Data Recovery Tips From Disklabs

NEVER ASSUME DATA RECOVERY CANNOT BE DONE!

Ensure that you make regular backups
1. Backup on to a floppy disk
2. Backup on to a CD, (Compact Disk)
3. Backup on to a DVD, (Digital Versatile Disk)
4. Backup on to a second hard disk
5. Backup on to an external hard disk
6. Backup on to tape
7. Email the data to a trusted colleague or a friend

Check the data that you are backing up works!

Ensure that your anti virus software is kept up to date.
Disklabs recommend F-Secure anti-virus solutions.

Run a full anti-virus scan every night.

If you hear clicking sounds, turn the computer off immediately and contact Disklabs
DO NOT START UP THE HARD DISK DRIVE AGAIN AS THIS WILL CAUSE MORE DAMAGE.

Do not allow your computer to be operated in extreme temperatures.

Do not rest your computer on an unstable object like a wonky desk, (or place it near to one).

Do not use your computer in a high humidity environment.

Stay calm and contact Disklabs to get help.
More files could be lost through panic measures than anything else.

Do not attempt to solve the problem yourself when your hard drive is making any unusual noise.
Running any commercial utilities will make the situation worse.

Do not shake or hit on the drive when you encounter any problems, as this will only cause further damage to the drive.

Do not do anything further if the system reports a, ‘CRC read IO error’, as this is indication of media failure and files can only be recovered if the disk reaches us early.

Do not run Scandisk as this will stress your disk further if it is already malfunctioning.
Scandisk could only solve trivial logical problems.

Do not attempt to format your drive or change the partitions when you are unable to access your files.

Do not run any utility programs unless you are a professional computer technician.
Improper techniques often make recovery more difficult and in some cases it will result in permanent data loss.

Contact Disklabs, a professional data recovery company with years of proven experience and an on-site clean room.

Under no circumstances open your hard disk drive yourself. If it is idle curiosity, we may even send you one of ours to look at.
NEVER OPEN A HARD DISK DRIVE – you will almost certainly make matters worse, and invalidate any warranty that remained.

Constant errors on boot-up or during your systems operation may be the computers way of saying that the hard disk drive is failing.
Use this time wisely to back up or send your drive to Disklabs to ensure that the maximum data is retrieved.

Make sure that the data recovery company that you send your valuable data to ‘images’, (makes an identical bit by bit copy of), your hard disk drive prior to attempting to recover the data.
If they don’t ‘image’ your disk/camera card etc, they are probably overwriting the very files you are trying to recover.