Sep
7
2009
When Data is Lost. Advice to Stay Alive
Author: mpanicWithout a doubt we’ve all felt the sinking feeling in our stomach when a hard drive crashes, a computer is corrupted or somehow your important files can’t be found on the computer. It’s nerve-wrecking, usually leads to cold sweats and in the end, an explanation to someone as to where the data went.
Data loss is something that can’t be stopped, it can and will happen at some point to all of us. We’ve outlined how to back data up, why using cloud computing has its advantages, and how to access the cloud offline, but none of that will help when the data is lost.
First, relax, chances are some of it can be retrieved. The most important thing to do is realize exactly when it happened and then start the steps to recovery. There is software to recover deleted files from your hard drive, if you aren’t comfortable doing it yourself, there is a huge list of data recovery companies that will for a fee.
Check external hard drives, USB thumb drives and even your sent email folder to see if you can salvage some of the data from correspondences with co-workers, or even yourself. Lastly, look in your recycle bin or trash can, see if there is still data in there that somehow got accidentally deleted, more often then not you’ll find what you are looking for right there.