You searched in all the folders on your PC, checked the ‘Recycle Bin’, and gone through the ‘Desktop’ as well, but you could not see an important file that you have stored before. Suddenly you wake up, find yourself in bed and realize that it was a nightmare. Many times, people face such troublesome situations in which they've accidentally deleted a precious file, or performed unexpected formatting of a volume due to a virus or malware infection.
The image below signifies the fractions of data loss and some potential reasons.
However, if you follow certain precautionary measures, you can better prepare yourself to face almost any data loss nightmare.
Maintain backup of your data: The best way to restore your data in any case of data loss is through a backup that you've created previously. It is a good practice to maintain a backup of your entire data on a regular basis so that you do not lose your latest documents files, photos, videos, songs, or other data of importance.
Cloud host your data: There are many free utilities and online options like Dropbox which can automatically synchronize all your data to the cloud and assure yourself that you'll never lose your data after a full system failure or crash.
Make sure that you are not deleting anything important: Many times, in order to clean up our cluttered hard drive space, we simply delete some really important files. Therefore, it is recommended to first ensure that you are not going to delete anything important or worth having in the future. For this, cross check whatever you are going to delete or put it somewhere else like on an external hard drive.
Empty the Recycle Bin with care: Cleaning up the ‘Recycle Bin’ also comes under the process of clearing your filled hard drive, but be vigilant while clearing out the bin. Many times users complain that they accidentally deleted a file that they want to restore from the Recycle Bin. Therefore it is suggested to watch what you are going to delete from your Recycle Bin before actually deleting anything from it.
Article comments
1 - Christopher Rose
This happened to me recently, so I know from bitter personal experience how devastating it can be.
My hard drive failed and I couldn't even boot my computer so I called my regular computer guy and when he came over he confirmed that I would either need to start over from nothing or try a data recovery service.
Obviously what I wanted was a complete recovery of everything, data and programmes, so I turned to the internet to find a company that could help me.
After lots of research, I settled on a company called Data A&E because they were affordable (some of these companies charge thousands) and told me that if the data was recoverable they would be able to send me a replacement hard drive that could just be dropped into my computer.
Unfortunately, either through negligence or deceit, Data A&E delivered recovered data only in an unbootable and unusable format, so not only was I out my data, I was out of pocket too. I've asked for a refund but may have to take them to court.
As the article mentions, backing up is the way to go and I am now backing up all my data and programmes on an external hard drive and storing key documents in the cloud, using a combination of Dropbox and Google Drive.
Losing everything in your computer is a total disaster and if you work online, a potential economic nightmare too, so keep your stuff backed up!
2 - Abhay Jeet Mishra
Dear Christopher,
Its the fault of your choice. Money doesn't matter if the data is more worthy than your whole life.
You should always go with recommended brands and who has proven steps of successful data recovery from many more years.
Backing up your data is one of the best method to fight against data loss situations but people keeps ignoring that facts and would face data loss circumstances like you either sooner or later.
Thanks for your comment though.
3 - Christopher Rose
Hi Abhay,
Yes, I know now that I can't trust my hard drive, but this is the first time that this has happened in 20 years, so I guess I was a little complacent.
I am angry with myself, with my computer manufacturer (Dell), but most of all with the data recovery company that let me down so badly, Data A&E, so the whole affair has been terrible.
Money does matter if you don't have enough of it and this incident has cost me over £1,000 that I couldn't really spare but had no choice but to spend.
4 - Dr Dreadful
I had a similar experience to Chris recently, and suffered thanks to a mixture of complacency and procrastination.
After many years of putting it off, I had finally decided to buy a backup hard drive. I'd received some money for Christmas and set it aside for that purpose.
One day before my planned trip to the store to purchase the backup, the hard drive on my laptop failed: completely and, unless I was prepared to fork over thousands to a data recovery company, irretrievably.
Fortunately, most of the really important stuff was backed up on my wife's laptop as well. The few files that weren't, while somewhat important and irreplaceable, didn't justify the expense of recovery.
Lesson learned and new laptop hard drive acquired and installed (I got a free Mac OS upgrade out of it, which was rather gratifying), I dutifully went off to the store, purchased my backup drive, brought it home and copied everything over.
Then the backup drive failed.
I got a free replacement, and so far (fingers crossed) it's working fine, but I know I ought to put at least the really vital data in the cloud as well. That damn procrastination again... :-)
5 - Christopher Rose
Hi Doc,
Woo, you really had some bad luck! Didn't realise that kind of thing happened with Macs as well as humble PCs.
You should be able to get a decent data recovery for hundreds rather than thousands of dollars but, whatever you do, don't use Data A&E, who I am going to continue to warn against for a long time to come, in addition to taking them to court.
I'm irate, and want to give Data A&E as many bad reviews as I can to help others to avoid their "service". Fortunately I have a lot of web sites I can post on to tell others about the problems with Data A&E!
I'd really like to have everything in the cloud, all my software and data, but that isn't really possible yet, not least because most of Europe and the USA is still only offering relatively slow internet connection speeds.
One day, though, one day...
6 - Dr Dreadful
So what was the name of the company that screwed you over, Chris? Didn't quite catch it...
:-)
7 - Christopher Rose
It was Data A&E in Lewes, East Sussex, run by a guy called Nick Powell.
Just in case I wasn't clear enough, I am giving Data A&E a very bad review for their terrible service. I feel misled and badly letdown, to say nothing of out of pocket.
8 - c i n d y
DrD,
Are you aware that there is a 6th volume in H2GT2G now? I just got it and after 5 minutes in it promises to be every bit as rewarding as the other 5 volumes in the trilogy. :-)
9 - Dr Dreadful
I knew about it, Cindy, but was a bit leery of reading it since it's not by Douglas. Your tentative recommendation eases my mind a bit. As it happens I'm going to the library this evening so I will see if they have a copy.