The larger program Microsoft Outlook handles data differently than the smaller Express counterpart. The major difference in the two is that Microsoft Outlook stores all of its messages and tasking functions in one large file. This file bears the extension PST and is in essence a writable database. Consequently when we need to recover Outlook mails our focus centers around PST recovery. Obviously, a program for PST repair must take a different approach than that used to locate DBX files. Outlook recovery entails scanning for and finding the primary damaged PST file then rebuilding the tabular contents of that file. This process of rebuilding or repairing PST files is sometimes referred to as corrupt inbox repair. And the software used to accomplish this task is referred to as an inbox repair tool. Read the rest of this entry »
One of the areas where data recovery is most needed is in recovery of digital photos. In fact data recovery software is used more for photo recovery than any other purpose. Anyone who’s ever used a digital camera at some point develops a need to recover deleted photos. As with any situation where one needs to recover deleted files, it is far too simple to accidentally click on delete as opposed to save. This is especially true when scrolling down a small LCD screen on the back of a digital camera in the direct glare of sunlight. Image recovery should be broken down into several departments. These are image file recovery from your computer’s hard drive or other permanent storage, recovery of image files from camera smart cards and recovery of RAW camera files. A specialty data recovery program centered around rescue of lost digital photos is capable of image recovery in all three of these situations. Recovery of image files on your computer’s hard drive is the simplest of these tasks. All that this requires is a scan for image files with very popular extensions that have been deleted such as JPEG, GIF and BMP files. Image file recovery from your camera’s smart card storage is much the same. The only actual difference being that you must select the location of the external drive, which your smart card is plugged into in order to scan. Camera RAW files are a different matter altogether as these file formats are specific and proprietary to each camera manufacturer. High-end camera makers such as Nikon, Canon and Minolta initially store their files in special coding sequences. Only the highest quality digital photo recovery software can scan for and recognize these files in whole or damaged condition.
The same software used for digital image recovery can also be used for iPod recovery and general recovery of audio and visual files. Read the rest of this entry »
General data recovery usually refers to the rescue of files deleted from the computer’s hard drive. While it is true that recovery of files from many other devices is also a major part of the data recovery process, the fundamentals of that process are consistent and apply regardless of the device you hope to recover files from. So when we speak of hard drive recovery we can actually narrow this down to many specific areas. There are two basic ways to define the areas covered by data recovery. The first is to define them by hardware. We qualify the data recovery task based on whether we’re trying to recover lost files from an external hard drive or an internal drive. Is the computer that our files are lost on a laptop or desktop computer? Or are we trying to recover deleted files on some other type of digital media such as a camera smart card, a USB flash drive or as diverse a device as an Apple iPod. Data recovery from MP3 players, camera smart cards, and USB flash drives is generally referred to as digital media recovery, that being the recovery of image, video and audio files.
The second means of deciding our target for data recovery is determined by which kind of operating system our computer is using. Powerful data recovery software is available for all of the major operating systems. Of course the most prevalent operating systems are those supplied as Windows. There are file recovery programs built for every version of Windows. In fact most deleted file recovery is referred to as Windows data recovery or more simply Windows recovery. The number of computers using the Linux operating system has increased drastically over the last five years. So much so that there are now available powerful and efficient programs for Linux data recovery. Linux recovery differs from Windows recovery in that the file storage systems used by the Linux OS catalog say than retrieve information differently. This same scenario exists for Apple Mac users. Computers using Mac OS 10 must have software for file recovery designed strictly to interact with the Apple operating system.
Sometimes our data recovery requirements are based on a hybrid of software and hardware; this is the case when dealing with raid recovery. Raid systems, those being redundant array of independent disks, require data recovery software built for the operating system in place as well as the software designed for the multi disk connectivity of the raid array itself. Read the rest of this entry »
In summary, before you begin the task of data recovery consider whether you are in need of laptop data recovery or recovery of files from the standard desktop computer. And if you are trying to recover deleted files on a desktop computer, does that computer use the older FAT file system or the newer NTFS? NTFS recovery is far more prevalent. A further qualifier relative to hardware is that you must determine whether you are searching for a few files or if you need to recover and save an entire hard drive. When you need to recover deleted partition files, the software you choose must be of vastly higher quality. Partition recovery takes longer and hence requires the fastest program available.
Are you simply hoping to find a few deleted files on a USB flash drive? USB data recovery is perhaps is the simplest of all file recovery. When attempting to recover lost data on your internal hard drive you may be merely trying to retrieve files that you inadvertently deleted from the Windows recycle bin. Recycle bin recovery is somewhat difficult in that the software you choose for the task should be built with this specific sorting feature in place.
In essence, the entire object of data recovery is to undelete files. And though the term undelete is in some ways a complete misnomer, it still serves us well in the world of data and disk recovery.
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One final area extremely pertinent to data recovery is its opposite effect. That is not the need to recover deleted files, but the need to make sure that once a file is deleted it is removed from our computer’s hard drive or other digital storage in such a manner that it can never be again accessed. There are programs created specifically to erase data. These are a byproduct of a reverse engineering of data recovery software. Often referred to as a data eraser or disk wipe program, this software overwrites the space allocated to a deleted file numerous times with scrambled information. So, even though this program might be considered a file eraser the process of erasing data from digital storage is nonexistent. The better and more common name applied to the process and the software is that of a file shredder. Powerful file shredding software tears down the original stored data to its fundamental machine code then rewrites that information on to the space allocated as empty and deletes files many times in a random pattern. This ensures that no person or machine can ever open the information again. Read the rest of this entry »