Keep PC Safe

There are many data recovery software packages out there. Some are shareware, and some

are even freeware, but the majority of quality programs do have a price attached. Some

commercial packages will offer to attempt to recover your data for free, but then you need to

purchase the software if it is successful. At this point you need to determine how much your

data is worth to you. It makes sense to spend a certain amount of money of data recovery

software if it means your business is not disrupted or your precious holiday photos are not lost

forever.

Two main techniques are used by data recovery software to retrieve files. These are

consistency checking and surface scanning. Consistency checking involves scanning the

logical structure of the disk and checking for any errors or missing data. It then tries to repair

the logical structure so that the data can be retrieved. Examples of programs that use

consistency checking include scandisk and chkdsk for Windows, disk utility for Macs, and fsck

for Linux. Surface scanning is slower, but works for drives with more heavily damaged logical

structures. Here the software attempts to recreate any data it can find. It uses a system of

rules to determine which data is part of which file, and the writes the collected files to a new

drive. Surface scanning does not repair a damaged file structure, but it can recover the data

that is on it so that the drive can be reformatted.

Before you try running data recovery software, you should make sure that the program will not

attempt to do any changes to your drive without being able to undo them. The last thing you

need is for your data recovery software to make matters worse by permanently erasing the data

you are trying to recover.