Data Recovery – When to Call in the Pros

So you’ve suffered a data loss and you can’t get to your files. If you’re like far too many people, you probably don’t have easy access to a backup from which you can restore your files. If you don’t have backups, you’ve got two basic options to recover your lost files from your hard drive. If you can access the drive, you may be able to use data recovery software to get your files back, but it may not always be your best option.

Your other data recovery option is to call in the pros. There are many companies that specialize in recovering files from all sorts of hard drives and media devices. These data recovery services, such as Fields Data Recovery, often have a great deal of success in recovering data from even the most damaged devices. On the other hand, professional data recovery services – even at their best prices – can be expensive. How do you decide whether to call in the pros to handle your lost data woes?

Can You Access Your Hard Drive?

If your drive spins up, if your computer recognizes it and if you can access the hard drive at all, there’s a possibility that you may be able to recover your missing files yourself. There are many data rescue utilities on the market, both free and paid. But be aware that any attempt you make to access those files or restore them may make it more difficult to recover them if you end up sending your disk out to a professional service.

If you can’t access the files or if the drive doesn’t spin up at all, recovering data from it is a job for the pros. It’s practically impossible for a layman without access to special equipment to recover files from a dead hard drive. But before you simple send it out to a pro outfit, continue reading.

How Important Is Data Recovery in this Situation?

Before you make a single attempt to recover the data yourself, consider how important the missing files are to you or your company. Whether or not the disk is accessible, you need to decide how much your company is willing to lay out to restore your data.

If the drive is accessible, but the files aren’t mission-critical, you can make a copy of the data and attempt to recover your data from the copy. That way, if you later decide that those files are more valuable than you thought, you’ll have the original hard drive.

If the drive isn’t accessible at all, but the files aren’t mission critical, you may decide not to spend the money to retrieve the files. In that case, you can attempt to reconstruct the most important files from other sources, but you’ve essentially decided to do without them.

If the drive is inaccessible and the data on it is vital to your company, your only choice is to find a reliable, well-regarded data recovery service such as Fields Associates and contract with them to do the job.