Showing posts with label Data loss. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Data loss. Show all posts

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Avoid Data Loss During Thunderstorms and Blackouts

ComputerBatteries is advising that in order to avoid the risk of losing data, you should take heed the government’s current heat wave warning and protect IT equipment in your office.

ComputerBatteries is ensuring the fastest, most convenient and cost-effective solutions to clients who have experienced a data loss and they advise that companies should adopt anti-melt down measures for PCs and servers. The advice is following the many cases of data loss the vendor is dealing with lately due to the high temperatures and thunderstorms in the UK.

The risk is the same for PCs, servers and laptop batteries and it is coming from power surges and blackouts if they become overheated by direct or indirect lightning strikes or the hot climate.

There are some rules that should be followed when arranging the computers in an office. The computers should be placed in cool and dry areas to prevent overheating. It is also highly recommended that not too many computers to be running off one power supply, via an extension cable. It has become almost a necessity to have a surge protector installed between the power socket and the computer’s power cable. The protection devices should be check regularly. IT equipment should not share power with air conditioners and fans but dedicated circuits should be used.

These are general rules to be followed in order to protect the IT equipments but there are some tips that ComputerBatteries is offering for special cases such as thunderstorm and blackouts. During thunderstorm the power cord of IT equipments should be turned off and disconnected and the telephone lines from modem jack should be unplugged. This is due to the fact high voltages can enter a computer through a phone line connected to the modem. The best solution to avoid losing data during a blackout is to invest in some form of uninterruptible power supply, which cleans the power supply and features backup batteries to keep servers running during power outages. This is highly recommended especially for the offices that have network servers.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

The Drama of Data Recovery

Data loss is often a tragic and traumatic experience for most computer users. It is often due to hard drive failure, accidental formatting, electronic malfunctioning or a product of "natural calamities". This seems to be not much of a problem when there are viable data back-ups that the user creates. However, the problem comes when we tarry on making our back-up files, which is not a rare practice by the way. Yet even for those who prepare back-up files still fail to check on the viability of their back-ups.

In fact, even top-rated organizations are victims of data loss, because it simply happen all the time without choosing its target.

One minute, your files are all there. The next minute they're gone.

Whether yours is a novel that you have been working on for some time now, or some business data that means a lot to your career, it will still be like a great tragedy that will befall you. Now, when all your data are loss, are they truly gone forever? Can't something be done about them?

Off course there is…data recovery!

Data recovery is a huge business, which help computer users recover their data losses, even from a burned out hard drive!

Once a hard drive is sent to a data recovery company, it will be subjected to a diagnosis that will help determine the drive's condition and the status of the data loss. This process of evaluation will allow data recovery engineers to identify the problems and the necessary courses to take.

Logical failures, a type of failure that results from file-system corruption will take some time to rebuild. This is mainly because the solution to the failure would have to be a rebuilding process. However, there are cases that the whole drive would not need a total reconstruction. These occur when the media is not totally wrecked.

If however the failure roots from a physical problem, that may be more of a challenge. The data recovery engineer will have to scan the media and scan the binary code. This then will be rebuilt and transferred to a new hard drive. But users often elect the use of VCD' and CD's.

The process of evaluation typically consumes one day. However, depending on the data recovery company, the actual data recovery process may take some 3 to 5 days. If you want immediate results (like when data recovery is a matter of life and death), there are agencies offering rush works during weekends. But off course with tag prices that are higher than usual.

Data recovery on its premium service commands great prices. Sadly the motto here seem to be- "you get what you paid for". It must be understood that data recovery process is a very intricate one, which requires factors that come with expensive tags. This is probably due to the truth that when something becomes complicated, it already owns the license to obligate consumers to pay higher for the services.

You don't only pay for the services itself but also for the skill of the data recovery engineer. The better the skill, the higher the price. In data recovery industry, one surety to retrieve lost data is to hire talented engineers who can perform at the highest level of standard. However, even that would not suffice. In fact, no one can actually guarantee you of the desired outcome. Experienced data recovery engineers can only provide you with tentative solutions, however so long as data recovery is on its process, there is no assurance that lost data can be recovered in the manner that you so desired.

In here, your only refuge is to seek for a very experienced engineer to accomplish the job and hope with cross fingers that he may produce a job well done.