Data Recovery from Physically Damaged Drives

Types of Data Recovery

Depending on the damage done to the medium, data recovery can be broadly classified into two types: Physical and Logical. We shall be discussing physical data recovery in greater depth within the purview of this article.

• Physical:
  You might have frequently come across situations where you would have encountered trouble playing your CD owing to scratches on the metallic surface. There are other times when your hard disk fails owing to a head crash or a faulty circuit. Recovering data from physical storage medium in these types of conditions is termed as physical data recovery.
  
• Logical:
  Logical damage to a physical storage medium refers to the inconsistent state of the file system present within the medium. Every time you work with your operating system present on the hard drive. When you shut down your computer, the final state of the folders and files present in the local memory are written back to your hard drive. At times, owing to power outages, these files are usually not written back to the hard disk. This leads to the inconsistent state of the file and folder structure leading to data inaccessibility.
  
  
• Physical Data Recovery Methods
  Based on the nature of the physical damage done to the storage medium, physical data recovery can be broadly classified into two types: Electronic and Mechanical.
  
  1. Mechanical: This method is used when the physical parts of the hard drive are damaged. Typical cases of physical damages include the misalignment of the platters. In such cases, you need to transfer the parts from the damaged drive to a new one to salvage the data.
  
  2. Electronic: These kinds of damages happen when the electronic circuit board that manages the operations of the hard drive is damaged. Recovering data from these damages is even more tedious taking into consideration the amount of effort that goes into transferring the circuit to a fit hard drive

Data Recovery – Recovering from Damage beyond Recognition

Today, technology has advanced to such an extent that you might want to think that your data can be salvaged even from ruins. This advanced method of data recovery is known as the Magnetic Force Microscope (MFM) photography. This method involves the scanning the magnetic surface of your platters and forming a digital image of the same. After scanning the entire surface, the final images need to be darned together to form the actual data. This is a very complicated process and is worth pursuing only in cases where the data is extremely important.

Physical Data Recovery – Precautions to be taken

It is always better to play it safe than to face the consequences of a disaster. You can take primary precautions in the first place to avoid any physical damages to the storage medium. This can be done as follows:

• Do not expose the disk to light or temperature variations. This may affect the magnetic medium on the surface of the disk eventually leading to data loss.
  
• Exposure of the disk to the open will invite dust to settle down on the platters. This can cause the hard disk to malfunction subsequently.
  
• Do not keep moving your disk from one place to another. Especially during travel, it would be a nice idea to wrap your disk in a soft medium to prevent it from being exposed to any kind of jerks. Frequent jerks can cause sufficient damage by causing the platters to misalign.
  
• Physical data recovery is a process that cannot be handled by an end user. It usually requires the intervention of professionals who have been trained for years together. There have been instances in the past, where people have tried opening up the hard drive by themselves, which, in any case, should be avoided.

Physical Data Recovery – Professional Players in the Market

One of the few known companies that have been providing data recovery services in the UK and the US is the Fields Data Recovery services. This company has been providing exemplary services for the past 14 years. You can name any manufacturer or any brand and you find Fields' data recovery service providing services to them.

Updated on Monday, August 6, 2007

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