Logical Data Loss Situation and Data Recovery Solutions

The logical hard drive failure or malfunction, are generally the result of the file system corruption, operating system malfunction, system metadata structure corruption, virus infection and so forth. The file system corruption and damage to metadata structure generally occurs due to virus infection, accidental deletion of major registry components or key files and even improper system shutdown in some situations. In such cases, all of your critical and precious data becomes inaccessible and serious data loss situations occur. In order to overcome these situations, hard drive recovery is required.

This is also important to bear in mind that in most of the situations, where the logical data loss has occurred, the hard disk is still recognizable by the computer’s BIOS (Basic Input/Output System), but the system won’t boot. In most of the logical hard drive failure cases, the data remains intact on the storage media, even if your system has rendered it inaccessible. There are mainly two errors involved in the logical hard drive failure and data loss:

1 Human Errors: It includes accidental deletion or data or formatting of hard drive, sabotage or improper system shutdown. In most of the cases, these situations can be handled easily through the data recovery software.

2 Software Errors: Such errors generally caused by the software corruption or software malfunction. These errors include operating system corruption, file system damage and system metadata structure corruption. In order to handle these cases, you are required to opt for hard drive recovery solutions.

The logical hard drive failure and data loss situations are not much critical to handle. In the majority of data loss situations, you can easily and effectively retrieve your most precious and valuable data. The recovery is best possible through the application of powerful and advanced third party data recovery software.

These software are particularly designed to methodically scan whole hard drive and extract all of the missing, lost or inaccessible data, files, folders and hard drive partitions from it. Advanced and powerful scanning algorithms are used by these software to achieve absolute recovery of significant data.

The recovery applications come equipped with interactive and simple graphical user interface and thus they do not require sound and prior technical skills to ensure complete and effective recovery. With read only and non destructive conduct, these recovery tools are completely safe to use.

How Can We Recover Data From Corrupted Hard Drive

It is a situation that almost every computer user, either professional or general, has face at some point of time: a damaged hard drive and data loss. In such situations, you might come across a number of error messages such as- “Disk 0 error” and “Invalid drive specification”. The hard drive failure could occur due to logical or physical reasons that make all of your critical data inaccessible. In such situations, you need to opt for appropriate data recovery Solution, as per the cause of data loss.

Here are some other facts in this case:

• Your critical data and information was not backed up properly

• The system can not boot up at all

• You had accessed Setup and attempted to manually enter the settings for hard drive type when the “Auto” did not work

• There wasn’t any startup disk made by your system

• There are, generally speaking two classes of hard drive recovery- Logical and Physical:

• The logical recovery is performed to handle logical data loss situations.
  

• The data loss, which occurs due to file system corruption, hard drive formatting, virus infection, operating system malfunction, system meta data corruption and other similar reasons is known as logical data loss. It can be handled with the help of third party recovery software.
  
  • These applications are known as data recovery tools which employ effective and efficient scanning mechanisms to thoroughly scan whole hard drive and retrieve all of the missing, lost or inaccessible data. With interactive and simple graphical user interface and read only design, these software are completely easy and safe to use.
  
  
• The physical recovery is carried out to handle the physical damaged hard drives and other storage media. The physical data loss might occur due to read/write head crash, platter damage, logic board crash, spindle motor damage and so forth. Such kind of damages require special and personalized help from the recovery professionals.

This help is known as hard drive recovery service, performed in safe and sterile environment of Clean Rooms using advanced and cutting-edge techniques. Recovery professionals know all ins and outs of hard drive and possibly recover lost data in most of the physical data loss situations.

Windows Error Data Inpage

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Windows NT-based versions use a paging file, located in the root directory of boot partition. Windows requires this file while writing either kernel or memory dumps after system crash. This memory dump is further copied to a separate file, after system reboot. But sometimes, system reports that it could not read requested page of kernel data from the paging file into memory. Such situations usually occur due to virus infection, bad sector in paging file, hard disk controller issues, defective hardware, failing RAM and rarely when, nonpaged pool resources run out. As a result, in most of the cases, data becomes inaccessible and you require using your recent data backup to restore. However, if backup fails to restore due to corruption or is totally absent, data recovery solutions can be used to locate and recover lost information.

You might receive the below mentioned error message with your Windows-based system:

“KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR”

This is a stop error message, followed by a parameter called I/O status.

Cause

Windows is not able to read paging file data. The specific cause depends on the I/O status code that the error message displays:

• I/O status 0xC000009C or 0xC000016A: hard drive bad sectors
• I/O status 0xC0000185: disk controller concerns, defective hard disk cabling, improper termination and MBR virus infection
• I/O status code 0xC000009D: power cables, disk controller concerns or improperly configured disk
• I/O status 0xC000009A: lack of nonpaged pool resources

Solution

Apply these methods to solve such issues:

• Restart the system, it will automatically run autochk to map bad sectors. If it fails, run chkdsk /f /r command on the system partition. If you cannot boot the system, run Recovery Console to run chkdsk /r
• Make sure that all the hard disk cables are properly connected and are healthy
• Ensure that hard disk is properly configured in BIOS
• Scan the computer for virus infection in MBR
• Run hardware diagnostic to check if RAM is failing. Replace your RAM.
• Reformat the disk to correct MBR infection issues or if chkdsk reports logical bad sectors. Reformat the disk and restore lost data from backup. If backup fails, use data recovery software. These are powerful data recovery tools that provide safe, efficient and complete recovery.

The Cost and Effects of Data Loss on an Organization

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There are a number of unfortunate situations that could befall your data and the information technology system of your company. From the hardware failure to software malfunction, there are so many pitfalls, which require a large amount of investment, but the data and information is the most precious asset that your organizations has in its portfolio. In any case of data loss, the recovery is potential through appropriate hard drive recovery solutions. These solutions are different for different data loss situations and can effectively retrieve your critical data.

Nevertheless of what happens to the hardware resources of your company, it could be replaced without any problem. Regardless of damage, theft or complete destruction of your computer’s hard drives, motherboards or whole computer, you can purchase a new one, but this is not true about your data. If you do not have proper or complete backup of your data and the data loss situations occur, the only way to get your data back is to perform recovery.

You can secure your data and prevent data loss situations by creating regular backup of your data on reliable storage media. Nevertheless of whether you’re an individual, a small organization or a large corporation, there are online data backup solutions available, which are completely tailored to your personal requirements. You might need to backup financial reports and critical database on a regular basis to minimize the probability of data loss.

According to survey by a reputed magazine, you need to spend almost $20,000 to reproduce 20MB of data. It was also said in the report that 43% companies got closed immediately after data loss and 50% in almost 2 years after data loss. So you can understand the worst effects of data loss on your business and thus you should always be aware of data recovery solutions.

The recovery solutions are available into two different forms, applicable according the cause of data loss. These solutions are recovery service and recovery software. The hard drive recovery service is helpful in retrieving data from physically damaged storage devices by repairing them.

On the other hand, data recovery software are third party tools, which are designed to methodically scan entire hard drive and extract as much data as possible from them. These tools are completely easy and safe to use.

Data Recovery

I found this fascinating quote today:

The data recovery tools help you to retrieve your critical data that could have been lost due to corrupted storage media. The software based recovery is performed by unique tools that get installed on your computer system. The hardware level recovery is carried out by professionals with in-depth exposure of data recovery services. Such data recovery solutions consist of repair of damaged hard drive components, drive imaging, safe and quicker data retrieval from the drive images. The recovery process using both these methods is fully reliable. Such specialized recovery techniques can solve all the issues pertaining to data loss. The data loss might occur in a number of ways as:Eva Jones, Data Recovery, May 2009

 

USB Drive Data Recovery

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Being small, the USB flash drives and memory sticks go with the user everywhere and can be used to store huge amount of data. On the other hand, there is a constant risk with USB drives of being dropped or crashed. Such situations cause critical data loss and require hard drive recovery to be resolved. The USB drives may also become inaccessible due to dust particles, which enter in the drive. Even without the common trauma, USB flash drives are subject to some types and probability of failure, which a modern electrical device encounters.

Although, the cost of replacing the damaged or failed USB flash drive or memory stick may not be much high, but the cost of lost data could be very high. Loss of personal as well as business critical data may lead to serious situations of business loss. Such cases require to follow the proper procedures to get all of your missing critical data back.

The procedures, which are required to retrieve data from USB flash drives, are generally as time consuming and complex as for the hard drives. You should always treat the damaged drive according to the importance and value of your data they store. You can avoid data loss situations by following the underwritten steps:

1 While purchasing a USB drive, judge the quality and robustness of the drive, not just the huge capacity for small price.

2 Keep the USB flash drives in clean and safe environment.

3 Always create two or three backup copies of sensitive data as its loss might harm whole business.

4 Always stop the functionality of USB drive before removing it from your computer. Even a minor damage to the drive can make all of your critical data inaccessible.

Data Recovery is potential in most of the data loss situations. Recovery can easily be performed with the help of powerful and advanced third party hard drive recovery software. These software are particularly designed to effectively scan whole hard drive and extract all of the data from it. Scanning is carried out using advanced scanning mechanisms.

These software come equipped with interactive and simple graphical user interface and thus let you carry out easy and quick recovery of your critical data. They ensure safe extraction of your critical data as they have read only and non destructive conduct.

How to Loss data due to deletion of SAM file

The user information in Windows NT operating systems (such as Windows 7, Vista, 2003, XP and 2000) is stored in SAM (Security Accounts Manager) database. Corruption of SAM file primarily occurs due to operating system malfunctioning, file system corruption, software bugs and more. Two major consequences that you might encounter after the SAM file gets corrupted are unbootable system and data inaccessibility. In such situations, an ideal solution is to restore the data from an up-to-date backup. However, if an updated backup is not available or backup falls short of restoring the desired information, data recovery software comes to rescue.

SAM file, in Windows Vista, is stored in %SystemRoot%\System32\config\ folder. The computer system halts if the C:\Windows\System32\config\SAM file gets deleted. In addition, the system automatically reboots during the startup, right after you see the first sign of mouse pointer. The process of automatic rebooting moves into infinite loop, making the system unusable.

To overcome such data loss scenarios, you need to follow the below measures:

1 Copy the SAM file from C:\Windows\System32\config\RegBack\SAM file

2 Try to get into Safe Mode and create a backup of your data. However, in most of the above cases, you are unable to get into Safe Mode as your system restarts automatically.

3 Windows Vista always maintains a backup copy of SAM file at C:\Windows\System32\config\RegBack folder. You can attempt to save the copy of the SAM file. But, it is practically impossible to copy the SAM file from another Vista computer as it contains the sensitive secret user password data.

4 Use Recovery Console Environment or boot into another system that allows access to NTFS filesystem of Vista system drive.

If all the above measures fail to perform and the data still remains inaccessible, then you will need to reinstall Windows. A fresh reinstall of Windows will erase all the files and folders from the selected hard drive partition. For complete recovery of data from a formatted hard drive, you need to opt for advanced data recovery software. Such data recovery applications employ effective scanning algorithms to systematically recover lost data from a formatted hard drive.

Hard Drive Errors and Recovery

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Most of the users don’t realize that hard disk might catch corruption and give errors during its regular operations. As hard disk technology is being taken to a next level with compacter storage, faster spin rates and weaker interference preventing signals, the odds of hard disk errors are increasing at much higher pace. It would be far better to state that hard disk technology has advanced to an extent that it is completely impractical to even avoid such problems. As a result of this, more and more data loss cases are being observed. But fortunately to cope up with such situations, data recovery technology is also being simultaneously enhanced so as to recover data.

Hard disk manufacturers know the fact that stored data is crucial and so, there should be special error detecting mechanisms that could warn you against forthcoming failures. One of the important technologies, introduced so far, is SMART. It maintains and keeps regular check on your drive status and generates reports. So if your hard drive is warming up at an alarming rate, SMART status will allow you to pre-detect it and take corrective measures, before it may become too late. But as the more sophisticated technology is being pushed, more improved error detection protocols must be designed to maintain a level of data security.

Regardless of error detection technologies in use, data loss is not an exception. A failed hard disk shows typical failure symptoms and errors, some of which are:

• Head crash. During such events, a hard disk produces clicking sounds
• Spindle motor crash: When it occurs, hard drive stops spinning as it doesn’t get any power to rotate platters
• Electronic circuitry damage: It is also characterized by a totally dead drive.
• Actuator crash: This arm controls head movement. Hence, when it gets damaged, head loses its capability to move and appears to be crashed.

Hard drive recovery service solutions are available for all possible hard drive crashes events. Such failed hard drives are treated with manual procedures, advanced tools and technology-driven techniques. A failed hard drive is opened in Clean Rooms, which serve as the sterile and filtered surroundings for data recovery.

Error Code 0x800703e7 in Windows XP

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Microsoft enforces a Windows Product Activation (WPA) as an anti-piracy measure for use of Windows XP. It ensures that Windows XP installation is limited to only a single machine. Once installed, you must activate Windows XP within 30 days or else the installation will become unusable. At subsequent boots of activating Windows XP, the system checks to see if WPA is still running. But if you find Windows XP giving errors that it cannot correctly check the license key of Windows XP, one of the possible reasons could be file system corruption. Since your data becomes inaccessible, you should use your last data backup to completely restore the lost information. However, in case of backup issues (for example it is corrupted, not updated or absent), you need to use data recovery software.

You might receive the below error message when trying to start a Windows XP-based computer:

“A problem is preventing Windows from accurately checking the license for this computer. Error code: 0x800703e7”

Furthermore, you cannot access the stored data.

Cause

The file system of your hard disk is corrupted. It prevents Windows license from being recognized by the system.

Solution

To fix file system corruption, consider following these methods:

• You should run Chkdsk command to detect and repair file system corruption. Chskdsk is the command-line tool that checks file system for integrity and fixes several logical file system errors.

• If Chkdsk cannot correct file system corruption issues, reformat the hard drive as the last resort. File system contains metadata information of all the files and folders that are present on disk. So, when you reformat the hard drive, system loses the capability to locate this data and hence all the data seems to be deleted. So, you should use your recent data backup to restore lost information. But if you find backup giving errors, scan the affected disk using powerful disk recovery applications.

Data recovery software are advanced tools built to use scanning algorithms for lost data. Besides basic recovery functionalities, they provide you interactive interface, non-destructive recovery and effective options to enhance recovery results.

File System Corruption due to /3GB Switch in Windows XP

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Windows XP supports use of /3GB switch that forces an x86-based system to allocate 1 GB of virtual address space to the kernel and executive programs and 3 GB to programs. In other words, this switch is used to change the way 4 GB virtual address space is split up. Usually, when /3GB switch is not used, Windows allocates 2GB of memory to the programs. But if you are using /3GB switch in Boot.ini file, then in critical conditions, you may observe your system’s file system as corrupt. This leads to data inaccessibility and to restore the lost information, you need to use your recent data backup that should be valid plus updated. However, if data backup is not available, damaged or is not updated enough, make use of Data Recovery applications to restore your lost data completely.

As a practical instance, on a Windows XP Professional based system that is configured with several graphic adapters, you use /3GB switch in the Boot.ini file. In such situation, the memory that is available for kernel services may exhaust. As a result of this, file system might get corrupt and Windows disk services might fail. In addition, you receive an error message, after some time you start Windows:

“Delayed Write Failed”

Or

“Unable to write file file_name”

Cause

The above issue occurs if configured graphic adapters use many system PTEs (Page Table Entries). This ultimately results into insufficient memory addresses for Windows kernel and hence, the file system gets corrupt.

Solution

You are recommended to install the latest service pack of Windows XP or use /USERVA=2944 Boot.ini option in order to reduce the available user memory address space. To correct file system corruption issues, follow these methods:

• Run CHKDSK on your hard disk
• If problem persists, reformat the hard disk to recreate the file system and restore from recent data backup.

In case of backup unavailability or any issues, scan your hard disk using commercial data recovery software. These applications prove valid and safe recovery tools, being equipped with powerful scanning algorithms, read-only design, advanced data recovery features and self-descriptive interface.

Hard Drive Recovery- Need for Every Computer User

There is nothing more annoying than losing critical and valuable files, which you have created by spending your precious time, from your computer hard drive. In such cases, the data recovery solutions come for your rescue. These solutions are helpful in extracting lose, missing or inaccessible data from damaged or failed storage devices, that can not be accessed normally. The type of recovery solution depends upon the cause of data loss.

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Data Loss Causes

Data loss is a serious situation where you can not access your vital and precious data that has been stored on hard drive or any other storage media. The stored data could be business documents, financial reports, personal pictures, music files, important Emails and more. The major causes of data loss and hard drive failure are as given below:

1 Virus Infection: Viruses and Trojans are the biggest threat to modern computers and data. In our daily life, there is always a high risk of virus infection and data loss. Viruses can damage the system files, disk data structure, operating system, file system and even delete the data files.

2 Hardware Issues: Hardware failure and physical damage to the hard drive is the highest contributing factor of data loss. Sometimes, when you power up your computer, you may hear some scrapping, clicking, ratting and buzzing sounds. These sounds come when the hard drive head, spindle motor, logic board, disk platters or other internal components of hard drive get damaged.

3 Human Error: Hard drive formatting and accidental deletion are the major causes of data loss. Accidental deletion normally occurs when you delete some critical data by emptying the Recycle Bin or Trash Bin folders.

4 Software Malfunction: Operating system failure, file system corruption, system file deletion, boot loader corruption, partition table corruption and damage to other logical components may cause critical data loss.

In such situations, you need to opt for hard drive recovery solutions. In case of physical data loss, you need to take help from recovery professionals to get your critical data back. This help is known as data recovery service, which is performed in safe and sterile environment of Clean Rooms.

On the other hand, logical data loss situations can be handled easily and effectively with the help of hard drive recovery software. These are third party tools, designed to methodically scan entire hard drive and extract all of your data from it.

How to Perform Data Recovery on Your Own

Computer is one of the most critical and widely used tools, which provides you the capability to store all of your critical and valuable data in a convenient place in and in most of the cases makes it portable. Although, it is very convenient but may fail at some point of time and result into critical data loss. Recovery of apparently deleted, lost or missing files and folders and hard drive recovery can generally be performed in a simple and easy way with the help of recovery solutions.

In the event of computer failure or hard drive crash, your precious data becomes inaccessible and your computer system becomes completely unusable. The majority of computer users think that the lost data is gone forever. There is not way to get it back, other than recreating it.

In some situations, when you start up your computer, it can not boot up and your might come across a number of error messages. These error messages generally occur due to boot loader corruption, MBR (Master Boot Record) corruption, primary partition corruption, incorrect BIOS (Basic Input/Output System), damaged hard drive controllers and many more.

The data loss scenarios can be divided into two broad categories:

1 Physical Data Loss

2 Logical data Loss

The physical data loss situations encounter due to damage to the internal or external component of hard drive such as read/write head, disk platters, actuator arm, drive shaft, logic board and disk controllers. Due to damage to these parts, the hard drive stop functioning properly and the stored data can not be accessed.

In such situations, to gain access of your critical data, you need to get the damaged components of hard drive repaired or replaced. It is possible with the help of data recovery professionals, who provide personalized recovery service. The service is carried out in safe and controlled environment of Clean Rooms using advanced technologies.

On the other hand, in case of logical data loss, all of the physical components of hard drive remain intact. It generally occurs due to file system corruption, virus infection, hard drive formatting, accidental deletion, operating system malfunction and so forth. Such situations are not as critical as physical data loss and can be handled easily using hard drive recovery software.