Adroit Data Recovery Centre (ADRC) On Dealing With Data Loss

Is it safe to say most young entrepreneurs don’t worry enough about data maintenance and data loss? Contributing writer Caroline Yeung speaks to Felix Chang, managing director of data recovery company Adroit Data Recovery Centre (ADRC), about data recovery and loss.

How would data recovery apply to young entrepreneurs?

Young entrepreneurs often do not start out with a lot of capital. As such, many of them do not have a robust, IT infrastructure that would factor in data loss. In a startup, most of the value resides in the company’s intellectual property, and it would be a critical situation in the event that data is lost. Downtime from loss of data also translates to a significant loss in revenue, contracts, opportunities, and records.

What do entrepreneurs have to do in general to protect themselves from data loss?

The number one rule to prevent data loss is to back up your files and data conscientiously. Certain practices – like not booting up when your laptop or computer has crashed and not meddling with the data in a state of panic – can help to make the data recovery easier later on.

What do the young entrepreneurs have to do should data loss occur?

Here are some simple tips that entrepreneurs can take in the event of data loss:

1) Do not power up or keep re-restarting your hard disk
If you suspect that your hard disk has crashed, do not power it up or keep re-starting it hoping for a miracle. It’s important that the system remain shut down. Forget about going through the shutdown procedure in the event of a crash – just pull the plug out from the wall. Believe it or not, this will decrease the risk of any permanent data loss.

2) Avoid running software recovery tools if unsure
If the crash is due to a physical damage, using software recovery tools such as Checkdisk can worsen the situation and further diminish any recovery chances. This action might result in a permanent damage to the data platter if hardware component failure is not resolved first. Only if you are sure that it’s a logical file system error (such as file system corruption or data deletion), then you may try using such software recovery tools. Even so, you have to do it right and not accidentally re-write the recovered data into the same disk. It is important to note that reformatting will not fix your hard drive and it may even lead to the data deletion.

3) Refrain from opening up the drive yourself
Handling delicate parts of a damaged hard drive should only be carried out in a “class 100” clean room (an industry standard) to avoid any contaminations. “Class 100” clean rooms are cleared of any pollutants in the air, and they are equipped with special sophisticated equipment used to fix the internal parts of hard drives.

4) Do not resort to strange, quirky practices
Although it’s natural to ‘Google’ for information to fix your hard drive, those quirky “life-saving” techniques that you find discussed online may cause more harm to your hard drive. For example, some users insisted on placing the faulty hard drives in the freezer. Low temperature will contract the metal bits for it to work for a few minutes but eventually, condensation will take place and your data, which may be salvageable before, will now become permanently unrecoverable.

Another common technique is to hit it with a screwdriver, and there is no logical explanation for this. Also, dropping it intentionally or hitting it against a hard surface is equally deplorable.

5) Leave it to the professionals
Consult a professional data recovery service provider for an assessment. In the case of physical failures, be sure that your chosen vendor has a “class 100” clean lab. Ensure that the vendor adheres to strict data confidentiality if you have sensitive data in your hard drive. Make it known to that you do not like to use any third-party, outsourced vendor, and ensure that the vendor has a secured environment to prevent data theft. Ask around or search online for recommendations and testimonials from past customers.

When you are experiencing a hard disk crash, the best thing is to seek professional advice immediately and refrain from tampering with your hard drive. This is your best chance of recovering the important data from your damaged, hard drive.

What kind of damage is most common?

Hard disks commonly fail due to damaged read-write head, mechanical fault, corrupted firmware, partial platter damage, electronic malfunction, logical file system corruption and a combination of any of the above.

What does Adroit Data Recovery Centre (ADRC) do?

Adroit Data Recovery Centre (ADRC) Pte Ltd is Southeast Asia’s leading data recovery centre equipped with the first Class 100 clean laboratory in Singapore to recover data from damaged media such as crashed hard disks.

ADRC’s team of qualified forensic experts is also equipped with the technical expertise of networking, system security and cryptography in order to perform a complete investigation. Moreover, ADRC is able to provide court-ready reporting of digital evidence for civil and criminal litigation through the installation of rigorous forensic methodologies in order to identify, acquire, preserve, analyse and document digital data (electronically stored information) for use as evidence in court or other legal or administrative proceedings.

Who are ADRC’s customers?

Based in Singapore, ADRC serves a wide spectrum of customers from home users, SME businesses, MNCs, financial institutions to government ministries and organisations in Singapore. Previous clients include Motorola Technology Sdn Bhd, Far East Organization Centre Pte Ltd and Land Transport Authority. The company has also served customers from Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong, China, Japan, USA and Europe since its establishment in 1998.