Is Your Data Recoverable?
  Nathaniel Adam Briggs, CEO/Founder EGenerations - August 7th, 2007    Views1: 1147    Rated: 

"My hard drive crashed...is there anything you can do to get it back?"  I've heard this in many forms, and even a couple times accompanied with tears.  The person lost their data, their photos, their stories... and now they want it all back.  You would too right?  Well guess what, unless certain preparations are made, you are headed directly toward repeating the line above (maybe with tears) to some unknown technical professional.

What's a Hard Drive Crash ?

Data Recovery - sounds complicated doesn't it?  Well..it's not.  In essence it means utilizing various methods to retrieve the information that is magnetically stored on your computer's hard drive.

If the hard drive had a "soft-crash", then likely the data could be retrieved using some software package - Symantec produces one. However if your hard drive had a "hard-crash", the retrieval of the information will cost between somewhere north of $300.00 to $2000.00.

So what do you do ?

First, when

Learn approaches to keeping your data safe
you store pictures, stories, documents or anything else, you want to try and keep them centralized.  This means placing them in one easy to access location, like a directory with a name you recognize.

Second, you want to "burn" them onto CD-ROM or DVD regularly.  Most computers have come with CD-ROM Burners for quite awhile, and Windows has the ability built-in.  You want to archive your materials once every 1-4 months, and with it centralized it should be as easy as selecting the material, putting a CD-ROM into your drive, and clicking "Burn".

Things to Watch For !

If you start hearing strange noises ( unlike the normal noises you hear ) from your computer, like a tick-tick-ticking when you do various things on your computer, then you hard drive is likely headed toward that big place in the sky, and a back-up should occur ASAP.

There are also online methods which allow you to back-up materials such as http://www.xdrive.com/ .  Now I have not personally
Learn approaches to keeping your data safe
used them, but I am confident the service they offer will solve your needs.  You can also so a Google search for "free online backup", and investigate the large array of choices that I am sure are available.  I think even Google offers a file storage method.

Better to Have than to Have Not !

The above saying has always treated me well, as it is always better to have something you don't need, than to need something you do not.

So watchful, and take care of those items you store on that computer.  As time goes on the computer is becoming more and more central with regard to storage of materials we all cherish.  When things are in digital form, exchange, and sharing are all very easy to take advantage of, but that also means remaining vigilant with your back up routine.
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