Does Hard Disk erasure work?

Posted by Mark on Sep 23, 2008

Data being lost stories crop up with too great a frequency, and with them a renewed debate about data security, data erasure and whether data can ever be completely eradicated from a hard drive.

Whatever the data you do not want it falling into the wrong hands, and just keeping it away HM Revenue and Customs or the MOD is no guarantee of its safety.
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Do you need to use a professional data recovery service?

Posted by Mark on Sep 23, 2008

I’ll make no bones about it, I work for a data recovery company and believe that a good and professional data recovery service is often the best course of action. However, it is not always economically viable, and I am aware of cases where people have gone down the paid route and had a simple problem dealt with for rather a lot of money.
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Once you are in a hole it is time to stop digging

Posted by Mark on Sep 23, 2008

“There is just one more thing we want to try” has sometimes been the sentence that I have heard from the other end of the phone immediately prior to some data being lost to this world forever.

This is not a plug for using data recovery companies, I work for one and don’t believe that it is always the best option, but it is a good idea to emulate the calm and measured approach that a professional would take.
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How to avoid Data Recovery

Posted by Mark on Sep 23, 2008

We often get asked “what could I have done differently” when data has been lost, especially when a recovery could not be made or the cost of the data recovery work was rather high.

The simple answer is often “made sure you had another copy of the data”. A hard disk crashing might result in annoyance, the cost of a replacement disk, the time to re-install the operating system and all of the applications, but this is nothing compared with the time that has been spent working to create spreadsheets and to write letters or other documents. Worse still is when the data is a record of an event that simply cannot be repeated, it is not possible to travel in time and go back over your children’s early years, and holding that wedding again is not usually an option.
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