Here is the situation. A laptop comes to us with a dead hard drive. Unfortunately, the user needs some files off the dead drive. After much research on the internet and a couple of data recovery quotes we decide to try and recover the information ourselves.

Luckily for us the drive won’t spin up at all. I say luckily because the usual problem is that the circuit board on the bottom of the drive went bad. That doesn’t mean that something else isn’t the problem, but replacing the circuit board is the simplest thing to try.

The first thing needed is another hard drive. That may sound easy but it isn’t. You need an identical hard drive, and by identical I mean the same model number, part number, firmware, everything. In our case we had a Hitachi Travelstar hard drive that had three numbers to match. The important numbers were the model number, part number, and MLC number. I believe the MLC number has something to do with the firmware revision but don’t quote me on that. After speaking with Hitachi I was referred to a company called CueTech. They specialize in finding "hard to find" or obsolete computer parts. The wanted to charge between $200 and $400 for the drive, which I thought was reasonable for the work required to find one. Instead of using them I decided to search on my own and after two days, still had not found another drive for sale that met my needs. We then started looking in house for similar laptops and found one that had an identical drive. Now we were in business.

Now that we had our drive, we needed to protect ourselves because the user wanted their machine back in working order. So before we started any kind of surgery we made a ghost image of their hard drive. After waiting the 20 minutes or so for the backup to finish we began the surgery. First we removed the hard drive from the working system and laid it on a static pad with the circuit board up. We then used a T-5 Torx drive to remove the screws securing the circuit board to the hard drive. Your drive may need a different size or style of screwdriver. We then repeated the process on the bad drive. We put the circuit board from the good drive onto the dead hard drive and placed it back in the laptop. It booted! As soon as we new it worked we then setup the system to make a quick drive image. After waiting another 20 minutes we had a drive image of the bad hard drive and our data was recovered.

To finish the process we had to put the circuit board back on the original good hard drive and verify that it was working correctly. Once that was completed and the laptop returned to its owner, we installed a brand new hard drive in the system that had the original issue. The last step was to restore the drive image to the new hard drive, verify that it worked, and give the laptop back to the owner.

Gary Higbee
http://www.greatnorthcomputing.com - A community for SysAdmins and Programmers.

When a Digital Disaster Strikes, Who are you going to call?

ECO Data Recovery has been recovering mission critical data for over 20years.

Once upon a time, if your hard drive failed you had it repaired. This was a much more cost effective solution rather than buying a new “Whopping” 5Mb (Yes that is Correct 5 MEGAbyte, not Gigabyte!) MFM Interface drives for nearly $1,000.00!

Wow! How times have changed.

All hard drives fail. Plain and Simple. Javier Trilla, Recovery Engineer at ECO Data Recovery says “Every hard drive will fail.” “It’s not a matter of If, but a matter of when.” A vast majority of the newer, larger capacity hard drives are manufactured overseas, using cheaper labor, cheap parts and not much consideration to a long life span.

Of course the drastic reduction in the cost of a new hard drive has dropped by leaps and bounds as well.

A perfect analogy of data loss would be: “You don’t know what you have, until it’s gone!”

Once you can no longer access your information, you begin to realize the full value of it.

Routinely opening everyday working files, programs, and other contents that are relied upon daily, are no longer available to the user. This can bring any business “to its knees”, and fast.

These days, when disaster strikes, you have alternatives. In our nearly “paperless” society, the data that is stored on hard disk drives, and other forms of storage media, can be truly priceless.

The data stored on a drive, may be Payroll, Employee Information, Inventory or any number of items that when without, business continuity becomes nonexistent. (In other words, you are basically “Out of Business”) This however is simply not an option for most companies, regardless of size.

Enter “Data Recovery”. The term means just that. The recovery/retrieval of mission critical information.

There are numerous listings for data recovery services on any search engine. This simply underscores the importance of such service. There must be a million listings for websites that offer data recovery services. The fact of the matter however, is that there are maybe 15-20 quality, qualified data recovery labs, that specialize in hardware failure. Any physical issues MUST be overcome, prior to moving onto a “Logical Level” recovery.

The hard drive in every computer will eventually fail. Will you be prepared? Will you have a strategic back up plan in place? Most businesses, whether small, medium or large will have a comprehensive plan to get back up and running. Of course there are just as many who will not. This is where the need for data recovery arises. It can be an Invaluable service, that can also “make or break” a small company.

When a Digital Disaster Strikes, Who are you going to call? Let ECO Data Recovery Pick up the Digital Pieces of your Life.

Brian Cain
Eco Data Recovery
4115 Burns Rd.
Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33410
1-800-339-3412
561-691-0019
http://www.EcoDataRecovery.com
brian@EcoDataRecovery.com

Just another day, doing as you always do with your computer. Making documents, working on your finances, updating your family’s website or conducting your home or online business.

Suddenly, strange errors start appearing, your computer makes loud scratching sounds and then, nothing.

A hard drive crash can mean much more than the loss of a part of your computer. Often this is the primary place for storage of your information, family photos, work related files, favorite mp3s and other things that have often taken months if not years to make.

The loss of an operating system like Windows is not as serious, you have the disk already, all your programs are on CD, but your personal information needs to be protected by you.

What steps need to be taken to make sure that such a loss does not occur?

The actual idea of data protection is not new, but still many people only face it’s reality when it’s too late.

The most essential basic steps are as follows:

• Virus protection software
• Personal firewall if you use the internet
• Save personal files to CD or DVD

Virus protection and firewall software will protect you from attacks that can destroy software and your files. Saving files to another place makes sure there is a permanent record of all those things you need. The more frequent you save elsewhere the less you will lose in case of disaster.

All of the above protect you from loss of software due to some programming, but other things can cause data loss too.

The other things are hardware related, meaning that the actual place the files are stored is damaged or destroyed.

Some things that could cause hardware failure or loss are

• Lightning strike
• Theft
• Hard drive failure

Lightning is very hard to protect from. The very fact that it is such a powerful force means that the most basic of lightning protectors could not protect from a direct strike. True protection for this costs a lot and is very often not preventable. If you live in a region with frequent strikes, take greater care in backing up frequently to a somewhere and perhaps even moving that informatino to another site.

Theft happens from time to time, once your computer is gone, there is not too much hope of getting it back.

Hard drive failures are when the drive itself fails due to some internal problems or any of the preceding physically harmful events.

All of these are quite horrible but what can be done to prevent it.

Backups have been and will continue to be the best way. If you have a copy of something in two places there is always another one if worst comes to worst.

Another option that is becoming more and more sensible and cost-effective is a RAID hard drive array. This basically means that two hard drives work together as a pair, mirroring the data, each being and exact copy of the other one. So if one fails, the other one takes over and the defective one can be replaced.

And finally, if you do face the loss of a hard drive, there are data recovery experts. For a fairly large fee they will open your hard drive and try to recover what was on it. Never attempt to open and fix yourself as the inside of the hard drive is a contaminent free space, with zero dust, even a few particles can make the drive unrepairable.

So make sure you’re not the next one to get an unpleasant surprise and make sure that you are well protected from the loss of your all important information.

Peter Stewart is a computer enthusiast, his interest in computers and focus on practical down to earth advice inspired his two websites. http://www.computer-buying-guide.com - Practical buying tips http://www.computer-reviews.net - Fair and honest reviews and opinions

How often do people loose their email data? Is this important to backup your email client before loosing important emails? Are you thinking it won’t happen to you?

Well, for those who use an email client and loosing their emails is one of the worst nightmares. Unfortunately this situation is quite probable.

There are several causes for this:
- Hard disk failure
- Viruses and Trojans
- Windows crashes
- Some time un-expected things

Hard Disk can fail from several reasons: logical problems like bad partitions, hardware problems caused by dropping them or something on them, or, sometimes they just stop functioning. You can use several data recovery tools like GetDataBack or Acronis, which might save your day. But you might not be able to get back any byte.

Viruses are increasing their numbers day by day. It’s hard to keep up even for the big players like Symantec or Kaspersky. They reduced the response time for a new virus, but if you are unlucky, the virus crashes your computer before you can apply the antivirus.

Well, we all know how reliable Windows is. There is no person that can say he never saw a “blue screen”. Because most of the email clients store email, account and settings data in My documents, Program files or in Windows registry. When you reinstall the operating system you loose them all. Even Microsoft CEO Bill Gates acknowledged that they counted 5 percent of total Windows based computers to crash twice every day. Here’s a small report: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/25/technology/25SOFT.html - September 1, 2005.

The best way to count those situations is to backup emails on a CD or another hard disk. People who know a little about Windows and computers can do it by hand. Outlook Express is still the most used email client.

If you want to backup Outlook Express by hand, you have to save registry keys and DBX files. Saving messages, signatures and the address book can be done within the email client, but for settings you have to search through Windows registry. It can be pretty difficult to do it for a beginner.

After a long search now I found a tool that can do this job automatically. Adolix Outlook Express Backup. You can use this software to backup Outlook Express, IncrediMail and some other email clients. It’s an email saver program that can backup and restore emails, addresses, folders, signatures and options.

What it cannot do is backing up Outlook Express and restoring to Pegasus Mail for instance. Synchronization can take place between different instances of the same email client.

It can be used to move emails from one computer to another. For instance if you own a laptop and a PC, you can transfer emails between them. Furthermore, you can backup Outlook Express from Windows98 and restore it to Windows XP.

Adolix Outlook Express Backup has a wizard mode for beginners, but the most experienced users can use Standard mode for more speed. It costs only $24.95 and I think worth for too much.

It’s pretty clear that anyone can loose emails. So backing up your email client is essential, but you have to decide whether to do it by hand or to purchase a tool like Adolix Outlook Express Backup.

Ted Peterson writes for Adolix Software. Adolix Software is a young company specialized in tools and utilities like Adolix Outlook Express Backup (http://www.adolix.com/outlook-express-backup/ ), Adolix PDF Converter or eCover Engineer.

Common And Easily Remedied Computer Problems

There are a number of easily remedied computer problems that users often fear will require data recovery. Fortunately there are a number of equally easy solutions to many of these problems. There are a number of reasons computers can act up. Some may be powered up correctly, others may have incorrectly connected or poorly connected cables. It is important you investigate all potential problems before panicking and assuming our data has been lost.

Here are some common problems that may or may not necessitate data recovery:

Your computer freezes up and you can’t extract your data. Usually this is a temporary situation. This often occurs when the user has too many applications open at the same time. You may have to manually restart your computer to get things working again. Chances are no data recovery will be necessary in this situation.

Power outages. In some cases your computer may stop working due to a power outage or failure. The best way to check this is to check your outlet. You can minimize your risk of data loss and the need for data recovery in this case by using a surge protector. This is particularly beneficial during storms.

Computers also tend to act weird when contaminated whether by dirt, dust, food particles or even unintended spills. Be sure you routinely clean your computer and keep the area you work in free of potential hazards that can wreak havoc on a computer (like a large spill). Doing so will minimize your risk for major computer meltdown and subsequent need for data recovery.

Article by Frank Owen, visit his web site on data recovery for more information on data recovery http://www.datarecoveryinsiders.com

An Act of Prevention

The best way to protect your data is to prevent problems from happening. Data recovery usually isn’t necessary or at least not complicated at all if you properly back your system up religiously.

That said sometimes computers fail. There are usually warning signs involved before a system crashes. Some classic signs may include strange sounds, popping, frequent crashing, virus attacks or similar problems. Most of the time information lost through a temporary crash is salvageable. You will probably however have to hire a data recovery specialist if a crisis occurs to your computer.

Using Computers Safely

One way to prevent a computer crash and the subsequent need for data recovery is by taking good care of your workstation. Consider your computer not just a source of recreation or education but a lifeline to the outside world. People have increasingly become reliant on computers to handle just about everything, thus when a computer crashes a major crisis occurs.

Fortunately with regular or routine maintenance you may be able to avoid a crash altogether. This includes supplying updated virus protection software and ad ware software that removes potentially damaging programs from your computer. Then of course there is the obvious. You should keep your system away from liquids, food and overly hot conditions. You should clean your keyboard on occasion and make sure you plug your computer into a surge protected outline. You should also periodically free up disk space and clean your computer to make sure it is running optimally. These small steps can help reduce the risk you will lose data in an unexpected crash.

Article by Frank Owen, visit his web site on data recovery for more information on data recovery http://www.datarecoveryinsiders.com

Whether you own your own business or work for someone that does you’ll find that data protection is one of the smartest and safest approaches you can take to ensure the profitability and livelihood of your business. When dealing with data recovery and protection it is vital you remain calm and assess whether you are dealing with a hard drive or other issue. Fortunately no matter how dire the situation you can usually follow some easy steps to ensure maximum data recovery in the event of a computer crash. Here are some tips to follow to prevent a complete disaster from occurring:

If you suspect something is wrong with your computers hard drive turn your computer off and take it to a specialist before you lose your data.

Back up our data routinely. If you can set up an automatic program to do so.

When you here strange noises from your computer, such as a clunking noise when you power up your computer immediately turn your computer off.

Never assume the worst. In most cases data is recoverable even under the worst conditions (like if your computer was swallowed from a flood and fully saturated).

Do not attempt any form of data recovery on your own unless you are a specialist. Messing with the hard drive or other parameters of your computer can exacerbate any data losses you may have already experienced.

Don’t panic. Remember to think optimistically and get your computer to a repair tech as soon as possible, and chances are your data will be salvageable and safe.

Article by Frank Owen, visit his web site on data recovery for more information on data recovery http://www.datarecoveryinsiders.com

Data Loss and Business Solvency

Many companies are not able to survive a major data crash. For that reason it is critical you do everything possible to prevent significant data loss when working from a PC. There are a number of precautions you can take to limit your risk of data loss or the nee for data recovery.

Taking precautions will help establish your firm’s solvency and legitimacy. You can establish more trust and better business relationships when customers know you protect your data using tried and tested methods. The best way to protect your business data is by backing it up, whether using an outside agency, to disk or to a server.

Recovering Lost Data

Of course if despite your best precautions you find that you still face a data loss problem, its best you find a data recovery specialist to work with. Tinkering too much on your own may result in bigger problems and greater losses than you might have initially incurred. Fortunately there are plenty of data recovery specialists that have worked even under the most dire situations that often are capable of recovering most if not all of a users data in the event of a serious mishap. To ensure the best success you should shop around for a provider with a lot of experience particularly with the situation you are experiencing and one capable of providing you with substantial references. This way you’ll make sure you are charged a fair and honest price and get what you pay for.

Article by Frank Owen, visit his web site on data recovery for more information on data recovery http://www.datarecoveryinsiders.com

Data Loss can be devastating. It could instantly take a small or medium size business from “Open for Business” to “Out of Business” in an instant. On a personal level, it can wipe away weeks, months and even years of critical data where there is no means of accessing or recreating the valuable information.

However, there are preventative measures that can be taken to ensure that you do not fall victim to the unfortunate circumstance of loss of data. As a data recovery lab, we know. We just took a direct hit from hurricane Wilma. Hurricane Wilma was “Not our First Rodeo”, and more than likely, will not be our last.

We are also seeing an increase of drives on a local level that have been affected by this natural disaster, just as we did after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Hearing stories on a daily basis of data loss, I thought it to be only fair to share some of our preparations of how we (as a Data Recovery Lab) survived as a business, and had basically no loss of business continuity. Fortunately, the only loss we did have was the actual day that the hurricane hit and we all watched the devastating destruction from our homes.

Here are a few of the procedures that we as a data recovery lab, put into place, yet once *again* this year, prior to landfall of Hurricane Wilma.

• We are fanatical about backing up. Keep in mind that our business is based upon hard drive failures. If you can imagine it, e.g. Fires, Floods, Mechanical Failure, User Error, we have heard it. The thought of a category 3 hurricane barreling towards us, was not a pleasant one.

• Ensure that you have “Backups of your Backups.” Always keep a current backup offsite for absolute worst case scenarios.

• Prior to vacating the premises, Make Backups of Critical Data, Verify that all electronics are plugged into UPSs’ (as they should be) power down and unplug from A.C. if possible. (Including Telephone and Modem Lines.)

• If possible, elevate all electronics and electronics equipment off of the ground. Even with Flood Insurance, Insurance providers will draw the line between “Wind driven Rain”, and “Rising Water”.

• Last but certainly not least, remain calm and approach any Computer Failure/Data Loss with a rational and sensible approach. A majority of hard drive failures, and data loss resulting from them can be successfully overcome, if proper measures are taken. There are numerous previously published articles that outline what NOT to do when faced with this type of potential crisis. Consult a professional data recovery lab to see what options are available for you, before it is too late.

With a Natural Disaster such as a category 3 hurricane approaching, there are exterior preparations as well. (Hurricane Shutters, Non-Perishable Foods, Water, for at least 3-4 days, Ice, Flashlights, Batteries, and Battery operated Radio or TV for News Alerts.) Anyone who lives in a hurricane prone area should already know these basics.

Hopefully, by taking these tips to heart (and mind), your business and/or place of business will not be “Gone with Wind!”

Brian Cain Eco Data Recovery 4115 Burns Rd. Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33410 1-800-339-3412 561-691-0019 http://www.EcoDataRecovery.com

brian@EcoDataRecovery.com

Back when I was a grade school kid, a couple of times each semester the fire alarms, announcing a firedrill, would shriek. We would all jump up from our desks and march, single-file to our appointed spot outdoors. The goal of those fire drills was to teach students how to react if a disaster struck; instead of the chaos that would occur when hundreds of kids try to escape from a burning building. A safe, orderly evacuation would certainly reduce the number of casualties.

In recent years sudden, unforeseen, disastrous events have devastated populations around the globe. Terrorist attacks in New York, London and Madrid, tsunami in Asia, and hurricanes along the gulf coast have all cost individuals, businesses, even whole geographic regions dearly.

I’ve seen a number of recommendations to help people prepare for disasters in various media, but every business has to prepare for a disaster also. If a disaster never hits you, be thankful, but if one does occur the business should be able to reopen afterwards if you have spent just a little effort on contingency planning.

Naturally your planning should include redundant off-premises backups of all computer files to insure you will be able to resurrect inventory records, bank account records, tax records, accounts receivable, accounts payable, human resources, training manuals, etc. It is also vital to be able to connect with your staff in case of an evacuation or natural disaster. A business that is well prepared for disasters should be able to connect with personnel using multiple methods – cell phone, land line, email, and all the staff should know how to connect with management so the business is able to continue after order is restored. .

All the above plans are not worth the paper they are printed on unless the disaster plan is updated and practiced regularly, just like those fire drills we endured as kids. The fire never hit my school and a hurricane may never hit your business, but if you have periodic fire drills you will be well prepared and confident the business will survive.

Larry Galler coaches and consults with high-performance executives, professionals, and small businesses since 1993. He is the writer of the long-running (every Sunday since November 2001) business column, "Front Lines with Larry Galler" Sign up for his free newsletter at http://www.larrygaller.com Questions??? Send an email to larry@larrygaller.com