No matter what brand is your hard drive, it is just a matter of time when you will need restoration of the lost information. No matter what will be the cause, mechanical damage of the disk or something else - data recovery from the hard drive, a single server or a RAID array, always at a time it will be necessary.
Most of the data will be lost because of the following reasons:
- Damage to the data due to viruses
- Physical damage to the hard disk caused by falling or a careless attitude
- Errors in the hard disk due to improper installation of the operating system
- Data loss occurred by formatting the hard disk
- Errors in collaboration of several devices connected in a RAID system.
If you want to reduce the likelihood of data loss, follow a few basic rules:
1. Make backup copies of important files. If you get a weekly habit of copying the most important information on a DVD (external hard drive, flash memory), then with little effort you have stored important documents such as files, precious photos, MP3...
2. Use anti-virus programs. The viruses can enter your computer in many ways - they may occur after reading the infected file attached to an email, using infected files shared on the network, after visits of websites that use security holes in your system, for destruction of information.
3. Use protection against fluctuations in the electricity grid (UPS). Power surges caused by the fault of the company supplying electricity or those caused by lightning, are the most common cause of data loss and possible damage to the hard disk.
4. Do not perform actions such as installing a hard drive or a repair if you have no experience in such work. If you do not know how to install a hard drive or reinstall RAID, it is better to seek the help of a specialist, lest accidentally lose important information.
5. You must turn off your computer from the menu, not from the power button. Always close all active software programs before turning off your computer. If you turn off your computer before closing active programs the risk of data loss is very high.
6. Never open your hard drive - do not disassemble the device. In most cases, the data cannot be restored once the disk has been opened by an inexperienced user, who wants to know ''where does this strange noise come''. Leave the diagnostics for the professionals familiar with all types of hard drives and understanding the data recovery.
7. Keep backups in a separate place. You should always make backup copies of important files, but if they are stored in the same place with the main, then at a loss of the ones most likely will be lost and the others, and again, in all cases, you will need to use the procedure for recovery of the information.
8. Be careful with the diagnostic programs. Despite the fact that the verification of the computer performance is always recommended, be extremely careful in allowing such programs for restoring files to carry out their actions. The disk check can be useful, but also may cause difficulties ,if needed to be made the process of data recovery from disk, which has been inspected by such programs.
9. Be careful with the environment. Place your computers on a safe and secure place so that they can be protected from falling, collision and other physical effects. Laptops are very convenient to work, but often become victims of neglect by falling for example, then it is often necessary to carry out actions for recovering data from the hard disk.
