WELCOME TO DISK

RECOVERY

COUNSELOR!

Hi. I’m a professional data recovery specialist, and this is my website. Over the years, I’ve accumulated quite a bit of knowledge about disk recovery, file recovery, data loss and disk repair. As such, I receive my fair share of frequently asked questions about data recovery from colleagues, clients, friends and even complete strangers. At a certain point, I decided it would be easier to maintain a database of questions and answers and refer people to that instead of writing out long emails or giving long-winded speeches over the phone. Thus we have: this website.		For the disk recovery Q&As I’ve chosen to publish, I’ve tried to select the ones that deal with the most common data recovery and disk error problems. I’ve also tried to gear my answers toward a more general audience. I know there are data recovery gurus out there with more and better knowledge than I have. And if any of these folks wind up on my site, they may take issue with some of my descriptions. But pleasing the experts isn’t my goal here. I’ve written my solutions and advice so they can be understood by the layperson. For some of the descriptions of how disks, hard drives, file systems, and data recovery software work, I’ve leveraged a bit of oversimplification and analogy to aid in comprehension. In spite of that, I assure you that all my advice is actionable and prudent.
The topics of the pages you’ll find here are mostly self-explanatory. But in general, you’ll find information that will help you:


Diagnose hard disk drive failures. What’s wrong with your hard drive? Is it a logical failure or a mechanical failure? Pegging the point of failure for your disk will determine which remedy you choose and which preventive measures you should take.		Understand the principles of data recovery. Do you know what happens when a file gets deleted or a volume gets formatted? If not, you should gain at least a basic understanding of how data is read and written from a disk. Understanding how hard drives work will help you choose the appropriate action in a crisis.		Repair disk failures and troubleshoot errors. Sometimes, the error messages our computers give us are vague, ambiguous or flat out wrong. I address some of the most common problems (unrecognizable disks, RAW file systems detected, unbootable disks) and recommend a few fixes.		Pursue professional data recovery services. Hiring a professional is expensive. Sometimes going with a data recovery service is a necessity. Other times, you can fix the problem yourself for far less money. I’ll help you decide when it’s worthwhile to shell out the big bucks.
Those are the basics that I’m covering for now. But please feel free to contact me with your own questions and conundrums. I intend to build on this site as my own knowledge and experience grows in order to help those seeking help for their damaged or failed disks. So, check back often! Good luck!

	FREQUENT DISK RECOVERY ISSUES:
	RECOVERING DATA AFTER A HARD DISK MECHANICAL FAILURE			Q: My hard drive crashed. Hard. I’m pretty sure there is something mechanically wrong with it (clicking and won’t even mount). What should I do to get my data off of it before replacing it?
	SIGNS OF HARD DISK FAILURE			Q: Every day, I live in fear of a sudden, catastrophic hard drive failure. How can I tell if my hard drive is failing?
	HARD DISK NOT RECOGNIZED BY COMPUTER?			Q: I upgraded my hard disk in my computer to a larger drive, so I took out my old system disk (3.5 SATA), put it in a USB enclosure and have been using it as an external drive. At first, I was able to boot into the disk to get old files off of it, or write to it directly when it was mounted as a slave (I shrank the main partition and added a FAT32 partition for storage). But lately, I’ve noticed that the disk has become less reliable, sometimes failing read/write operations for no reason and sometimes not even showing up at all in Windows. Now, I can’t get my computer to recognize it at all. What should I do?
	DATA RECOVERY FROM A FAILED RAID: IS IT POSSIBLE?			Q: I recently had a RAID fail due to a power outage. Now, the whole volume is unreadable. How can I recover the data?
	HOW TO RECOVER LO0ST OR FORMATTED LOCAL DISKS IN WINDOWS			Q: Help! I was trying to repartition my system disk (Windows 7) for a dual-boot and now I can’t start up Windows or mount the partition! Is there a way to recover the logical disk?
	DISK RECOVERY FROM A RAW FILE SYSTEM PARTITION			Q: Help! I was trying to repartition my system disk (Windows 7) for a dual-boot and now I can’t start up Windows or mount the partition! Is there a way to recover the logical disk?