The first step in hard disk recovery is to ascertain whether the loss is a result of a physical hard drive failure, i.e. broken hardware; or, a logical drive failure, i.e. corruption or loss of File System or data. This article identifies the symptoms of physical hard drive failure.
It may be possible on a degrading drive to successfully run data recovery software and retrieve data. Consideration should however be given to recovery techniques which will minimize drive access, for example, and MFT recovery rather than a block scan of the entire drive. It may also be prudent to attempt to acquire a sector by sector disk image of the problem media.
In more serious cases it is necessary to send the hard drive a hard drive data recovery service. Hardware data recovery is a more expensive path as technicians may need to disassemble the hard drive to recover the data. Hard drive data recovery is usually done in a ‘clean room’ as hard drives are sealed to avoid errors caused by dust or other particles. Hard drives are finely tuned machinery and it takes specialist equipment to read the platters from a physically damaged drive.
If you are sending your hard drive to a data recovery specialist then you should attempt to obtain an upfront estimate of fees (although you will rarely get one), ask that if you send your hard drive for quotation purposes will they send it back to you in the same condition if you choose not to use the service, and make sure you send it to a reputable company as you may only get one chance at hard drive data recovery.
There are various Data Recovery services in UK and Kroll Ontrack near Global House is one of them for its authentic way of data recovery.
Recovery experts do not always need to have physical access to the damaged hardware. When the lost data can be recovered by software techniques, they can often perform the recovery using remote access software over the Internet, LAN or other connection to the physical location of the damaged media. The process is essentially no different from what the end user could perform by themselves.
Remote recovery requires a stable connection with an adequate bandwidth. However, it is not applicable where access to the hardware is required, as in cases of physical damage.
Data recovery is often performed by specialized commercial services that have developed often proprietary methods to recover data from physically damaged media. Service costs at data recovery labs are usually dependent on type of damage and type of storage medium, as well as the required security or clean room procedures.
File system corruption can frequently be repaired by the user or the system administrator. For example, a deleted file is typically not immediately overwritten on disk, but more often simply has its entry.
In the field of hard drive recovery UK has flourished enough in Europe, gaining tons of profit there.