How to Set Up Data Recovery

Losing your personal or business files on any computer can cost you a lot of time, stress and, possibly, money, depending on what is lost. Almost everyone at one point or another has deleted something by mistake or has had a hard drive malfunction, causing them to lose important files. With a large range of programs available, recovering that data has become easier. You just need to set up your computer before starting your data recovery.

Things You'll Need

• Extra hard drive
• Connecting IDE cable and power cable for hard drive

Instructions

1. Identify if the hard drive you are trying to recover files from is the master boot drive, commonly designated as drive "C," or if it's a secondary drive, known as a slave drive. Most computers just have one hard drive when you purchase it, making "C" the master boot drive. Do not do anything new on this hard drive because it may overwrite any files you wish to recover. Saving any new documents, surfing the Internet or downloading or installing any new programs can potentially erase those files.

2. Turn your computer off.

3. Open up your computer's shell to expose the insides, normally done by removing just a couple screws or attachment clips, and locate your hard drive.

4. Disconnect the IDE and power cable from the existing hard drive.

5. Undo any screws holding the hard drive in place, and remove the hard drive.

6. Locate a computer to which you can back up and recover your files. This computer will need to be able to house two hard drives and have enough available space to save your files.

7. Install your hard drive into the second computer as a slave drive. There is a small side to your hard drive with several pins located on it. Follow manufacturer directions to set the pins to make the hard drive the slave drive.

8. Attach the IDE and power cable to the hard drive.

9. Close the computer's shell with the two hard drives in it, and boot it up.

10. Download or install the program of your choice to run the file recovery. Many have free trials or are relatively low in cost.

11. Follow the directions for the program to run the recovery and identify your files. Once your files have been located, the computer will copy them onto the master hard drive.

Tips & Warnings

• The hard drive can also be connected to the computer by USB cord if its an external hard drive versus an internal hard drive, but the data-transfer rate is about 10 times slower.

• If the hard drive completely failed, freezing it and then trying to recover the files has known to work sometimes, depending on how badly the drive was damaged.

References

• Bill Haynes; IT Tech, County of Henrico Government Center; Richmond, Va.