Media Bytes – Issue 8
Sac City Tech Media Bytes
May 13, 2019
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Let’s talk Backup!
Data backup that is. This topic comes up all the time from clients, peers, friends and relatives.
Here’s a few common scenarios:
Question: My hard drive died, is there a way to get my data back?
Answer: This is a tough one. There’s basically three ways that a hard drive fails in terms of physical failure.
1) The motor dies in which case the drive won’t spin allowing the data to be accessed.
2) The electronic circuitry fails which prevents control of the hard drive, or access to the data on the drive.
3) Hard drive media where the data is stored fails often causing various levels of data corruption up to complete data loss.
There are data recovery companies that claim to recover your data from a a failed drive, but it can get quite expensive, several hundred of dollars or more. And regardless of what they say, there is no guarantee of how much data they can recover, if they will recover what you really need, or if it will be in a reasonably useable format.
Sadly, hard drives have a limited lifespan. They may last a few years, they may last over 10. However, they will eventually fail and most likely at the worst possible time.
Question: I accidentally erased my important file, what can I do?
Answer: The file may be recoverable if it went to the system “Trash Can” provided that it hasn’t been emptied yet. If you can go into the Trash and see the file, you can most likely restore it. If needed, search for the procedures on how to recover files from the trash can with your operating system.
Question: My data got corrupted, what do I do?
Answer: There are a number of tools that may help here, but there is no guarantee they will work. It depends on how the data has been corrupted and how bad the damage is.
Question: I was a victim of Ransomware, should I pay to get my data back?
Answer: It is highly unlikely paying a ransom will get your system unlocked and your files back. And once you pay a ransom, there’s no way to insure it won’t happen again. Paying a ransom is not recommended.
At some point, it’s very likely that you will encounter more than one of these situations as well as some not mentioned here. And you will likely experience some form of data loss on more than one occasion. The best recommendation is prevention. With the low cost of hard drives and other backup solutions, there is no reason to experience data loss if your data is backed up on a regular basis. Just remember, your data is only current as of your most recent backup. So Backup often!
The bottom line here is, Backup, Backup, Backup! Having a number backups is highly recommended. For Windows system, software that can create a complete image of your of your entire hard drive(s) to a single file is a simple and effective way to backup. True Image from Acronis is a fantastic tool. These backup images can be safely stored on external hard drives available for a complete restore at anytime. For Apple Macs, the built in Time Machine feature works extremely well and can be setup to automatically backup your system to an external hard drive in the background so you don’t have to think about it.
If you aren’t already doing regular backups, now is a great time to start. And keep in mind that backup drives can fail too, so making additional backups to other hard drives is a good idea.
Protecting your data with good, frequent backups will allow you to easily recover with any of the above situations as well as those not mentioned.
Have a great, successful and prosperous week. Please let us know if there is anything we can do to help you!
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