Over the course of many years in the business there are a few challenges that show up on a regular basis. The following is just a few of these and the method used by RIA Now to recover the data.

Deleted Files
One of if not ‘the’ most common complaint for data loss is the accidental or malicious deleting of data. In these cases a simple recover can be used to find the deleted files. Once found simply copy the data off and begin restoring the data.

Drive Needs to be Formatted
This is usually because either the Partition Marker, and or the Volume Marker have been lost. Follow the steps to do a ‘Scan’ and mount the Volumes that can be found. Use the procedure to ‘Copy’ your data onto another hard drive.

Drive hangs or locks up Windows
This is normally a sign of either a damaged drive or a drive that is on its way out. In this case it is best to call a data recovery specialist in order to help ensure that your data has the highest possibility of recovery.

Drive has been restored
There are two types of restore, first is the function to restore a system to a ‘restore point’. Although this may or may not lose data there is a possibility that something may be missing. Use the ‘Simple Restore’ method to recover your data.

If the ‘Restore to Manufacturer Settings’ has been used then normally all data is lost. There are some methods that may be employed to recover some fragments of data but a data recovery expert should be employed to aide you.

Chkdsk has been run
Of all of the Microsoft tools this is probably the most destructive. Chkdsk by its very nature is designed to align the file system so that the volume can be mounted. If that means deleting inodes and renaming them to file fragments Chkdsk will do just that. Chkdsk is not a file data recovery tool, but a file system alignment tool and can wreak havoc on even the most benign file system anomaly.

The ‘Scan Physical Device’ function offers the most comprehensive method for dealing with drives that have had Chkdsk run on them.