subject: Data Recovery Services... Good Enough For Law Enforcement, Good Enough For Me [print this page] Not enough people take the time to really appreciate the abilities inherent in the everyday technology we use. Personal computers, mobile phones and MP3 players are all devices that we store our favourite things on; music and photographs, and we just expect them to work. OK, some of us may have experienced the blue screen of death, dropped a phone or inadvertently washed an iPod, but we cry, stamp our feet , regret not making a back up then start all over again. It still amazes me how few people use data recovery services to retrieve their lost, damaged or corrupted information, yet continue to store their most important data on a drive, then lament it's loss.
I think what everyone should know is that data recovery services do in fact work, and they are able to retrieve more information that you'd imagine, but because information stored as binary code on a chip is an abstract idea to most people, they are under the assumption that once it can't be accessed it is gone forever. One need only take a look at the computer forensics industry, where the Police confiscate personal computers of suspected criminals, and are able to use data recovery services to retrieve overwritten and corrupted information, and they can even retrieve files from components that have been physically damaged by flood or fire.
This type of data recovery has been tried and tested in computer forensics, and has proved that it is possible to retrieve information that has been lost by accident, or on purpose. These services are available to businesses and the public, not just law enforcement departments, and it is therefore possible to retrieve important documents lost on a storage device. Whilst this may not be so important for a personal iTunes collection, there are many instances where it is in fact a much needed safety net.
Musicians for example, and music producers may have important master copies stored on a drive that have not been backed up elsewhere. Or businesses may have client information, contracts and years worth of tax returns, that if lost could result in serious consequences such as fines, loss of business and even the failure of the company altogether. What is important here is that while data recovery services are more likely than not to be able to recover information from a corrupt or damaged drive, if the information was backed up in the first place, there would be no need for such services. So next time you save something important on your PC, why not save it to an external drive too?
