Posey's Tips & Tricks
Recovering Data When No Backups Exist
Being that I have spent my entire adult life working in IT, I quite naturally get a lot of questions from friends and family about issues that they may be having with their systems. Most of the time, such issues are relatively easy to resolve. Once in a while though, someone calls me because their hard disk has failed. Of course the people who have suffered hard disk failures never seem to have a backup, and they are hoping that I can wave my magic wand and make all of their data come back.
When there is no chance of recovering a PCs hard disk and no backup exists, you have to look for creative ways of getting the data back. The odds of recovering everything that was lost are slim. But it is amazing how much data you might be able to get back with a little bit of creative thinking. As such, I wanted to share with you some of the techniques that I have used for non-traditional, last resort data recovery.
Treat the Failed Drive as External
Assuming that the failed hard disk has been replaced and Windows has been reinstalled, the first thing that I like to try is to connect the PC’s hard disk to the system as an external drive to see if I can recover anything. Obviously this isn't going to work if the disk is encrypted or if the hard disk is making the dreaded clicking sound. Every once in a while, this technique works.
About a year ago, a family member suffered a catastrophic disk failure. After replacing the failed disk and installing Windows, I attached the failed disk to his PC via a USB adapter. Somewhat surprisingly, the disk had suffered a boot sector failure, making it appear as though a total loss had occurred, but the rest of the disk was OK and I was able to recover all of the data.
Even if not all of the data is recoverable, there is always a chance that you may be able to get some of the data back. Even damaged files are sometimes worth recovering because there are repair techniques that can often fix a corrupt file. Last summer for example, I was involved in a scientific research project involving a robotic submersible vehicle (think high-tech RC submarine). At the conclusion of one of the dives, someone forgot to hit stop on the video recording before powering down the vehicle. That caused every bit of the video data from the dive to become corrupted. After doing a bit of research, I was able to find a utility that used another video file that had been recorded by the submarine’s camera as a model for repairing the corrupted file. All of the lost footage was restored.
Look in Your Email
Another trick that I have used more than once for recovering lost data is to retrieve files from an email account. After all, any files that you have recently sent to someone are probably still in your Sent Items folder. Likewise, sent to you by others may still be in your Inbox. If you happen to be using Outlook, you can actually sort the messages based on whether or not they have attachments. That can make it a lot easier to find those illusive files that are buried in someone’s mailbox.
Use Your Phone
Most people keep a lot of data on their smartphone, and a copy of some of the PCs data may be present on a smartphone. Looking in pictures, videos, and documents folders are obvious first steps, but they aren’t the only potential source for recovering lost data. Text messages from others might also contain missing files.
Don't Forget About Social Media
If you have lost pictures or video, you may be able to download those from social media sites where they have been posted. In fact, I once had a situation in which someone had lost a home movie, but had at one point posted the movie on YouTube. I was able to use a YouTube downloader to make a copy an offline copy of the movie for the person.
Offline Sources
It's absolutely amazing how much data can be harvested from offline sources. I’m talking about things like old SD cards from digital cameras, USB flash drives or even old laptops. In many cases, these devices contain a subset of the data that was lost.
If someone suffers a catastrophic disk failure and no backup is available, it is unlikely that they are going to be able to get all of their data back. Even so, there are lots of places from which data might potentially be recovered. With a little creative thinking, it is usually possible to get back at least some of the lost data.
About the Author
Brien Posey is a 22-time Microsoft MVP with decades of IT experience. As a freelance writer, Posey has written thousands of articles and contributed to several dozen books on a wide variety of IT topics. Prior to going freelance, Posey was a CIO for a national chain of hospitals and health care facilities. He has also served as a network administrator for some of the country's largest insurance companies and for the Department of Defense at Fort Knox. In addition to his continued work in IT, Posey has spent the last several years actively training as a commercial scientist-astronaut candidate in preparation to fly on a mission to study polar mesospheric clouds from space. You can follow his spaceflight training on his Web site.