Distinguishing Between Data That Can and Can't Be Recovered

By James Walsh

1) Logical Loss of Data: Logical loss of data happens when the data itself is damaged, but the disk may not be affected, and may remain completely unscathed.

• Unintentional formatting of partition or drive: This is one of the classic cases of clumsy operation, and still surprisingly common. The space occupied by data on the disk is shown as free for use by this action, but they are still there inside the disk, though not in the same place any more. The FAT addresses of the files have changed, but they can still be located and recovered.
• Virus attack: A virus is a programme that writes itself automatically over and over again, deleting and corrupting system files in the process. It is strongly advised that all corporate houses attacked by viruses resort to professional help and report the incident to the law enforcement agencies. Your data may be safeguarded for the time being, but if you do not help in the detection of an attacker, there might be worse damage done by the same culprit tomorrow.
• Malicious formatting: Not all cases of malicious formatting can be recoverable, but a really good company would be able to recover most of it, because it is not so easy to totally delete the contents of a disk.
• Fragmentation: It may be a painful process, but fragmented files may also be recovered if the process had not been too thorough.

2) Physical Loss of Data: As the term suggests, in this case, the storage media is physically affected, but the attack / damage is not directly on the data. But this type of damage is also tougher to recover.

• Impact: Contemporary systems are very hardy, and can take up to 300g of shock. It is advisable to just bundle the affected object for expert handling. If you damage it further by tinkering around yourself, you stand to lose the insurance too!
• Fire: Even if the gadgets look like they have been roasted, don’t try to pry out the disk yourself. If the temperature has not crossed the melting point of iron, the data is till there. Water is bad for putting out the fire, because it can enter through the protective covering and leak onto the surface of the disk itself.
• Water: There can be cases when water itself is the agent of damage. In that case, the wet condition should be maintained, since the water leaves behind a coating of foreign bodies when it dries, and corrodes the metal. So keep a soaked computer wet till you hand it over for recovery.

Data That Cannot Be Recovered

Unfortunately, not all data can be recovered. Here is a list of the hopeless cases:

Logical loss of data: There are two methods that can wipe out data – shedding and overwriting. In the first case, the data is deleted again and again until its ‘pieces’ become so fragmented that they can no more be recognised. Similarly, there are certain technologies, for example, certain makes of digital cameras, which make space by writing over previous data. In this case, the overwritten data will be lost.

Physical loss of data: Data can be lost if water gets onto the disk surface and dries on it too. Similarly, a molten disk is dead. If the vertical impact of a fall is greater than the speed of the read head, then, data will be ‘banged’ out of the disk.

Miracles and Statistics

The recovery rate for firms in the UK is very good, as the topmost companies can achieve up to 90% data recovery. The BBC drew up a list of the top ten data recovery wonders of 2006. It featured a man from Scotland who drove over his laptop twice, an irate old woman who ripped open the keyboard and threw it out because her son’s computer was not working properly, and a company director whose laptop slid into his bubbly tub while he was trying to multi-task in the bath. 11% of all damages done to computers are caused by humans. Unfortunately, the chances of recovery will be very slim unless immediate precautions are taken. So if you want a miracle, don’t try to work it out yourself.

About the Author

James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. If you are concerned about data loss and would like more information on Data Recovery see http://www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk

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