Accessing files on a crashed Windows based PC internal hard drive is a fairly straightforward task. The access can be accomplished in two different ways. In cases where one is not trying to retrieve deleted files one can simply connect the hard drive as a slave unit to a working PC and use that PC’s operating system to access all stored files on the affected drive. In situations where files were deleted on a crashed hard drive or the hard drive had been accidentally reformatted it is necessary to access that drive using a data recovery program.
The steps required to recover Mac files are even more complicated in that the Mac operating system sets up two barriers preventing quick access to hard drive files. These checkpoints so to speak are known as disk initialization and disk verification. Every time your Mac computer goes to access hard drive files it runs a check on the condition of the entire hard drive disk. If all is not well it denies access to stored files. Programs to recover Mac data must be able to jump past these two hurdles and directly recover existing and recently deleted files.
The key to choosing the best digital photo recovery program is to understand and recognize those features which must be included in order to affect successful rescue of lost, damaged or deleted image files. Many general purpose data recovery programs can recover photos that have been transferred or stored in simple loss allowed image file formats such as jpegs. If all digital photographs were made of these file types photo recovery would be extremely simple. But they are not.
Most digital photographs begin as a camera manufacturer RAW file. In order to find and read these files you must have a program specifically designed to do so. Other complicated file types such as TIFFs and PNGs are extremely prone to corruption and data lost during transfer. They are almost always very large files and must be scanned for accordingly. For digital photo recovery choose a software program that supports recovery of both RAW files, and every other commonly used picture file format.
It is amazing to consider that even a small camera memory card can hold 1000 times more information than a 3.5 inch floppy disk. When we consider that some of the first Sony digital cameras actually used these floppies as portable storage media it is no wonder that the resolution limitations were in place. Those early floppies plugged into Sony digital cameras stored the photo information directly into a JPEG format. Today’s modern high res digital cameras store photos in proprietary formats known as RAW files.
It is important to note that when scanning for RAW files most conventional data recovery tools will not be able to recognize the file extension or structure of this data. The consequence of this is that when one attempts memory card recovery that attempt must be made by a digital media recovery software program designed to and able to recognize these unique file types. Almost every high end digital camera manufacturer uses a specific proprietary file type exclusive only for their cameras. Better grade programs to recover memory card information such as those offered by Remo Software will easily recognize all popular high end camera manufacturer file types for recovery.
In the world of Microsoft NTFS stands for the new technology file system. What this new system represented when it was first brought forth was a new way to store and retrieve files on hard disk drives and other digital Storage Devices. Indeed it is an extremely efficient system as it is faster and less prone to file loss than the older file allocation table method.
However, as when using any hard disk drive file access corruption can occur during PC start up or shut down this very often results in a logic crash, which in turn requires us to use powerful file recovery software to rescue all of our stored data. In this case we need NTFS data recovery software so as to most effectively locate deleted files on our hard drive. NTFS recovery programs can be purchased separately but it is recommended that one simply purchase a Windows data recovery program that supports all of the Windows file storage systems.
Suppose you have private information stored on your computer’s hard drive or another type of digital media storage device. Now consider what you would do if you wanted to permanently remove those records from existence anywhere. You could of course delete the file. You might choose a simple path such as placing the file in your Windows recycle bin and emptying the bin. This will not destroy the file because anyone with a basic data recovery tool can scan every file on your computer’s hard drive and open folders marked recycler. Within those folders will be your original presumed deleted file information.
Alright, if simply deleting a file does not remove it what might we do? Deleting a file merely removes its original file name and marks its content area has available for new information. Could we put new information on top of that file so as to erase or destroy the original content. Yes this would help a bit but those same data recovery programs can actually read both your new file and the original secret content. In order to erase files permanently one must overwrite the original data at least a dozen times and the new information must be scrambled in random patterns. Software to affect this purpose is known as a file eraser or sometimes called a file shredder.
What would you think is the difference between the process required to recover a single accidentally deleted file and 100,000 files? Depending on the location of these the difference can only be one factor and that factor is time. If you directed a data recovery program to look through a simple folder holding 20 files it would take milliseconds to find one specific file. Direct your partition recovery software to look for that one single file in the midst of an entire hard drive partition and the time required is considerably longer. In fact it could take 1000 fold the time to scan.
Now consider a deleted partition recovery scenario where the entire partition folder and directory structure has been accidentally deleted. Not only must that 100 GB or more of partition size be slow only scanned, but upon completion of the scan the process of recovery meaning copying of the original file content will be as slow as the time required for the original scan. The key to choosing the best partition recovery software is to find a program that is both fast and thorough.
There are two ways by which a program may recover Outlook PST file information. One is effective and the other is comically flawed. One of the major causes of breakdown of the Microsoft Outlook inbox is exceeding the size limit allowed by that program for messages within the database. The database in this case being the proprietary Microsoft PST file. When in Outlook PST file exceeds its size limit it will either spill messages or simply fail to open. Low quality programs to recover Outlook PST information solve the size limitation corruption problem by cropping the content of the PST file to a level under the 2 GB limitation. Unfortunately this effectively throws away thousands of messages and special settings.
A better program to recover Outlook PST information will divide the PST file into two separate files and allow you access to each. This way you can migrate your Outlook information to a safe location for archiving. Microsoft’s smaller e-mail client Outlook Express uses a one message one file system not requiring the PST database. It instead stores files using the DBX extension. Consequently the process required to recover Outlook DBX file information is far simpler.
When one uses Windows based data recovery software to access files locked away on a crashed PC the process is fairly straightforward. If the files in question have not been deleted or reformatted one need only connect that PC hard drive to a working PC as a secondary drive. The working PC then opens the hard drive that previously had been missing operating system access files. Should the hard drive in question have corrupted, deleted or reformatted files, then the missing data can only be accessed through a file recovery program installed on to a fully operational PC.
To recover Mac data lost either through accidental deletion or operating system file corruption the process is somewhat similar, however because the Mac hard drive file system uses several intermediary steps such as disk initialization and disk verification one cannot always directly access files by means of connection to a secondary computer. Recovery of files locked away in a crashed Mac hard drive requires the use of Mac recovery software. The software is designed so as to circumvent the Mac OS X lockout and directly access stored and deleted file information.
There are companies that for 20 years have specialized in the process referred to as data recovery. In older times this process would have involved the dismantling of the computer, removal of its hard drive and further dismantling that hard drive so as to scan the magnetic disk inside for file information. The primary reason for all of this mechanical repair was that the drive itself would usually suffer physical damage. Today when we attempt to recover data the basis is very seldom due to physical damage of the hard drive. In fact many drives being solid state are pretty much impervious to mechanical failure.
When we have a need for data recovery today it is based on what is known as a logic crash. This is a software problem that develops when important files used to access other files have become corrupted or been accidentally deleted. The specific counter to the logic crash is to reinstall these important access files. But before doing so we must always remember to use a data recovery program first to find missing files and save them to a secondary location.