Advice and Quick Tips
Don’t Panic
If you have critical data that MUST be recovered, then carefully read and consider the following tips.
Take a few minutes to relax. If you have experienced a data loss, you are probably under a lot of pressure. Unfortunately, whether you like it or not, there is going to be some down time. Remember – quick fix solutions and poorly thought out recovery attempts WILL only make things worse.
If possible, try to set up an alternate system. People can often get back to work on new data, while old files are being recovered.
Before deciding if you need data recovery, re-check the obvious. Are all power and drive cables properly connected? Is configuration or driver information correct? Try the defective unit with a different adapter/controller interface or on a different computer.
Try to determine just how important the data is to you or your organization. Data Recovery can turn out to be an expensive proposition. Give consideration to all available options. Can you recover from an old backup? – or – original documents?
Don’t Let anyone (including support technicians, repair facilities or other data recovery companies) run any utility or make any recovery attempts – UNLESS they have successfully mirrored any parts of the drive that are physically accessible. The object of most fix/doctor/repair programs is to try to make the drive, filesystem or volume usable – NOT to recover existing data. Also do not boot from or run any programs from the damaged device.
Proceed with caution! When facing a critical loss of data, the steps that you take and the choices you make, must be very carefully considered. Here are some considerations to help make your decision. How to Choose a Data Recovery Service
Emergency Recovery 