storage space than a continuous backup solution.

Continuous backups are quite a bit different from traditional backups. Traditional backups can only restore data to the point at which the backup was taken. With continuous backups, there are no schedules. When data is written to disk, it is also written to a second location. This eliminates the need for nightly scheduled backups.

Near continues backup is a variation of continuous backup where the data is backed up on regular, those discreet, intervals.  A typical length of time for a near continuous backup interval is a couple of minutes.  This reduces the demand that a continuous backup system requires, while still providing a high level of data protection against unforeseen occurrences.

It is important to note that some backup systems are called continuous even though they only perform the backup every hour or so.  In essence, they are actually a snapshot system, and do not offer the full flexibility of a continuous backup system.

It is important any computer user to remember to always back up their data. Although technology is continuously improving, hard drives still fail and data is still lost. Hard drives are an amazing piece of mechanical engineering.  They operate at high speeds spinning at around 7200 rpm.  Although they have been engineered to withstand considerable levels of jarring and vibration, problems can still occur that result in irreparable damage to the drive.  Because of the nature of all storage devices, you should back up any important data you may have.  There are many ways you can unintentionally lose information on a computer.  A power surge, lightning, fire, equipment failure and malicious or innocent tampering with your computer can all cause data loss.

• Digital photos
  
• Personal documents
  
• School or work projects
  
• Music collection
  
• Address book
  
• Email archive
  
• Downloaded software

There are many ways to back up your personal computer.  The cheapest is often just to purchase a CD or DVD burner and a collection of blank disks.  Another way, which can add another level of security to your data, is to purchase storage space on an offsite server, and update your files there on a regular basis.You can individually select the files you want to back up each time, or you can use a back up utility.  There are several programs out there that are suitable for regularly copying the essential portions of your hard drive.  Windows XP includes its own Backup Wizard.  It comes preinstalled on Windows XP Professional, but you will have to install it yourself of the Home edition.  Once it is installed, you can find it by going to the system tools folder in the start menu.

Backing up your data regularly can prevent the need of a difficult data recovery process in the event of a system failure.  When you consider the time and the effort you have spent acquiring or producing the data and programs on your computer, it makes sense to spend just a little bit of time each week ensuring that you do not lose it

The use of computers to commit crimes, has given rise to the field of forensic computing.  Here experts analyze computers and other forms of digital communications in order to find evidence of a crime.  This consists of identifying, preserving, analyzing and presenting digital evidence.

It has been estimated by experts in the legal industry that between 30 and 40 percent of all documents used in the process of litigation were found through forensic investigations of the relevant computers.  If you suspect your company’s computers have been tampered with or used in the commission of a criminal offense, then you need to protect the integrity of your computer system.  Whether the cause is a disgruntled employee who wiped out his computer before leaving or individuals trying to hide evidence of fraud or embezzlement you will want to do as little as possible to those computers until an expert can determine when information is on them.

The first step in forensic computing is to find and recover any evidence that may be useful for law enforcement or for prosecutors.  The techniques for evidence recovery are similar to those for data recovery.  One difference is that the data may have been deliberately deleted, and criminals with varying degrees of sophistication can be more successful at removing tracing of incriminating evidence.

If you believe that you have a computer that that contains electronic evidence of a crime, do not use it any further.  Attempting to access the computer in any way may change the data contained in the drive.  Continuing to use the computer can overwrite the evidence making it permanently unavailable.

A forensic computing expert is needed to properly analyze a computer and check for evidence on it.  An untrained user may accidentally delete important evidence.  A trained and certified expert can ensure that the data remains intact, and thus applicable to a court of law.

There are many crimes for which evidence may be found on the computer.  Besides the usual white collar crimes of money laundering, embezzlement, fraud and stock manipulation, there can also be email records indicating sexual harassment or threats preceding a violent crime.  By mishandling a computer that you suspect to contain evidence of a crime, you could even be found guilty of hindering prosecution.

Besides evidence of criminal offences, there may be evidence of professional misconduct on your office computers.  A forensic computer expert can help you determine whether an employee is stealing from the company, or using company resources in an improper manner.  They may be able to hide their activities from you, but they will not be able to hide them from a forensic expert.

There are many companies offering computer forensic expertise and evidence recovery.  A search on the internet should be able to find one near you.

When your business is hit by fire or flood, insurance should be able to handle the monetary costs of resuming operations.  However, damage to your computers can result in the loss of critical information that money alone cannot replace. Rebuilding customer files and financial records can be extremely time-consuming, if not down right impossible.   If in the unfortunate case that you have not backed up your data in an offsite storage facility, you may still be able to recover your data from damaged or destroyed equipment.  Recovery of data from a hard drive can be critical after a fire or flood.  Data can be recovered from many drives even if all of the plastic components have melted.   

Many drives that have been completely blackened by fire still have intact insides.  A data recovery service may be able to rebuild any damaged electronics to read the data stored on the drive.  However, if the fire was too intense, and the platters within the head assembly have begun to melt, then there in no chance that a successful data recovery can occur.  This will not be known until a data recovery company has the chance to open the drive within a clean room and inspect the damage.

If the hard drive has been submerged for a relatively short period of time, it is possible that the water has not made its way inside the drive.  However, if water has penetrated the drive, it is important to act as quickly as possible.  The drive should be kept wet, as the process of drying it out, when not done carefully, can cause more damage.  This is because the water will probably not be pure, and will leave behind dirt and other minerals that can prohibit data recovery. 

What ever you do, do not attempt to run computer equipment that has been damaged by fire or water without a computer technician checking it out first.  Running power to a damaged drive can completely erase any chance in being able to recover the data from it.  What you need to do is ship it to a data recovery service in its current condition as quickly as possible.  Any delay can decrease the probability that your data can be salvaged.

Make sure you select a data recovery service that has experience dealing with hard drives that have been damaged by fire or water.  While some of the techniques for disaster recovery are the same as for other data recovery, the chances of successfully recovering your data are usually less after a disaster.  By selecting an inexperienced company to handle your recovery needs, you run the risk of losing data that a more experienced company may have been able to save.  Data recovery is usually a one time shot.  If you make a mistake, you do not get a second chance.

Insurance will usually cover the cost of data recovery services in the case of fire or a natural disaster.  This is done as data recovery may be the quickest way to get the company up and running normally.  And the faster your company is back to normal, the happier everyone, from the insurance company, to your clients, to yourself, will be.

A data recovery service is a company that specializes in retrieving files and information, especially from computers that have been damaged or destroyed.  While data recovery software can be used to recover information that has been deleted or from hard drives that have been corrupted, if there is physical damage to the drive, you will probably need to call a data recovery service.  There is most likely physical damage to your drive if there are unusual sounds coming from it, especially clicking, buzzing or scraping noises.  Data recovery software will probably not be able to recover information lost to a damaged drive, and may make it harder for a data recovery service.

All hard drives contain both mechanical and electronic parts.  The mechanical parts can wear out over time, rendering the drive inoperable.  The information is still on the drive, but is inaccessible to you.  It takes a professional technician to recover the data.  A hard drive cannot be opened in a regular environment, because any dust can damage the surface of the disk.  A reputable data recovery service will operate a clean room where they can safely disassemble your drive, free from dust or electrostatic discharge. 

Data recovery services are also needed if the drive has been severely damages by fire or water.  The skills needed to coax data from such a drive are beyond those of a typical computer technician.  There are techniques for retrieving files in these cases, however, and a data recovery service should be able to help you.

There are many companies out there that offer data recovery services.  Just do a Google search for data recovery to find one near you.  Different companies will offer different levels of service, with a corresponding difference in price. 

When shipping your drive to a data recovery service, you will want to wrap it in an anti-static material. A freezer bag is sufficient if there is nothing better.  If you still have the original packaging you should use that, otherwise find a sturdy box about twice as large as the drive.  Use foam padding or bubble wrap to protect the drive inside the box.  Do not use Styrofoam peanuts as they attract static electricity.  If your drive has suffered water damage, it is important that you do not attempt to dry it. The drive needs to be dried under sealed conditions within a clean room.  You should include a damp sponge with the package in order to keep the drive from drying out enroute.  

When looking for a data recovery service try to find one that can offer some levels of guarantee about their work.  Some firms will first try to clone your drive and repair the clone, leaving your damaged drive untouched.  It is also nice when the data recovery company will store your data for a period after recovery to ensure that a backup exists until you are confident you have replaced the data on your system.

With Microsoft Windows being, in one incarnation or another, the most dominant operating system on PC’s today, data recovery solutions for it have been well developed.  There is a myriad of software packages out there that can recover lost files.  However, there are quite a few steps that one can take without having to find and install third party software.  If the files have simply been deleted, the obvious solution is to visit the Recycling Bin to recover them.  However, if there has been a drive failure, more drastic steps must be taken.

More often than not, the cause of the apparent disk failure is due to a corrupt Master Boot Record (MBR) or Partition Table, which often results in a non-booting drive. The most common response to this is to panic and purchase a new drive, or even a new PC in some cases!

With Windows XP, you can check the partitions and file systems by running the Computer Management program.  To run this utility, select the My Computer icon, and then right click.  From the list of options select manage.  This will open the Computer Management window.

On the list on the left side of the window select Disk Management.  Windows will display a list of the hard drives and CD or DVD drives on your computer.  For each hard drive, Windows will specify the file system and the partition structure, as well as the status of the drive.  The file system is how the data and free space are organized so that it the computer can read and write data to the drive.  The primary file systems used by windows are FAT-32 and NTFS.  FAT stands for File Allocation Table, and FAT-32 refers to the use of 32 bit storage elements.  Older versions of Windows, from 95 and earlier, used FAT-16.  NTFS, or NT File System, is now the most common Windows file system, as it is the one primarily used by Windows NT and Windows XP.  Operating systems can generally use older file systems when necessary, meaning you can install that old hard drive from your Windows 3.11 machine into your new, Windows XP machine in order to recover any data from it.

Both FAT and NTFS use a master boot record, or MBR, and a partition table in their file structure.  These are always located in the first sector of the drive.  An error in the MBR or partition table will cause Windows to not be able to read any of the files located on that drive.

There are some utilities included in Windows that can sometime fix problems with the partition table.  These are scandisk and chkdsk. The former is used on older Windows platforms, while the latter is used on Windows NT and XP systems. These applications usually run while Windows is booting up in order to detect problems caused by an abrupt shutdown.  They can also be run from a floppy disk or your Windows installation CD if your computer is unable to boot up.  You should always start with these utilities when trying to repair errors to your file systems.

Data recovery software can be used to correct errors in hard drives that result in data loss.   There are many brands of data recovery software on the market today.  Some are simple shareware utilities, while others are full commercial products. 

It should be noted that you should never attempt to use a data recovery program if you suspect your drive is broken.  If there are unusual noises coming from the drive, you will want to take it to a professional to attempt data recovery.  The more you use a malfunctioning drive, the more damage you can do to it.

Data recovery software typically uses two main techniques to repair errors to file systems that cause files to be inaccessible.  The first is known as consistency checking.  Here the program will scan the logical structure of the file system for missing or unexpected results.  Examples of utilities that follow this reasoning are the Linux fsck and the Microsoft equivalent chkdsk and scandisk.  Fsck refers to file system consistency check, and generally runs when the system is booting up in order to detect errors caused by an incorrect shutdown.  Consistency checking does not work if the file system is too badly damaged. 
           
In the case of severe file system damage, another type of data recovery software can be used.  These programs ignore the file system structure and attempt to read whatever data they can from the drive.  The program then attempts to recreate files using a set of preprogrammed rules.  This type of data recovery does not attempt to repair the file system.  Instead, it tries to recover any files that it can, and then save them to a functioning drive.  The damaged drive can then be either reformatted or replaced, depending on the cause of the damage.   This technique is noticeably slower than consistency checking, can recover data even when the logical structures are badly damaged. 

If your boot drive has crashed, you may be unable to start up your operating system in order to run your data recovery software.  In this case you have a couple of options.  You can try booting up your computer from a CD-ROM, you can purchase a new hard drive and install your operating system on it, or you can remove the hard drive and install it in a different, functioning computer.  All three options have their advantages and disadvantages.

One thing to consider when selecting data recovery software is whether is has an undo option.  You should never perform data recovery on a drive without the ability to undo any changes you are making.  If you are unable to retrieve the missing data with this software, you want the ability to try again with another program or to use a professional data recovery service.  By following these tips hopefully you will be able to safely recover your missing files, and hopefully next time you will have backed up all your essential data.

So you have accidentally deleted those pictures from your vacation last summer, and the recycle bin has been emptied.  Are your files gone for good?  They may not be.  While Microsoft tries to tell you that emptying the recycling bin permanently deletes your files, the truth is that Windows simply marks the file as deleted, and treats the space that it occupies as free. The data is not actually removed from the drive at this time.  Thus until a new file is written onto that space, you have the chance to recover the deleted files.

It is important to differentiate between steps for recovering deleted files and partitions and the steps you need to take if there is physical damage to your drive.  If your hard drive has is making strange noises, shaking, rattling or smoking, then there is no software fix that will resolve your problems.  You need to turn your computer off immediately, remove the hard drive and call a data recovery service if your files are vital.

Whenever you realize that you have lost data, the first thing to remember is not write anything more to the hard drive.  The more data that is written to the hard drive after the accidental deletion of files means that there is a greater probability that the lost data will be gone forever. 

The first step is to visit the recycling bin to see if the missing files are there.  If that is the case, it is a simple procedure to move the files from the recycling bin to the main portion of your file system.  If you were careful with your computer set up, you may have installed a program like Norton SystemWorks to protect yourself from viruses.  Programs like this often include automatic backups.  You will need to check with the software documentation to see how to recover any files from the backup archive.

If Windows cannot help you find your missing files, you will want to consider using data recovery software.  There are many packages out there.  Some are shareware, and a couple are even freeware.  At this time we will not begin to review the many data recovery software solutions that exist.  Suffice it to say that quality data recovery software can retrieve at least part of your missing data with a comparatively high frequency.  It will also include utilities for searching for and organize the missing data, so that you do not need to wade through a list of everything that has been deleted from your computer since you purchased it.

A more serious problem results when a partition containing needed files has been deleted.  You do not want to attempt to create a new partition.  Your data is probably still there.  Creating a new partition will wipe it out completely.  Data recovery software may be able to recover files lost when a partition was deleted.  You can either run the software on another partition, or in the case of a complete hard drive wipeout, you will want to either install another hard drive or remove the problem drive and reinstall it in another computer.

Data recovery is the process by which information that cannot be accessed normally is retrieved. This includes files that have been deleted or lost in partitioning changes.  It also includes recovering data from storage devices that have been damaged, either electronically by corruption or viruses, or mechanically through break down or disaster.  There are many techniques for data recovery.  The correct one will depend on the reason for the data loss.

Perhaps the most common cause of data loss is through the accidental deletion of files.  This is correspondingly the easiest problem to fix.  Most deleted files are not actually removed from the hard drive. The space they occupy is simply marked as being able to be written to by new data.  Given the size of modern hard drives, it can be a considerable length of time before new data is written to that space.  This is how recovery software works.  They are able to track down what data is stored in sectors labeled as blank and recover the desired information.

There are numerous types of mechanical failures that can cause physical damage to storage media. Old style floppy disks and CD-ROMs are susceptible to damage – floppy disks through magnetic fields and CD-ROM’s by having their metallic substrate scratched off.  Hard drives are complicated pieces of machinery with moving parts that operate at speeds like 7200 rpm.  Physical damage always causes at least some data loss.  Often the logical structures of the file system can be damaged.  Before any data can be recovered, the logical structure must be rebuilt. 

Unfortunately, most of us are incapable of repairing any physical damage to our hard drives.  Thus a number of companies have been formed that specialize in the recovery of data from damaged or destroyed hard drives and other storage devices.  A hard drive is a sealed system.  If any dust is allowed to settle on the disk surface, it can cause more damage.  Clean room facilities are needed to reliably repair damaged drives.  A reputable data recovery service will have onsite a Class 100 clean room.  They will also have all the specialized tools and experience necessary to recover lost data.  It can be surprising the amount of data that can be recovered from a drive that would appear to most of us to be destroyed.  There are data recovery companies out there that can salvage disks that have been through fire and the subsequent water damage. 

Data recovery is not limited to hard drives.  With the proliferation of digital recording equipment, from cameras to PDA’s to MP3 players, the use of data recovery techniques on such things as Flash cards is growing.  Also, many organizations find that they have important information stored on older technologies like tape drives or zip disks.  These forms of media may have been damaged over the years, and most companies probably do not have the skills or equipment to recover data from them.  There are data recovery services out there that specialize in this type of work.