• Home

DataMole
Data Recovery Resource

Recognising a Data Loss Situation

There is an old adage in the computer industry: 'there are two kinds of people: those that have experienced data loss and those that will'. While following advice on preventing problems will minimise the chances, statistically speaking, it's only a matter a time. Many data-related problems start out small and then snowball until they wreak havoc. Recognising a data loss situation as early as possible may mean the difference between a bit of bother and catastrophe.

Except in the case of a complete hardware failure, data loss will probably first become apparent through an error message of some sort, generated either by diagnostic software, the operating system, or an application. Typical error messages could be along the lines of 'error reading disk', or 'file Input/Output error', but might also tend to be cryptic. These types of errors should be attended to immediately; if the data is mysteriously readable three minutes later, don't ignore the problem and wait to see if it happens again. Make sure you have a current backup and at least one other regressive backup, and then try to diagnose the problem as soon as possible. Some research might be necessary to decipher an uninformative error message: check the manual, other reference material, or on the Internet.

There are many tools and procedures to help you confirm if there really is a problem, whether or not it's hardware, and narrow it down to a component or part of a file system. Some of these tools are commercial, some are built into the operating system and others are available for free. However, before things get too involved there are a few easily performed checks that may point you in the right direction. The first is to listen carefully to the disk while it is being accessed. This may sound strange, but then again, so do disks when they're malfunctioning. Another easily performed check to help you recognise a data loss situation is to check the disk with Windows' built-in 'Check Disk' tool.