How Do You Prevent Data Loss or Recover “Lost” Data?
What Is Data Loss and How Does It Occur?
If you have been using a computer for some time now, you would know what data loss means. Your data becomes inaccessible, or you get a garbled (and useless) version of the original data. The data might still be there (it is usually there even after a deletion) but has somehow become unreadable.
In other cases, data could be physically wiped out, or overwritten by newer data, making the original data irrecoverable.
Every computer user would have experienced one or more of the following:
- You delete a file, and then suddenly realize that the file you deleted was an important one for your business or work. If you realized this immediately, you would most likely be able to do a data recovery by un-deleting the file. However, if you had done much work after the original delete event, it is also most likely that you would have written other data over the contents of the deleted file. In such a case recovering the contents of the deleted file would become impossible or at least incomplete.
- You, or the service people to whom you had entrusted your computer for maintenance, format a disk assuming that all needed files have been backed up. Later, when you search for some particular data file or program, you find that it had not been backed up. In this case, you would have to reconstruct the data or get another copy of the program.
- Your computer operating system, or some application software, suddenly freezes and does not respond to your repeated and desperate attempt to proceed with the work. You could lose much of the work you did unless it had been saved before the freeze occurred
- A serious power fluctuation (owing to, say, lightning) causes a hardware crash, leading to data damage or even loss. Hardware could also crash owing to mechanical failures of the components.
- A virus or other malicious program damages your data or wipes files clean off the disk.
The kinds of events listed above are relevant both in a personal or business environment, and were mentioned to illustrate how easy it is to lose data. In businesses, things are much more complex with several computer users feeding data into a networked system as well as into their personal computers.
- Businesses with substantial volumes of data need a systematic backup procedure to ensure that all data can be recovered in case the original data are lost. It is quite possible that such a systematic procedure had not been implemented or even developed. In such a case, valuable data might not be backed up, or even if backed up, the reliability of the backups might not be systematically checked. Without such regular checking, it is quite possible that in case of a disaster, the date cannot be restored satisfactorily.
- A networked system adds to the complexity by making it possible for any user to cause serious damage to data stored in the system, either accidentally or maliciously, through any weakness in the control systems.
- Businesses might use far more complex hardware and software, such as RAID servers, that adds a new dimension to the possibilities for disasters.
In short, human errors, software crashes, hardware crashes, virus or other malicious attacks, sabotage, poorly implemented backup or control procedures.
The Impact of Data Loss
Business entities depend on data to run their businesses. It is previously recorded data that tells them what is owed by each customer, how much they owe to their suppliers, which suppliers have not yet delivered against the orders, what items are in inventory, which items need to be replenished immediately and all the other info needed to take different kinds of actions that constitute a business.
If the data gets lost in full or in part, a typical business would face a serious problem. Businesses could even go bankrupt if the time or money cost of reconstructing the lost data is something that they cannot afford. Even if it does not go that far, the time involved in reconstructing the data could disrupt day to day operations, and the cost involved could come to thousands or even millions of dollars, depending on the size of the business and its data.
Needless to say, data loss is something that businesses must organize against. They do this by:
- Carefully planning and implementing a system of backing up data so that in the event of a loss, data could be restored using the backup media
- Regularly auditing the backup procedures and testing the backups to ensure that the system is working properly and that the data on the backup media would indeed be “restorable” if a data loss event happens
Backups could prove less than satisfactory if it is not carefully planned, strictly implemented and regularly monitored.
Recovering “Lost” Data
As we mentioned at the beginning, data is not always lost in the true sense of the word. In many cases, it would have simply become inaccessible. For example, the “file system” that keeps track of which data is where on the disk surface could become corrupted. In this case, repairing the file system would make the data accessible once again.
In other cases, some hardware procedures could reconstruct the data by deciphering the “image” that is still on the disk surfaces. However, the recovery could often turn out to be incomplete.
Trained specialists with required facilities are needed to do recovery procedures. For example, if you open a sealed hard disk drive, the microscopic particles of dust in the atmosphere could settle on the disk surface, damaging the magnetic record on it. This would make data recovery more difficult, if not impossible. Opening sealed drives would also void the manufacturer’s warranty on the drive.
Specialist data recovery organizations could open the sealed drives without voiding the warranty, because they would typically be authorized by drive manufacturers to do so. These data recovery specialists would also have facilities like Class 100 Clean Rooms to open the sealed drives and work with them.
So if a data loss happens to you, don’t try DIY, but call a specialist with experience and required facilities.