Does Data Recovery Really Work?

Disaster! A hard drive with vital personal or business information on it has failed. While it is easy to say that important data should always have cloud back-ups, the reality is that this isn't always possible and catastrophe can sometimes strike before you have been able to fully create offsite back-ups. Whatever the case, your data has become completely inaccessible to you and the time has come to look into data recovery services.

As you begin to research your options, you may be left with some nagging doubts: do these services actually work? How much data will you recover? How is your data retrieved from a totally inoperative hard drive? This article will hopefully provide you with some easy to understand answers to these questions so that you can make an informed decision and get your data back.  

Basic Methods of Data Recovery

Depending on the reason that your data has become inaccessible, there may be some relatively simple methods that can be used to recover it. You can think of your computer's file system as something like a library card catalog. When you view your files, your operating system is really just keeping a catalog of where those files are stored on the drive. When a file is deleted, the data doesn't go anywhere, the operating system simply removes the reference to it. The data may be overwritten by other data later on, but it does not immediately vanish.

This fact means that files that have become inaccessible on a drive that is otherwise functioning can often be recovered, at least in part. If your computer still boots up and successfully reads the drive, then it is possible that data recovery software will be enough to get your files back. Unfortunately, if the file has been corrupted or partially overwritten you may not be able to recover it in its entirety, but often some successful data recovery is better than none at all.

Dealing with a Dead Drive

Unfortunately, data loss isn't always as simple as an inaccessible or damaged file on an otherwise functional drive. If your hard drive has failed or suffered physical damage then more advanced methods will likely be necessary. This is where professional hard drive recovery services come into play. Technicians with access to specialized equipment can often recover data from drives that are otherwise unusable. For example, in some cases, physical damage may be enough to render a drive unusable, but the actual data may still be intact. In other cases, some portion of the data or partial files may be recoverable.

Recovering data in this way is not something that you should attempt to do yourself, especially if losing the data is unacceptable. Hard drives are delicate components that are easily damaged, and professional recovery services have tools and clean environments that are not easily accessible for the do-it-yourselfer.

Are You Guaranteed to Get Your Data Back?

Unfortunately, the answer to this is "no." Any data recovery company that absolutely guarantees full recovery is not reputable and should not be trusted. Whether your data will be recovered, and how much of it you will be able to recover, will depend largely on the reason for the failure and the extent of the damage. Because this is nearly impossible to gauge without examining the drive, it is impossible for any recovery specialist to know exactly how much data can be recovered until the process starts. Still, some data is usually recoverable from a failed drive in all but the direst circumstances, so attempting recovery of important data is almost always worth the time and money.