Common Mistakes Made Trying to Recover Data

COMMON MISTAKES PEOPLE MAKE TRYING TO RECOVER DATA

In an attempt to recover data, many end users make mistakes that can cause damage to the media and make the data irretrievable. Data recovery is the most successful when performed by a professional data recovery company. Some of
the most common mistakes users make are listed below and should not be tried at home:

1)	Reformat the hard drive. DO NOT reformat the hard drive. This allows an overwrite to the master boot record causing data recovery to become more difficult.

2)	Run off-the-shelf data recovery software. There are many software packages that sound tempting, however this data recovery software can overwrite the existing data on the media. By overwriting this data, you risk losing it permanently.

3)	Repartition the hard drive. This makes data recovery extremely difficult and will probably increase the price you will pay for such recovery.

4)	Expose the media to extreme temperatures. There are many myths circulating on the internet that claim you can recover data if you "freeze" or "heat" your hard drive. Heating can melt the circuitry on the media. At the other extreme, freezing a hard drive could expose the media to condensation.

5)	Open a hard drive. A hard drive should never be opened unless done by a data recovery expert in a clean room. The internal components of a hard drive are very fragile. The platters inside the disk that contain data are very sensitive to dust and fingerprints. This is the reason hard drive manufacturers go to great lengths to make it difficult to open a hard disk.