Data Recovery Software- The Good And The Bad

If you are a regular computer user, and haven’t already done so, you know that you’ll eventually lose some of your data by mistakenly deleting it, having your operating system crash, or being the victim of a virus, worm, or Trojan. In spite of your best efforts at security, your own error or Mother Nature can step in to compromise your PC and it’s bye-bye files. Is there anyway you can rebound if the worst happens?

Yu have at least one readily available solution: data recovery software. Data recovery software is an ingenious tool which, like a beloved hunting dog, tracks down and retrieves data which has been lost in the vast wilderness of your hard drive. Data recovery software does not question why you lost your data; it only seeks to return it to you.

Data recovery software can make even novice PC users look like Microsoft geeks, and can save you from having to ship your hard drive over long distances for extended periods so that a data recovery service can examine it and decide whether or not your data is salvageable.

How Data Recovery Software Works

Data recovery software works because even though data may have been deleted or moved from one area of your computer’s hard drive, a copy of it remains on another area. The data recovery software will locate this copy, and once it does the data can be retrieved and used again. If, however, the data which is lost was data from a file on which you were working, but had not yet saved, when your data loss occurred, the data recovery software won’t be able to get it back. It will only be able to find the most recently saved version.

The Limits Of Data Recovery Software

Another little-known characteristic of data recovery software is that it is, very often, task-specific. In other words, not all data recovery software is equipped to deal with every type of data loss. Some software will retrieve lost email information and some will find lost passwords. But there is comprehensive data recovery software as well, so make sure you understand what you are buying.

Data recovery software should be your first choice for recovering your lost files; if you can succeed with it, make a habit in the future of backing up all your critical data. But if the data recovery software, in spite of your best efforts, is just not up to the job, you can decide if you want to take the next step and consult a data recovery specialist.