SQL Data Recovery

SQL Data Recovery software covers Exchange and SQL Server systems which can suffer from many of the same problems as hard drives and flash cards.

SQL data recovery is successful in cases of errors, corrupted data, damaged files, accidental deletion, and much more. SQL Server and Exchange Server recovery service can aid you in disaster recovery and password recovery as well.

As mail and database servers increasingly become the core structure of businesses, the maintenance and reliability of these servers becomes essential. In turn, the demand for reliable service and critical data recovery is on the rise.

Remote and in-lab data recovery services can now provide peace of mind to businesses that rely on Exchange and SQL.

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SAN Data Recovery

SAN Data Recovery (Storage Area Networks) requires sophisticated software applications to plan, discover, configure and monitor the many components and technologies that makes up the SAN data recovery infrastructure.

Storage networks are distinguished from other forms of network storage by the low-level access method that they use. Data traffic on these networks is very similar to those used for internal disk drives, like ATA and SCSI.

In a storage network, a server issues a request for specific blocks, or data segments, from specific disk drives. This method is known as block storage. The device acts in a similar fashion to an internal drive, accessing the specified block, and sending the response across the network.

Computers store information on a variety of devices, some inside the system, and others external to the computer. Typically, data is written to a particular kind of storage medium using a disk drive. Common media include flexible (floppy disk drive), rigid (hard disk drive), tape, or optical (CD).

In more traditional file storage access methods, like SMB or NFS, a server issues a request for an abstract file as a component of a larger file system, managed by an intermediary computer. The intermediary then determines the physical location of the abstract resource, accesses it on one of its internal drives, and sends the complete file across the network.

Most storage networks use the SCSI protocol for communication between servers and devices, though they do not use its low-level physical interface.

SANs are an evolving approach to storage, where multiple storage devices are connected to multiple servers for higher capacity, throughput, and reliability. SANs require sophisticated RAID management software and high-performance I/O connectivity.

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Advanced Data EFS Recovery

Advanced Data EFS Recovery (or simply AEFSDR) is a program to recover (decrypt) files encrypted on NTFS (EFS) partitions created in Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

Advanced data EFS recovery decrypts files even in a case when the system is not bootable and you cannot log on.

Decryption is possible even when Windows is protected using SYSKEY. Advanced EFS data recovery effectively (and instantly) decrypts the files protected under Windows XP and all versions of Windows 2000 (including Service Packs).

EFS supports file sharing of encrypted files among multiple users. You can give individual users permission to access a single encrypted file. Access to folders is not provided in either Microsoft Windows 2000 or Windows XP. Also, access to encrypted files by groups is not supported.

Despite claims that Office XP documents are protected by better passwords than those of earlier versions, AOXPPR (Advanced Office XP Password Recovery) can recover XP’s passwords quicker than ever. It’s a favorite of the FBI.

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Computer Data Recovery

Computer Data Recovery is most often needed in cases of virus infection, malfunctioning software or a plagued operating system.

Besides the “invaluables” saved to disk (people do run into burning buildings to save family photos), businesses could not operate in today’s environment without a fast and reliable computer data recovery plan.

Home computing allows users to save (besides those “invaluables”) financial records, accounting information, grandma’s favorite wine recipes, games, music and videos and grandma’s favorite wine recipes, etc,.

Everyone’s computer should be equipped with a UPS (battery backup) that make it possible to keep the system on in case of power outages and electrical surges and to at least give you enough time to save your open files and shut down properly.

No matter who you are or what computer brand you use, data loss will happen. At some point in time (the worst possible time), your hard drive will crash or malfunction, guaranteed. If you have been diligent by maintaining a recent “backup” you won’t be tempted to pull out the rusty razorblades. You will just replace the disk (if it won’t power up), install the backed up data and you’re back in business.

Ensure that your data is duplicated (backed-up) on at least one other device (external disk) that is not connected to your computer, and avoid the possibility of a “budget-busting” expense.

Computer data recovery programs are great and simple to use. They should be downloaded before your problem. You don’t want to be writing anything over the data you want to recover. Install the program before hand so that when disaster strikes you’re ready to rock. Most programs keep your previous data and information on file, so when something does happen to your system, it will be “backed-up” (somewhat).

In the event of a hard drive failure, virus, or natural disaster (Grandma floods the African Violets sitting on top of your tower), there are common techniques that you can use for data recovery. The most popular is downloadable data recovery software for a simple undelete or to recover a lost partition.

Two other common data recovery issues involve:

• An operating system (OS) failure where your goal could be to simply copy all wanted files to another partition or external storage device. Disk partitioning and moving valuable data files to a different partition than the OS system files are good ideas.
• Disk-level failure, such as a compromised file system or disk partition, or a hard disk failure where data cannot be easily read is another common problem. Depending on the situation, solutions may involve repairing the file system, partition table or MBR, or hard disk recovery techniques ranging from software-based recovery of corrupted data to hardware replacement on a physically damaged disk.

  In case of permanent failure of the disk, “recovery” means sufficient repair for a one-time retrieval of the files.

  For businesses and corporations, technicians are the preferred way to go. Technicians can recover your files, even rebuild your hard drive if needed.

  Even though it may seem like your data is gone forever, it can be retrieved (think F.B.I). Technicians that specialize in data recovery can retrieve it too (even without law enforcement’s electron microscopes and ILook IXImager). It begs the question, “How much do you want to spend?”.

  DIY recovery can take a lot of time (especially if it’s your first time). So, if you consider “time is money”, you may want to just “take it in”.

  Here are some favorite free (not demos) data recovery software. Some are easily found in “portable” form so you don’t even need to install them onto your computer.

  Recuva is a Windows-based tool that holds the power to resurrect missing files via its file-recovery wizard or application manual mode. When you are not quite sure of where your files are located or lost, the file-recovery wizard proves to be handy not only in retrieving missing files but also locating long forgotten files.

  TestDisk works for Windows, Mac and Linux data recovery needs. It is a powerful tool with a learning curve that will undelete suddenly lost and accidentally deleted files from FAT, NTFS and ext2 file systems. Its functionality includes recovery of damaged boot sectors from backups, rebuilding boot sectors and finding lost partitions.

  PhotoRec is a good complement to TestDisk and is primarily focused on recovering photos and images from digital cameras and flash disks. It quickly and safely copys your lost files to another disk.

  Restoration could be the most helpful addition to your Windows-based USB toolkit. Not only does it help restore missing USB files but also your personal computer files. While it lacks advanced functionality it outperforms many other data recovery tools with its simple application.

  If your computer won’t power up, in-home data recovery software isn’t going to work (obviously). Hardward repair should only be performed by children and highly skilled computer engineers.

  Recovering data from physically damaged and malfunctioning hardware can involve multiple techniques. Some damage can be repaired by replacing parts in the hard disk. This alone may make the disk usable, but there may still be logical damage.

  A specialized disk-reading process is used to recover readable bits from the surface. Once this image is acquired and saved on a reliable medium, the image can be safely analysed for logical damage and will possibly allow for much of the original file system to be reconstructed.

  Recovering information from “burnt” hard drives can be a very time consuming process, all depending on just how bad the drive has been damaged. Some data may be lost forever.

  Virus surveys find that PCs are infected at a rate of more than 10% each month.

  35% of all PCs sold to businesses are laptops and 1 in 5 of these laptops will suffer hardware failure in the first 3 years.

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RAID Data Recovery

RAID Data Recovery often means replacing failed or broken components – such as electronics, read/write heads, head assemblies, magnets and drive motors – in a clean environment, requiring specialized hardware and software tools. This is not a data recovery job for most computer users.

RAID’s main aim can be either to improve reliability and availability of data, or merely to improve the access speed to files.

Three Key Concepts of RAID Data Recovery:

• Mirroring: the copying of data to more than one disk
• Striping: the splitting of data across more than one disk
• Error Correction: the storage of redundant information to detect and recover lost or corrupted data

Basic mirroring can speed up reading data as a system can read different data from both the disks, but it may be slow for writing if the configuration requires that both disks must confirm that the data is correctly written.

Striping is often used for performance, where it allows sequences of data to be read from multiple disks at the same time. Error checking typically will slow the system down as data needs to be read from several places and compared.

Redundancy is achieved by either writing the same data to multiple drives (known as mirroring), or collecting data (known as parity data) across the array, calculated such that the failure of one (or possibly more, depending on the type of RAID) disks in the array will not result in loss of data. A failed disk may be replaced by a new one, and the lost data reconstructed from the remaining data and the parity data.

Different RAID levels use one or more of these techniques, depending on the system requirements.

The design of RAID systems is therefore a compromise and understanding the requirements of a system is important. Modern disk arrays typically provide the facility to select the appropriate RAID configuration.

The configuration affects reliability and performance in different ways. The problem with using more disks is that it is more likely that one will fail, but by using error checking the total system can be made more reliable by being able to survive and repair the failure.

RAID Data Recovery 5, with no dedicated parity drive write performance, is better than RAID 3 with overlapped data and parity update writes.

RAID 1 performs faster but RAID 5 provides better storage efficiency. Parity update can be more efficiently handled by RAID 5 by checking for data bit changes and only changing the corresponding parity bits.

For small data writes improvements here are lost as most disk drives update sectors entirely for any write operation. For larger writes only the sectors where bit changes need to be made are rewritten and improvements made.

In some cases, maintaining parity information reduces write performance as much as one third the speed of RAID 1. For this reason RAID 5 is not normally used in performance critical processes.

If you ever intend to manage large, corporate, enterprise wide solutions to data storage, then you will surely come across RAID arrays. RAID, (redundant array of independent disks) saves data across multiple hard drives making it quicker and safer to store data.

The main reason for the use of RAID disks is to improve data integrity and performance. By saving data on multiple drives, you essentially improve the possibility of data recovery and make the process of data storage faster than if saved on one, single hard drive.

One of the most inventive points of a RAID system is that, to the operating system, the array of many different drives is seen as only one drive on the system.

The unique methods of a RAID system also use a striping technique that is unusual to any other system. RAID systems stripe partitions among the different drives that are installed. The different partitions are addressed in order and data is layered over each drive numerically.

RAID data recovery should not be considered a “backup”. While RAID may protect against drive failure, the data is still exposed to operator, software, hardware and virus destruction.

Most well-designed systems include separate backup systems that hold copies of the data, but don’t allow much interaction with it. Most copy the data and remove the copy from the computer for safe storage.

Backup programs can use checksums to avoid making redundant copies of files and to improve backup speed. This is particularly useful when multiple workstations, which may contain duplicates of the same file, are backed up over a network.

If the backup software detects several copies of a file having the same size, datestamp, and checksum, it can put one copy of the data onto a backup medium, along with metadata listing all places where copies of this file were found.

Whatever your methods of data storage, it’s also imperative to have a secure, data recovery system in order to make sure the corporate data is safe. The loss of data in a corporation can cost the company millions of dollars, so securing data can save large resources and assets in the future.

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Laptop Data Recovery

Laptop Data Recovery is accomplished the same as with any other computer.

The first priority of notebook data recovery is to create a raw image of the data so that logical analysis can determine the nature of the data loss situation. If the media is inaccessible to recovery software due to physical damage, you will probably need professional help.

Recovery of crashed hard disks often involves replacing failed or damaged components in a clean environment and using specialized hardware and software tools to create the raw image. Failed components typically include electronics, read/write heads, head assemblies, magnets, and drive motors.

Logical recovery uses the raw image by examining the low-level data sectors and determining what fixes to filesystem structures are needed to get access to the important data. Sometimes the existing filesystem structures are missing or damaged so much that data has to be extracted directly from one or more fragments of the raw image.

Whenever you delete a file, it is only marked as deleted, and later overwritten by the operating system with new data. Simple data recovery software tools are usually sufficient to take care of the situation. The key is to recover the files before they are overwritten with new data. The longer longer you wait, the more difficult it becomes to safely recover your files.

…First don’t panic.
…Turn off the power.
…Do not restart the machine.
…Do not reinstall any software.
…Do not open the hard disk or try to repair it yourself.

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