Every business owner needs to be aware of their computer data recovery options. Data loss problems can range from the accidental deletion of an important file to complete hard drive failure. There are even degrees of hard drive failure, which can also determine how expensive it is to recover your data.

There are multiple factors that decide the pricing and costs of data recovery services. What type of program or service you need, and how much you can expect to spend, depends primary on how and why your data loss occurred:

1. Choose which unerase program will work the best to recover that important document.
2. Hire a computer technician to perform hard drive data recovery.
3. Ship your dead hard drive out to data recovery specialists.
   

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Download or purchase a hard disk data recovery program

If you've accidentally deleted a vital business document, use your computer as little as possible until you enact your chosen solution. While it's virtually impossible to completely erase a file from your computer, there is a chance that continued activity can overwrite whatever traces of it remain.

I recommend: Lifehacker has an informative article that lists a number of free software utilities that can be used to recover an accidentally deleted file. Recovery Review isn't limited to free software, but it does give you a nice review of a number of different unerase tools, with links to purchase the product of your choice. You shouldn't have to pay more than $40 for a program of this type. Undelete software is one of the cheapest ways of recovering your data, especially if you're just looking for one or two files.

Call in an appointment with a computer service provider that offers data rescue

If your hard drive falls under that 'I'm-not-dead-yet' category, oftentimes you can hire a technician to perform file recovery or data backup for you. This is more expensive than undeleting a single file, but vastly cheaper than sending out a completely dead hard drive to a data recovery specialist. As long as the drive will 'spin up,' a technician is usually able to retrieve anything you need off the drive.

I recommend: Geeks on Call America will perform backup and data recovery off of a hard drive for under $200. This is, of course, assuming that you have a reasonable amount of data. If you need a massive 60GB database recovered, you will pay for the extra time. Geeks on Call will come to your place of business at no extra charge. Geek Squad charges an initial in-store diagnostic fee of a little under $60, but their actual data recovery services start at about $250.

Send your completely dead hard drive out to data recovery specialists

If your hard drive is dead, Windows won't boot, and you are stuck without any hope of accessing vital business information, you can send your hard drive out to a computer data recovery service. This is the most expensive means of data recovery, but it is also the only way that you can recover anything off of a drive that is in complete mechanical failure.

I recommend: Kroll Ontrack is famous for recovering info off of the melted hard drive from the space shuttle Columbia. They are pricey--particularly if you need expedited service. You can expect to pay well over $1000 depending on the degree of drive failure and the amount of data needing to be recovered. DriveSavers Data Recovery is also extremely reputable. They will quote you up-front, and guarantee not to exceed the quote. You can fill out an estimate form online, or contact via toll-free number.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  The best way to not get stuck paying thousands of dollars for data recovery? Have a regularly scheduled backup. Google 'online data backup' for just a few remote backup solutions.

If you ever experience a computer crash or serious malfunction, your information isn't necessarily lost. In fact, there are several methods you can use to attempt to recover your data.

There are no guarantees, and the amount of data that can be recovered depends on the extent of the computer damage. But many data salvage operations are highly successful. And even if the first recovery service you contact isn't optimistic, keep trying. You might find one with a track record of dealing with your special problem.

You'll know if you're facing a potential data loss situation if:

1. You're suddenly unable to access data
2. Your data has been corrupted
3. There is physical damage to your computer or hard drive

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Know the basics of data recovery

Before you do anything, take the time to evaluate your situation and learn about your options.

I recommend: Discuss your situation with others in the community forums at Tek-Tips.com. For a good overview of data recovery, go to Article-Hub.com's Data Recovery section. Learn more about options at The Data Recovery Resource Center.

Test your hard drive

Even if you have a computer crisis, your hard drive may still be OK. If your hard drive survives the event that caused your computer to malfunction, you at least have a fighting chance of retrieving your data.

I recommend: To test your hard drive to see if it survived, install it as a second hard drive in another computer or have a technician do it for you. PC Mechanic and About.com have tutorials on installation.

Restore your data from your back-up source

If you back up your data daily, you'll never lose more than a few hours of work when you experience a hardware failure. If your data is backed up on an external hard drive, a network-attached storage device, a portable flash drive, CDs, DVDs or tapes, the most cost-effective solution is to buy a new hard drive and copy your data to it.

I recommend: Seagate, a manufacturer of external hard drives, has hard drive installation instructions. Find computer storage media at Office Depot.

Try data recovery software

Data recovery software can often, but not always, restore files and documents that were lost for a reason (e.g. accidentally deleted) other than hard drive failure.

I recommend: Recover Lost Data and Recover My Files are two popular software programs that may help.

Find a data recovery company

If you don't want to risk further damage by attempting recovery by yourself, hire a data recovery company. Find a local business if possible; shipping a hard drive will add days to the return of your critical data. Look for a data recovery company that will give you a free evaluation and a binding estimate with if/then scenarios. Make sure they have experience with your operating system, very experienced technicians and a 'clean room.'

I recommend: Tech-Pro has a directory of data recovery services, including MicroCom and Disk Doctors, two popular services that specialize in hard disk recovery. Optimum Data Recovery offers more information about choosing a data recovery company

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  A data recovery company can successfully salvage data at least 75 percent of the time. When they can't, it's usually because the hard disk is physically damaged.
• •  Data recovery services may charge several thousand dollars for labor-intensive solutions. The amount of data to be recovered is sometimes a factor.
• •  Ground yourself to the computer chassis before touching a hard drive. Avoid touching exposed circuitry on the bottom of the drive.

There's always the threat of it looming on the horizon: any office with a significant investment in data processing has the potential to develop "data loss" and will need data recovery. This can come from a variety of places, including power spikes, hardware failure or software glitches (as well as the occasional knucklehead user). Every company needs a go-to person for issues with computer data recovery when problems do happen.

So what if you are that person? Well, if you need to ramp up your knowledge of hard drive or file recovery and similar fixes, there are several ways to do that over the web. Just start looking through what various information sites offer in terms of accessible computer disaster recovery knowledge. Users can find:

1. Training courses for getting "up to speed" on data recovery methods and accumulating expertise on the general techniques used, for running an end game around data recovery service shops.

2. Online "tip pages" that show you some of the most common tactics used by data recovery services — for free!

3. Open forum pages where tech-heads gather to discuss the latest in the digerati's prescription for the data loss blues.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Locate accessible data recovery learning and training courses

If you like formal solutions to learning curves, try talking to educational centers about how they can help develop your data recovery skills and knowledge through proven course formats, so that next time your important client info gets hidden, there's a doctor in the house!

I recommend: InfoSec Institute offers classes in data recovery designed to get staff competent in managing those data backup situations that arise when they are least expected. Find more course options from Deep Spar data recovery systems. Or get more data recovery training from The Learning Tree.

Use online guide sites to help get yourself knowledgeable about hard disk data recovery

For those who don't like the trouble of enrolling and scheduling training options (or paying for them), there's wealth of training tools out there on the net for free! Find detailed tech sites that walk you through what to do in case of a 'data failure.'

I recommend: Get data recovery training tips from DataRecoveryInfo. The Data Recovery First Aid guide online offers more in your best chances in dealing with a lost data situation.

Take advantage of tech forums for learning about data recovery

Another way forward is to put your 'listening ear' to tech forums and glean information from those narrating real-life data problems and how they are solved.

I recommend: Find news on specific data salvage methods from the tech-heads and data recovery specialists who use them at Tek-Tips. Find more advanced data and hard drive recovery info at Tech Forums.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Data recovery services education and training should help you to act much like one of these data recovery shops. Essentially, a good data recovery program should enable you to start building your own knowledge of common problems and fixes, with the idea that you can start to do your own fixes, and possibly, in the future, work on behalf of others.

Data recovery services are vital for any company that stores their business information on a computer. Data recovery services retrieve data from broken hard drives or protect data before it is lost thanks to a computer virus or power surge. When shopping for data recovery services, the first thing you need to know is that the services are broken down into categories for specific file systems. Review the data recovery services key terms below to find the service that will work for your computer system.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

FAT

FAT, or File Allocation Table, is a file system used with Windows and DOS operating system. The FAT filing system allows the operating system to index files and then search to find them. A FAT-16 is for older computers with less than 2GB of memory. The FAT-32 is for systems with more than 2GB of memory.

I recommend: Learn more about FAT systems at Darren Desepoli. Visit Mohammad Yousef Alfasfoos for even more about FAT.

NTFS

NTFS, or New Technology File System, is a file system used by Microsoft products that supports hard drives with sizes up to 256TB. NTFS is more advanced than the FAT-32 and works much faster.

I recommend: Visit WebMediaBrands for more information about NTFS systems. TechTarget also provides information about NTFS.

HFS

An HFS, or Hierarchical File System, is the file system designed by Apple Computers. HFS, or HFS Extended, are for use with the MAC OS.

I recommend: Apple supplies more information about their hierarchical file system.

NSS

NSS is short for Novell Storage Services, which is a 64-bit file system for Linux operating systems and Novell NetWare. NSS allows users to allocate, manage, configure and mount large files. The NSS supports hard drives up to 8TB.

I recommend: Discover more information about NSS at Pearson Education. The Novell website supplies detailed guides and manuals for NSS.

NWFS

NWFS, or NetWare File System, is a heavy duty version of FAT-32 for Novell NetWare systems. NWFS is available in two versions: 16-bit NWFS 286 and 32-bit NWFS 386. The NWFS has a maximum file size of 4GB and a maximum volume of 1TB.

I recommend: Understand NWFS better with information from Novell. Visit AuditMyPC.com for more details about NetWare File Systems.

Clone

In computer-speak, a 'clone' is a computer system that has all of its information and programs placed on another system. In other words, a clone computer is an exact replica of another computer. A ghost copy of one computer is placed on a drive or server and then the clone accesses the ghost copy and applies it to the hard drive.

I recommend: Learn more about computer clones at Digital Inspiration. Visit PCStats.com for more information about computer cloning.