Hard drive failure recovery by onCALL 25/8 Computer Repair - Maryland

Hard drives live inside every computer, laptop, desktop, server, and even inside your Tivo and ipod! Hard drives store your precious data including programs, files, e-mail, music, movies financial data. . One would think that due to the critical role of the hard drive, they would be ultra-reliable and protect the data which they hold - unfortunately, such is not the case. The ‘data-bank’ you’ve saved your precious memories and hard work are inside a is a ticking-time-bomb located in your home or office in Potomac, Bethesda, Rockille, Silver Spring - Maryland.

Hard drives contain moving mechanical parts, including motors, bearings, and actuator arms. Over time, these parts can fail due to factors such as heat, vibration, shock, and quality of construction. In most cases hard drive failure is not the fault of the end- user. onCALL 25/8 Computer Repair - Marylands specializes in recovery of data from failed hard drives in Potomac, Bethesda, Rockille, Silver Spring - Maryland.

Types of hard drive failure include:

Software Failure and Hardware Failure

onCALL 25/8 Computer Repair - Marylands performs hundreds of data recovery procedures in Potomac, Bethesda, Rockille, Silver Spring - Maryland every month. Data loss can ocurr not only on hard drives, but also on CD and DVD (which can become scratched or cracked), flash media, thumb drives, tape backups, and RAID (Redundant Array of Independent/Inexpensive Disks) Arrays.

There are two main types of data loss situations:

1. Physical Damage including:

Mechanical Failure - Failed motors, head crashes, head rack assembly failures, Improper handling and dropping of devices

Electronic Failure - Such as a failed PCB or logic board, Zap by static discharged, and power failures

2. Logical damage to the file system

Logical damage refers to a software problem, wherein the client’s data is not accessible because the operating system or program cannot recognize the data. Data streams are stored in 0s and 1s as well as in hexadecimal code. Hundreds, Thousands, or Even millions of these file particles make up your Word Document, Itunes music, or home made movies. Having just one bit of information corrupted or out of place can put you in a data recovery situation. Don’t despair, onCALL 25/8 Computer Repair - Marylands can help you with your data recovery needs in Potomac, Bethesda, Rockille, Silver Spring - Maryland

Physical Damage

In the event of a mechanical failure, your hard drive must often be ‘repaired’ in order for your data to be readable. This often requires the use of a clean room. A special lab free of environmental pollutants such as dust, airborne microbes, aerosol particles and chemical vapors. Please do not try to recover your own data or open your own hard drive in Potomac, Bethesda, Rockille, Silver Spring - Maryland. Data recovery from a mechanically failed hard drive requires professional, forensic examination. Simply opening your hard drive in a non-sterile environment can cause further damage to the hard drive. Dust can get on the platters and make recovery impossible.

Head crashes are often catastrophic in nature. The head on a hard drive, literally floats on a thin film of moving air. A head crash occurs when the read-write head comes into contact with the drive’s platter. This results causes the magnetic surface of the drive to become scratched and physically destroys the data structure. Newer drives spin at 7200-10,000 rpm. at 7200 RPM, the platter edge is moving at 74 miles per hour. Just imagine the damage caused by these two metal objects colliding at such a high speed.

Data recovery on mechanically failed drives in Potomac, Bethesda, Rockille, Silver Spring - Maryland must be performed in Class 100 cleanroom facilities. During the recovery process, the drive is in a sterile environment free of any dust of particles.

Logical Damage

Logical Damage can be caused by software errors or fluctuations in power. Your drive reads and writes data from it’s memory cache, a small storage bin of information. In the event of a power outage, your drive will lose power and the storage bin can become lost. Upon powering the drive up, it will not know where it left off, much like a human will react after a concussion - the drive will be confused and unstable, and your data will be inconsistent. Logical, or file system damage is inherent to hard drives and operating systems. onCALL 25/8 Computer Repair - Marylands can help you with file system repair for Linux, Max OS, and Windows FAT and NTFS partitions.

Electronic Failure

Often times, your hard drive’s logic board can become damaged due to factors such as heat or static. Unfortunately, these parts are not found in stores and are not available from the manufacturer. To make matters more complicated, your drive will only accept the same exact model and revision of the motherboard, which can vary from drives produced in the same batch. Don’t despair, onCALL 25/8 Computer Repair - Marylands stocks thousands of PCBs and can match up your drive in Potomac, Bethesda, Rockille, Silver Spring - Maryland.

The recovery CD of hell.

If you are facing a data loss or need data recovery in Potomac, Bethesda, Rockille, Silver Spring - Maryland, please do not take matters into your own hands - call onCALL 25/8 Computer Repair - Marylands. We get requests for data recovery after clients have tried to reinstall their operating system, or format their inconsistent file systems - this makes it much more challenging to recover the data, and lessens the chance of a successful recovery.