data recovery

Hard Drive Disposal With Extreme Prejudice

2:00AM Jason Fitzpatrick | Earlier this week you learned how to properly erase your physical media using primarily software methods. If you prefer physical destruction as the path to true data security, these videos are for you. Photo by jon_a_ross. More »

DriveLook Recovers Text Data From Missing Files

1:15AM Kevin Purdy | Windows only: DriveLook, a free utility from the makers of the ultra-handy DriveImage XML, scans your hard drive and searches for strings of text to save your lost data. The app initially starts as unlicensed, somewhat disabled software, but you can grab registration information from the DriveLook page. It’s not super-intuitive where you enter your search terms, but it’s in the box at the bottom, one per line. You can get more specific with the variables up top, but if you know the words from a Word file are hanging around somewhere on your drive, just type in a few words you remember from it, and hit “Start.” That’s when you’ll be asked to choose where DriveLook, er, looks: More »

Disk Investigator Examines Raw Hard Drive Data

1:00PM Jason Fitzpatrick | Windows only: Disk Investigator takes a different approach than many data retrieval tools by examining the raw data on the disk. Using the tool is enormously more intensive than a casual Windows search or even using an indexer like Google Desktop. Searching for a string like “password” will reveal every single instance of the word throughout the entire disk inside code, help files, documents, where ever it may be found. If you’re at your wits end trying to recover a deleted file or mine the depths of your computer for something that is stubbornly resisting being found, if it exists there is a strong chance Disk Investigator will turn it up. During my testing of the application, I was rather impressed with just how much it found. Every search I came up with short of Purple Bearded Break Dancing Dragons found hundreds to thousands of instances. I’m sure had I ever actually typed that prior to this moment in time it would have found that too. Whether you need to find lost things or verify that the things you deleted will stay deleted, Disk Investigator is a powerful tool. Disk Investigator is freeware, Windows only. Disk Investigator [via gHacks] More »

Hard Lessons In The Importance Of Backups: JournalSpace Wiped Out

9:00AM Jason Fitzpatrick | Blogging service JournalSpace has been completely wiped out after the drives that housed their entire database were overwritten. The problem was that their backups weren’t actually backups at all. The servers were set up with a mirrored RAID system so that if the primary drive should fail the secondary drive would be used to recover the primary. This alone is risky business, as it only protects you from the failure of one drive. In the case of JournalSpace, the drive didn’t fail but instead the data was overwritten/erased on one drive leading the other drive to follow suite and clear itself. A data recovery team was unable to retrieve the database. So where does that leave you, assuming you didn’t lose your blog in the data-meltdown? Hopefully taking a hard look at your backup plan and making sure that there aren’t the kind of holes in it that were in the JournalSpace backup plan. If you need some tips and tricks for securing your data check out: The Five Best Windows Backup Utilities, and How to Create Your Own Cross-Platform Backup Server. JournalSpace Is No More More »

Clonezilla Backs Up And Restores Your Disks

1:00AM Lifehacker US Edition | All platforms: Clonezilla is an open source, Linux-based alternative to commercial disk cloning tools like Symantec Ghost and Acronis True Image. Unfamiliar with the process of disk cloning? In a nutshell, disk cloning makes a copy of a data disk for future restoration. A perfect time to create a clone would be after you’d installed your operating system of choice, your favourite applications, and tweaked the system settings to your liking. The next time you had to wipe your system and do a reinstall you’d save yourself the tedious hours of reinstalling and tweaking. From that point forward you’d have a customised installation on hand. More »