Data Recovery Blog

For those of us looking to keep our most sensitive data safe, storing it on a drive that was unnetworked went a long way towards ensuring it was secure. The logic behind this principal was pretty straightforward: data held on a piece of unnetworked storage media can only be accessed by those who can physically access it. In other words, hackers could not remotely access it and retrieve data held on these drives. Now, though, this may no longer be enough – provided the media is mains-powered. A new technique, referred to in a recent report as the ‘PowerHammer’ method, makes it possible for data stored on an unnetworked drive to be accessed remotely provided the drive’s security...

Hard drives have moving parts and when things move, they often create sound. To put it another way, like a car engine, your hard drive can be noisy and still healthy. Some sounds, though, indicate that something is seriously wrong. Typically, hard drives will make low-pitched whirring or whining noises – particularly when they’re booting up or accessing/storing data – or clicking noises. These are usually perfectly normal and not a cause for concern. It’s also worth noting that it’s far from uncommon for people to assume that something is wrong with their hard drive because of the noise produced by their machine’s fan. Just as you know that something’s wrong when an engine mak...

The importance of ensuring that your critical data is regularly backed up and readily accessible cannot be understated within the world of business. Data recovery services are available, of course, but they can't prevent the short-term damage caused by data loss. Thanks to growing awareness with regards to the role data now plays within the world of business, most owners and decision makers understand the importance of having such a strategy in place but, whether due to a lack of technical know-how or naivety, their plans often lack the durability that modern businesses need. Threats to our vital data are becoming more and more widespread. Ransomware, cyber-attacks and disgrun...

On Saturday the 31st March 2018, the world mutedly celebrated what is, in the opinion of Fields Data Recovery, one of the most deserving yet little-known awareness days there is: World Backup Day. It’s understandable that this day doesn’t generate the same degree of coverage as those designed to promote check-ups that could save lives or draw attention to suffering, but the fact that so few of us are aware of this day’s existence serves as proof of the fact that we simply don’t appreciate the vital role data plays in our day-to-day lives - until they find they've lost vital data, at least! Many of the awareness days that are held are designed to raise awareness of various illnes...

As phones have become more sophisticated, the way we use them on a day-to-day basis has fundamentally changed. Not so long ago, the only valuable data stored on our phones was a list of contacts but times have changed: photos, videos, documents, games and more have now found a home in what are now basically handheld computers. At Fields Data Recovery, we now regularly recover data from smartphones, but we'd been trading for more than a decade before these devices became a common site in our lab. Previously, the most common flash data recovery tasks assigned to us involving portable media concerned USB drives. Now, smartphones are far and away the most common flash device we work with.&nb...

Running out of data storage? You’re not alone: recent research has shown that a truly staggering 90% of all data has been created in the last two years. So, in short, we’re constantly creating more and more data which, in turn, means we need more and more places to store it. The problem is that storage media can be expensive, particularly if you don’t know what you need. Walk into an electronics store and tell them you need more memory, for example, and they may well start extolling the virtues of SSDs which, whilst extremely quick, are anything but cheap. Put simply, unless you need or are willing to pay for exceptional read/write speeds, you can bolster your data storage si...

When a hard drive begins making any kind of noise other than a reassuring and subtle whir, it’s safe to say that there’s a problem that needs to be addressed. When a drive makes an audible clicking sound, however, the problem is also likely to be significant and the services of hard drive repair experts are likely to be needed. Why is this? In order to write and read data, all hard drives use what are known as heads. These write data on to what is referred to as a platter (essentially a disk covered in a magnetic surface) when you save it, and read it from the platter when you want to view it. If a hard drive begins to click, it almost certainly means that these key components are...

It might seem logical to assume that, should a type of storage media fail whilst it is still under warranty, the manufacturer will not only replace and/or repair the device, but should foot the bill for any data recovery work that may be required too. After all, you wouldn’t have lost the data if the device hadn’t failed. Unfortunately, however, this isn’t the case and Fields Data Recovery is yet to come across a warranty that covers the cost of recovering lost data. But why is this? Well, for one thing, data recovery can be expensive. If parts need to be replaced or a clean room used then the costs of recovering lost data can grow. Simply replacing a faulty drive with a brand new...

We’ve all, at some point in our lives, deleted a file that we really wanted to keep. The process of recovering it is often as simple as heading to the Recycle Bin/Trash folder and clicking a few buttons but, like they say, even the best laid plans can go awry and we’ve recovered data for clients that’ve accidentally deleted files permanently more times than we can count! Provided you act quickly, though, it’s very, very unlikely that the file in question won’t be recoverable. When a user tells their device to delete a file, the actual data itself is not removed. Instead, the device is basically told that the user no longer wishes to keep this data and an internal file noting the...

Historically, Macs – when compared to machines utilising Windows operating systems – have consistently been considered the better choice for those whose main concern was security. Whilst it remains true that Macs are still generally more secure than their counterparts, though, their superior performance has led to the growth of an untrue and potentially dangerous myth: that Macs are immune to viruses of any kind. The operating systems used by Macs – and, indeed, mobile devices using iOS such as iPads and iPhones – have flaws that can be utilised by hackers just like any other operating system. It just so happens that they contract computer viruses with less regularity than oth...