data-recovery

It should be a simple rule that every computer user should follow: back up your data. It is not a matter of “if” your computer will give you problems. It is a matter of “when.” This applies to everyone. Students, for example, should back up regularly. Your whole academic year, with notes, papers, presentation, lecture material and other necessary things are on that laptop and/or desktop. And of course, there are the music, games and other personal stuff there too. If a hard drive fails, your academic year can be put in jeopardy. This is only one example. Everyone has important material on the computer.

Read more on Simple Backups Can Save You Time and Money…

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When is the last time you backed up your important data? I’m talking about things that cannot be reinstalled. I know people who have never done it at all, because they simply don’t know how or where to do so! I’m about to tell you about a way you can do offsite backups easily. These guys wanted me to do a video about their services, but I wasn’t too keen on the idea. Until, that is, they offered up discounts for our community!

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Jeff Phillips has had it “up to here” with Data Recovery and Computer Repair Breakthroughs. He decided to write me this morning with his thoughts on the matter:

It really frustrates me that consumers are losing their valuable hard drive data from self proclaimed “Data Recovery Experts.” I just invented the world’s first universal tool to remove parts out of a hard drive without damaging the components – so I know a bit about data recovery.

I am a former computer instructor and I run SD Computers and Data Recovery. It bugs me that other firms tout themselves as experts, but do not even know the basics of static grounding when working with hard drives or that the drives are calibrated to individual specs and not meant to be dismantled.

Surprisingly, the majority of computer repair and data recovery facilities don’t even know that removing the cover of the hard drive prevents data retrieval in most cases. We also created a process of obtaining factory assembled calibration settings without opening the cover. This break-through application of technology utilizes high end lasers to evaluate the perimeter settings. We can often now repair even a electrically damaged drive without removing a screw or picking up a soldering iron.

I have been wanting to help educate the public so that they can evaluate a computer repair and data recovery shop and have a chance at salvaging their information; or at least be aware of the key warning signs that might indicate an eminent failure, so they can copy their data prior to hard drive failure. But also, there are several key factors to look for when taking your computer to a repair firm for basic repair.

Most computer technicians have less than 5 years experience, and they don’t even know how to properly handle a hard drive or understand the symptoms, to say the least about having the ability to educate the customer on how to prevent future data loss.

There is so much more to share and I can organize the documentation and graphics should you desire. True data recovery experts of a very elite group, but there seems to be a new data recovery guy popping up every day that is really just experimenting with customer data, and preventing the few expert shops from ever getting data.

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The other day, Veronica came to me with a problem: all of the files on her USB stick were no longer there – the drive had been wiped out. She’s not quite sure what happened, but I imagine it was related to quality of the hardware itself (it was one of those branded tchotchkes everybody gives away at conferences). I knew she hadn’t formatted the drive, as that would require jumping through a couple of minor technical loops. Happens all the time.

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I almost fell out of my chair when I read this. I trust Dave Methvin and anything he says:

Even though the Home Basic and Home Premium versions of Vista are backing up all files including user data files, users can’t access the backups of their own data. Want proof that the backups are there? Use Microsoft’s Windows Anytime Upgrade feature to upgrade from Home to Ultimate. When we did that, the Previous Versions tab appeared and revealed changes to data files that were made before the upgrade occurred.

Read more on How Not to Recover Data from a Vista Backup…