New Version of Mapilab Groupware Server
Author: Softinform
Kaliningrad, November 2007 - The MAPILab company announces the release of the new version of MAPILab Groupware Server 1.5. It is an ultimate groupware solution based on Microsoft Outlook for organizing teamwork without the deployment of Microsoft Exchange Server. This program is particularly designed for sharing public folders of Microsoft Outlook in real time mode. The MAPILab company did it best to meet demands of its customers in the new version of the program. Now through MAPILab Groupware Server installation on Microsoft Windows Vista, program components are automatically added to the list of Windows Firewall exceptions and connection of the server with clients is not blocked. A possibility to import local or domain users to the list of MAPILab Groupware users is also available in the new version. There is no need now to add each user to MAPILab Groupware Server separately as you can add local or Active Directory users with the help of a new wizard. Besides, administrators do not have to set personal passwords for each user - passwords are controlled by the system and administrators only need to add users from Active Directory to enable them to use public folders. Users can connect to public folders located on MAPILab Groupware Server using their name and password.MAPILab Groupware Server homepage: http://www.mapilab.com/groupware/server/
MAPILab homepage: http://www.mapilab.com/. About the MAPILab company: The MAPILab company is one of the leading developers of software products for Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Office applications. Being a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner the company currently offers more than 30 products around the world including add-in for Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Excel; extensions for Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Small Business Server; a number of groupware solutions for organizing teamwork based on Microsoft Outlook. All MAPILab titles support English, German and Russian languages.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/software-articles/new-version-of-mapilab-groupware-server-274046.html
About the Author:
MAPILab Ltd.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
ERP Version Upgrade: Microsoft Great Plains Example and General Notes
ERP Version Upgrade: Microsoft Great Plains Example and General Notes
Author: Andrew Karasev
If you have been using your accounting and MRP application for the long time without investing into version update, now it might be time for you to consider getting updated. Assuming that you represent mid-size enterprise, you should expect that corporate ERP version upgrade is something that you should build the strong action plan for – to avoid your ERP shutdown time and possible rollbacks, if things are not going as expected. Additional considerations should be given to the situation when you have third party or custom-made modules: reports, integrations, EDI, etc. Let’s review what you should expect:
1. ERP annual maintenance plan. Nowadays software industry deploys this practice, when your purchase of MRP system just opens the door to ERP implementation, following support, access to newest versions, etc. Naturally, all these benefits have a cost for software development company and they are typically translated to you in the form of ERP annual enhancement program. Check with your ERP partner that you are current in this plan
2. Cross-platform integrations upgrade. In our opinion, ERP customers spend extra funds in cross platform scenarios, such as when their Sales Order Processing system is hosted in Linux/PHP environment and ERP application is Microsoft SQL Server and Windows based, here you should also recognize that MRP upgrade process requires IT person or programmer, who is comfortable with both platform: UNIX and Microsoft Windows in our example
3. Microsoft Dynamics GP upgrade scenarios. GP customizations, especially legacy ones were typically done in Great Plains Dexterity IDE and sanscript programming language. Reporting tools: FRx, Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services or SRS, GP ReportWriter (where you modify such popular reports as SOP Blank Invoice Form) and Crystal Reports; eConnect opens the door to Microsoft Visual Studio .Net C# or VB developer to the realm of GP objects: customers, vendors, employees, GL transactions, Sales and Vendor Invoices
4. ERP rollback rescue. Obviously, we are optimists, however we should consider contingency plans, where we roll back to old positions. In the case of corporate ERP version update, rollback may cause substantial business opportunity loss
5. Switching from one ERP to another. When you have been operating on ERP A, it is not easy to switch to ERP B as it typically triggers fullscale data conversion and migration, employee retraining, custom logic reprogramming
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/software-articles/erp-version-upgrade-microsoft-great-plains-example-and-general-notes-274637.html
About the Author:
Andrew Karasev, Alba Spectrum Group, http://www.albaspectrum.com - help@albaspectrum.com 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918, serving customers USA/Canada nationwide: Illinois, California, New York, Quebec, Ontario, Colorado, Utah, Wisconsin, Florida, Texas. Local service is available in Houston & Dallas: Richmond, Sugar Land, Katy, Rosenberg, Missouri City, Pearland, Friendswood, Meadows, Mission Bend, Jersey Village, Fort Worth; serving GP customers in Chicago, IL: Naperville, Aurora, Joliet, Wheaton, Bolingbrook, Romeoville, Lyons, Niles, Downers Grove, Lisle, West Chicago, Barrington, Schaumburg, Elk Grove Village, Lombard, Morris, Ottawa, Marseilles, Seneca, Oswego, Plainfield, Darien, Winchester, Hinsdale.
Author: Andrew Karasev
If you have been using your accounting and MRP application for the long time without investing into version update, now it might be time for you to consider getting updated. Assuming that you represent mid-size enterprise, you should expect that corporate ERP version upgrade is something that you should build the strong action plan for – to avoid your ERP shutdown time and possible rollbacks, if things are not going as expected. Additional considerations should be given to the situation when you have third party or custom-made modules: reports, integrations, EDI, etc. Let’s review what you should expect:
1. ERP annual maintenance plan. Nowadays software industry deploys this practice, when your purchase of MRP system just opens the door to ERP implementation, following support, access to newest versions, etc. Naturally, all these benefits have a cost for software development company and they are typically translated to you in the form of ERP annual enhancement program. Check with your ERP partner that you are current in this plan
2. Cross-platform integrations upgrade. In our opinion, ERP customers spend extra funds in cross platform scenarios, such as when their Sales Order Processing system is hosted in Linux/PHP environment and ERP application is Microsoft SQL Server and Windows based, here you should also recognize that MRP upgrade process requires IT person or programmer, who is comfortable with both platform: UNIX and Microsoft Windows in our example
3. Microsoft Dynamics GP upgrade scenarios. GP customizations, especially legacy ones were typically done in Great Plains Dexterity IDE and sanscript programming language. Reporting tools: FRx, Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services or SRS, GP ReportWriter (where you modify such popular reports as SOP Blank Invoice Form) and Crystal Reports; eConnect opens the door to Microsoft Visual Studio .Net C# or VB developer to the realm of GP objects: customers, vendors, employees, GL transactions, Sales and Vendor Invoices
4. ERP rollback rescue. Obviously, we are optimists, however we should consider contingency plans, where we roll back to old positions. In the case of corporate ERP version update, rollback may cause substantial business opportunity loss
5. Switching from one ERP to another. When you have been operating on ERP A, it is not easy to switch to ERP B as it typically triggers fullscale data conversion and migration, employee retraining, custom logic reprogramming
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/software-articles/erp-version-upgrade-microsoft-great-plains-example-and-general-notes-274637.html
About the Author:
Andrew Karasev, Alba Spectrum Group, http://www.albaspectrum.com - help@albaspectrum.com 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918, serving customers USA/Canada nationwide: Illinois, California, New York, Quebec, Ontario, Colorado, Utah, Wisconsin, Florida, Texas. Local service is available in Houston & Dallas: Richmond, Sugar Land, Katy, Rosenberg, Missouri City, Pearland, Friendswood, Meadows, Mission Bend, Jersey Village, Fort Worth; serving GP customers in Chicago, IL: Naperville, Aurora, Joliet, Wheaton, Bolingbrook, Romeoville, Lyons, Niles, Downers Grove, Lisle, West Chicago, Barrington, Schaumburg, Elk Grove Village, Lombard, Morris, Ottawa, Marseilles, Seneca, Oswego, Plainfield, Darien, Winchester, Hinsdale.
A Beginner’s Guide to Data recovery
A Beginner’s Guide to Data recovery
Hard Drive data recovery
When you lose data on your hard drive, you basically have two scenarios: a) you can still access your hard drive, and everything is ok with your operating system or b) your computer froze and doesn’t boot up, and possibly weird noises come from the hard drive.
Let’s tackle scenario a) first, with simple, easy to follow rules.
1. After data loss, never write to the hard drive.
When data is lost on a hard drive, the first rule you should follow is a simple rule of common sense: don’t write anything to that hard drive, until you recover what you’ve lost.
There is a very simple reason for this: when you delete something from your hard drive, the operating system (windows, mac os and linux for example) does not permanently delete that information. Instead, it only tells you that there is more free space – that space is still occupied by your deleted information, but it changes it state, from occupied to free.
One thing is true when it comes to data on your hard drive – what you see is not all you have on your hard drive.
This is true for lost files, but also for lost partitions. If you delete a partition, just leave it blank. You can’t see it, but data recovery software can. Same thing with formatted hard drives – you can still recover from a full format.
How do I delete files forever? If you want to erase files for security and/or privacy reasons you should use commercial software that does that job or contact a specialized data recovery company.
2. Restore your backups
If you did your homework, you should have up-to-date backups of all your vital information. This is the time to check on those backups, and eventually restore them, in order to retrieve the lost data.
In the unlikely event that you don’t have up-to-date backups of your data, you must start the process of data recovery, as explain in the following steps. But remember that in the future backups are your best chance of protecting vital and irreplaceable information. So back up often and store your backups in a safe location.
3. Don’t install data recovery software on the same hard drive where the data loss occurred
Remember step 1. If you install any software to the same hard drive where you lost data, you could overwrite that lost data forever.
4. Turn of your computer
To play it safe, right after your data loss, you should turn off the computer. Even the routine operation of the operating system depends on reads and writes from and to the hard drive, and your lost data can be overwritten in one of those.
5. Protect the hard drive
Remove the hard drive from the computer and connect another one, even an old one, as long as it had an operating system installed, so you can boot up your computer and later on analyse the hard drive where data loss happened. As an alternative, you can install your hard drive in another working computer, as a secondary drive, so you can access it without writing to it directly.
If your data loss happened because of a virus attack, be sure to have anti-virus software installed on the new hard drive.
Rescue disks to the rescue: If you are afraid of taking your computer apart, and you have a pre-prepared “rescue disk”, you can boot your computer from a bootable floppy disk, CD or DVD and go from there.
6. Chose your data recovery software
There are several freeware choices on the Internet, as well as many demos of well known commercial software programs.
You can try, at your own risk experimenting with these programs. In any case, if you have any questions, doubts, or don’t have the technical expertise to recover the lost data by yourself, you can always consult a data recovery company in your area.
Scenario b) happens when hard drive failure occurs.
A hard disk failure occurs when it becomes impossible to access the hard drive, due to internal or external factors. The factors vary, but the most common one if known as “head crash” – the head that reads the magnetic surface of the disk touches the metal surface, grinding against it and making normal reads impossible.
What makes up a hard drive? Platters, a motor, reading/writing heads and head actuators. The platters rotate using the motor and the heads read and write information in the place they are moved to by the actuator arm.
1. Shut off the computer and don’t try to restart it
When a physical error occurs in a hard drive, the best thing to do is not to try to restart the computer system. Further damage can be done to the hard drive if you try a restart.
2. Secure the hard drive
If your hard drive failed because of an external problem, you should preserve the hard drive as-is. This means that, for instance if you had a flood and the hard drive came in contact with water, you should preserve the hard drive in water, and never try to open or dry it by yourself.
My computer was underwater! In this case, the best thing to do is to take your hard drive out and store it in a plastic container full of water. You will send that container to the data recovery company.
2. Choosing a data recovery company
When a physical error occurs you shouldn’t try to fix it by yourself. Many times components must be repaired or even replaced and that can only happen in a clean room environment.
To maximise your chances of recovery, you should quickly find a data recovery company near you.
There are 4 main things you should consider when choosing a data recovery company:
a) The right equipment. The company you choose should have the right means to analyse and recover your lost data. Ask directly if they have at least one class 100 clean room.
b) A partnership opportunity. Will that company forge a partnership with your company? Do they offer training and long-term advices on how to better protect your data?
c) Expertise. Does that company specialize in the media you are trying to recover?
d) List of clients. Check out their website and the list of past clients. Does that list include big names, and a wide array of different industries? That is always a plus.
3. Send the hard drive for analysis
Most data recovery companies don’t charge you anything if they can’t recover your data. They will probably give you an estimate on how much you are going to spend before you have to pay anything, so take advantage of that.
Shop around for better prices, but remember step 2 – sometimes it’s worth it to pay something extra, if you get better equipment and a better track record working for you.
When you decide, send your hard drive in for an estimate. Use preferably the wrapping material that came with your hard drive. If you bought the hard drive along with your computer, use a soft wrapping material, such as an anti-static electrostatic discharge (ESD) bag. Use foam to secure the hard drive inside and prevent sudden movements.
David Marques
Technical director
Data Recover Center
Recuperação de dados
Hard Drive data recovery
When you lose data on your hard drive, you basically have two scenarios: a) you can still access your hard drive, and everything is ok with your operating system or b) your computer froze and doesn’t boot up, and possibly weird noises come from the hard drive.
Let’s tackle scenario a) first, with simple, easy to follow rules.
1. After data loss, never write to the hard drive.
When data is lost on a hard drive, the first rule you should follow is a simple rule of common sense: don’t write anything to that hard drive, until you recover what you’ve lost.
There is a very simple reason for this: when you delete something from your hard drive, the operating system (windows, mac os and linux for example) does not permanently delete that information. Instead, it only tells you that there is more free space – that space is still occupied by your deleted information, but it changes it state, from occupied to free.
One thing is true when it comes to data on your hard drive – what you see is not all you have on your hard drive.
This is true for lost files, but also for lost partitions. If you delete a partition, just leave it blank. You can’t see it, but data recovery software can. Same thing with formatted hard drives – you can still recover from a full format.
How do I delete files forever? If you want to erase files for security and/or privacy reasons you should use commercial software that does that job or contact a specialized data recovery company.
2. Restore your backups
If you did your homework, you should have up-to-date backups of all your vital information. This is the time to check on those backups, and eventually restore them, in order to retrieve the lost data.
In the unlikely event that you don’t have up-to-date backups of your data, you must start the process of data recovery, as explain in the following steps. But remember that in the future backups are your best chance of protecting vital and irreplaceable information. So back up often and store your backups in a safe location.
3. Don’t install data recovery software on the same hard drive where the data loss occurred
Remember step 1. If you install any software to the same hard drive where you lost data, you could overwrite that lost data forever.
4. Turn of your computer
To play it safe, right after your data loss, you should turn off the computer. Even the routine operation of the operating system depends on reads and writes from and to the hard drive, and your lost data can be overwritten in one of those.
5. Protect the hard drive
Remove the hard drive from the computer and connect another one, even an old one, as long as it had an operating system installed, so you can boot up your computer and later on analyse the hard drive where data loss happened. As an alternative, you can install your hard drive in another working computer, as a secondary drive, so you can access it without writing to it directly.
If your data loss happened because of a virus attack, be sure to have anti-virus software installed on the new hard drive.
Rescue disks to the rescue: If you are afraid of taking your computer apart, and you have a pre-prepared “rescue disk”, you can boot your computer from a bootable floppy disk, CD or DVD and go from there.
6. Chose your data recovery software
There are several freeware choices on the Internet, as well as many demos of well known commercial software programs.
You can try, at your own risk experimenting with these programs. In any case, if you have any questions, doubts, or don’t have the technical expertise to recover the lost data by yourself, you can always consult a data recovery company in your area.
Scenario b) happens when hard drive failure occurs.
A hard disk failure occurs when it becomes impossible to access the hard drive, due to internal or external factors. The factors vary, but the most common one if known as “head crash” – the head that reads the magnetic surface of the disk touches the metal surface, grinding against it and making normal reads impossible.
What makes up a hard drive? Platters, a motor, reading/writing heads and head actuators. The platters rotate using the motor and the heads read and write information in the place they are moved to by the actuator arm.
1. Shut off the computer and don’t try to restart it
When a physical error occurs in a hard drive, the best thing to do is not to try to restart the computer system. Further damage can be done to the hard drive if you try a restart.
2. Secure the hard drive
If your hard drive failed because of an external problem, you should preserve the hard drive as-is. This means that, for instance if you had a flood and the hard drive came in contact with water, you should preserve the hard drive in water, and never try to open or dry it by yourself.
My computer was underwater! In this case, the best thing to do is to take your hard drive out and store it in a plastic container full of water. You will send that container to the data recovery company.
2. Choosing a data recovery company
When a physical error occurs you shouldn’t try to fix it by yourself. Many times components must be repaired or even replaced and that can only happen in a clean room environment.
To maximise your chances of recovery, you should quickly find a data recovery company near you.
There are 4 main things you should consider when choosing a data recovery company:
a) The right equipment. The company you choose should have the right means to analyse and recover your lost data. Ask directly if they have at least one class 100 clean room.
b) A partnership opportunity. Will that company forge a partnership with your company? Do they offer training and long-term advices on how to better protect your data?
c) Expertise. Does that company specialize in the media you are trying to recover?
d) List of clients. Check out their website and the list of past clients. Does that list include big names, and a wide array of different industries? That is always a plus.
3. Send the hard drive for analysis
Most data recovery companies don’t charge you anything if they can’t recover your data. They will probably give you an estimate on how much you are going to spend before you have to pay anything, so take advantage of that.
Shop around for better prices, but remember step 2 – sometimes it’s worth it to pay something extra, if you get better equipment and a better track record working for you.
When you decide, send your hard drive in for an estimate. Use preferably the wrapping material that came with your hard drive. If you bought the hard drive along with your computer, use a soft wrapping material, such as an anti-static electrostatic discharge (ESD) bag. Use foam to secure the hard drive inside and prevent sudden movements.
David Marques
Technical director
Data Recover Center
Recuperação de dados
A Beginner’s Guide to Data recovery
A Beginner’s Guide to Data recovery
Hard Drive data recovery
When you lose data on your hard drive, you basically have two scenarios: a) you can still access your hard drive, and everything is ok with your operating system or b) your computer froze and doesn’t boot up, and possibly weird noises come from the hard drive.
Let’s tackle scenario a) first, with simple, easy to follow rules.
1. After data loss, never write to the hard drive.
When data is lost on a hard drive, the first rule you should follow is a simple rule of common sense: don’t write anything to that hard drive, until you recover what you’ve lost.
There is a very simple reason for this: when you delete something from your hard drive, the operating system (windows, mac os and linux for example) does not permanently delete that information. Instead, it only tells you that there is more free space – that space is still occupied by your deleted information, but it changes it state, from occupied to free.
One thing is true when it comes to data on your hard drive – what you see is not all you have on your hard drive.
This is true for lost files, but also for lost partitions. If you delete a partition, just leave it blank. You can’t see it, but data recovery software can. Same thing with formatted hard drives – you can still recover from a full format.
How do I delete files forever? If you want to erase files for security and/or privacy reasons you should use commercial software that does that job or contact a specialized data recovery company.
2. Restore your backups
If you did your homework, you should have up-to-date backups of all your vital information. This is the time to check on those backups, and eventually restore them, in order to retrieve the lost data.
In the unlikely event that you don’t have up-to-date backups of your data, you must start the process of data recovery, as explain in the following steps. But remember that in the future backups are your best chance of protecting vital and irreplaceable information. So back up often and store your backups in a safe location.
3. Don’t install data recovery software on the same hard drive where the data loss occurred
Remember step 1. If you install any software to the same hard drive where you lost data, you could overwrite that lost data forever.
4. Turn of your computer
To play it safe, right after your data loss, you should turn off the computer. Even the routine operation of the operating system depends on reads and writes from and to the hard drive, and your lost data can be overwritten in one of those.
5. Protect the hard drive
Remove the hard drive from the computer and connect another one, even an old one, as long as it had an operating system installed, so you can boot up your computer and later on analyse the hard drive where data loss happened. As an alternative, you can install your hard drive in another working computer, as a secondary drive, so you can access it without writing to it directly.
If your data loss happened because of a virus attack, be sure to have anti-virus software installed on the new hard drive.
Rescue disks to the rescue: If you are afraid of taking your computer apart, and you have a pre-prepared “rescue disk”, you can boot your computer from a bootable floppy disk, CD or DVD and go from there.
6. Chose your data recovery software
There are several freeware choices on the Internet, as well as many demos of well known commercial software programs.
You can try, at your own risk experimenting with these programs. In any case, if you have any questions, doubts, or don’t have the technical expertise to recover the lost data by yourself, you can always consult a data recovery company in your area.
Scenario b) happens when hard drive failure occurs.
A hard disk failure occurs when it becomes impossible to access the hard drive, due to internal or external factors. The factors vary, but the most common one if known as “head crash” – the head that reads the magnetic surface of the disk touches the metal surface, grinding against it and making normal reads impossible.
What makes up a hard drive? Platters, a motor, reading/writing heads and head actuators. The platters rotate using the motor and the heads read and write information in the place they are moved to by the actuator arm.
1. Shut off the computer and don’t try to restart it
When a physical error occurs in a hard drive, the best thing to do is not to try to restart the computer system. Further damage can be done to the hard drive if you try a restart.
2. Secure the hard drive
If your hard drive failed because of an external problem, you should preserve the hard drive as-is. This means that, for instance if you had a flood and the hard drive came in contact with water, you should preserve the hard drive in water, and never try to open or dry it by yourself.
My computer was underwater! In this case, the best thing to do is to take your hard drive out and store it in a plastic container full of water. You will send that container to the data recovery company.
2. Choosing a data recovery company
When a physical error occurs you shouldn’t try to fix it by yourself. Many times components must be repaired or even replaced and that can only happen in a clean room environment.
To maximise your chances of recovery, you should quickly find a data recovery company near you.
There are 4 main things you should consider when choosing a data recovery company:
a) The right equipment. The company you choose should have the right means to analyse and recover your lost data. Ask directly if they have at least one class 100 clean room.
b) A partnership opportunity. Will that company forge a partnership with your company? Do they offer training and long-term advices on how to better protect your data?
c) Expertise. Does that company specialize in the media you are trying to recover?
d) List of clients. Check out their website and the list of past clients. Does that list include big names, and a wide array of different industries? That is always a plus.
3. Send the hard drive for analysis
Most data recovery companies don’t charge you anything if they can’t recover your data. They will probably give you an estimate on how much you are going to spend before you have to pay anything, so take advantage of that.
Shop around for better prices, but remember step 2 – sometimes it’s worth it to pay something extra, if you get better equipment and a better track record working for you.
When you decide, send your hard drive in for an estimate. Use preferably the wrapping material that came with your hard drive. If you bought the hard drive along with your computer, use a soft wrapping material, such as an anti-static electrostatic discharge (ESD) bag. Use foam to secure the hard drive inside and prevent sudden movements.
David Marques
Technical director
Data Recover Center
Recuperação de dados
Hard Drive data recovery
When you lose data on your hard drive, you basically have two scenarios: a) you can still access your hard drive, and everything is ok with your operating system or b) your computer froze and doesn’t boot up, and possibly weird noises come from the hard drive.
Let’s tackle scenario a) first, with simple, easy to follow rules.
1. After data loss, never write to the hard drive.
When data is lost on a hard drive, the first rule you should follow is a simple rule of common sense: don’t write anything to that hard drive, until you recover what you’ve lost.
There is a very simple reason for this: when you delete something from your hard drive, the operating system (windows, mac os and linux for example) does not permanently delete that information. Instead, it only tells you that there is more free space – that space is still occupied by your deleted information, but it changes it state, from occupied to free.
One thing is true when it comes to data on your hard drive – what you see is not all you have on your hard drive.
This is true for lost files, but also for lost partitions. If you delete a partition, just leave it blank. You can’t see it, but data recovery software can. Same thing with formatted hard drives – you can still recover from a full format.
How do I delete files forever? If you want to erase files for security and/or privacy reasons you should use commercial software that does that job or contact a specialized data recovery company.
2. Restore your backups
If you did your homework, you should have up-to-date backups of all your vital information. This is the time to check on those backups, and eventually restore them, in order to retrieve the lost data.
In the unlikely event that you don’t have up-to-date backups of your data, you must start the process of data recovery, as explain in the following steps. But remember that in the future backups are your best chance of protecting vital and irreplaceable information. So back up often and store your backups in a safe location.
3. Don’t install data recovery software on the same hard drive where the data loss occurred
Remember step 1. If you install any software to the same hard drive where you lost data, you could overwrite that lost data forever.
4. Turn of your computer
To play it safe, right after your data loss, you should turn off the computer. Even the routine operation of the operating system depends on reads and writes from and to the hard drive, and your lost data can be overwritten in one of those.
5. Protect the hard drive
Remove the hard drive from the computer and connect another one, even an old one, as long as it had an operating system installed, so you can boot up your computer and later on analyse the hard drive where data loss happened. As an alternative, you can install your hard drive in another working computer, as a secondary drive, so you can access it without writing to it directly.
If your data loss happened because of a virus attack, be sure to have anti-virus software installed on the new hard drive.
Rescue disks to the rescue: If you are afraid of taking your computer apart, and you have a pre-prepared “rescue disk”, you can boot your computer from a bootable floppy disk, CD or DVD and go from there.
6. Chose your data recovery software
There are several freeware choices on the Internet, as well as many demos of well known commercial software programs.
You can try, at your own risk experimenting with these programs. In any case, if you have any questions, doubts, or don’t have the technical expertise to recover the lost data by yourself, you can always consult a data recovery company in your area.
Scenario b) happens when hard drive failure occurs.
A hard disk failure occurs when it becomes impossible to access the hard drive, due to internal or external factors. The factors vary, but the most common one if known as “head crash” – the head that reads the magnetic surface of the disk touches the metal surface, grinding against it and making normal reads impossible.
What makes up a hard drive? Platters, a motor, reading/writing heads and head actuators. The platters rotate using the motor and the heads read and write information in the place they are moved to by the actuator arm.
1. Shut off the computer and don’t try to restart it
When a physical error occurs in a hard drive, the best thing to do is not to try to restart the computer system. Further damage can be done to the hard drive if you try a restart.
2. Secure the hard drive
If your hard drive failed because of an external problem, you should preserve the hard drive as-is. This means that, for instance if you had a flood and the hard drive came in contact with water, you should preserve the hard drive in water, and never try to open or dry it by yourself.
My computer was underwater! In this case, the best thing to do is to take your hard drive out and store it in a plastic container full of water. You will send that container to the data recovery company.
2. Choosing a data recovery company
When a physical error occurs you shouldn’t try to fix it by yourself. Many times components must be repaired or even replaced and that can only happen in a clean room environment.
To maximise your chances of recovery, you should quickly find a data recovery company near you.
There are 4 main things you should consider when choosing a data recovery company:
a) The right equipment. The company you choose should have the right means to analyse and recover your lost data. Ask directly if they have at least one class 100 clean room.
b) A partnership opportunity. Will that company forge a partnership with your company? Do they offer training and long-term advices on how to better protect your data?
c) Expertise. Does that company specialize in the media you are trying to recover?
d) List of clients. Check out their website and the list of past clients. Does that list include big names, and a wide array of different industries? That is always a plus.
3. Send the hard drive for analysis
Most data recovery companies don’t charge you anything if they can’t recover your data. They will probably give you an estimate on how much you are going to spend before you have to pay anything, so take advantage of that.
Shop around for better prices, but remember step 2 – sometimes it’s worth it to pay something extra, if you get better equipment and a better track record working for you.
When you decide, send your hard drive in for an estimate. Use preferably the wrapping material that came with your hard drive. If you bought the hard drive along with your computer, use a soft wrapping material, such as an anti-static electrostatic discharge (ESD) bag. Use foam to secure the hard drive inside and prevent sudden movements.
David Marques
Technical director
Data Recover Center
Recuperação de dados
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