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Do's & Do Not's of Data Loss

PLEASE STOP WHERE YOU ARE AT

Carefully read following list of Dos and Don'ts Hardware failure and data corruption can bring about panic, chaos and bad decision making in a very short period of time. Do stop where you are and call Ankita Systems specialist if you think your data is vital.


Stand Alone Disk Failure

Dos

  • Do back up your data early and often. Remember prevention is always better than cure.
  • Do try data recovery demos from the net to see if what you're looking for is available for recovery, if you are serious then, purchase the tool, read manual carefully or speak to customer support.
  • Do seek professional help if you're not 110% sure of what you're doing. You can learn basic recovery procedures on an expendable system.

Don'ts

  • Don't listen to your friends or continue to look for home remedies on the net seek professional help if you value the lost data.
  • Don't try to swap circuit boards on modern disks. There may be firmware/system area conflict issues that may cause major problems.
  • If you think your hard disk is physically damaged please don't open your hard disk and expose the media. There is nothing inside that needs the attention of a common user or do-it-yourselfer. Only a qualified hard disk data recovery engineer in a certified clean room environment should ever open a hard disk.
  • Don't put your disk in the freezer and then try to spin it up. It is possible that moisture has condensed on the media surfaces. This WILL cause head contact if it has and will destroy the disk.
  • Don't continue to power cycle a clicking or non-responsive disk; it's not going work for you and may damage disk further and make the data unrecoverable.
  • Don't install recovery software on the same disk/partition that you're lost files are on, you will overwrite them with the installation.
  • Don't run the rescue or recovery Disk/CD/DVD provided by manufacturer shipped along with your PC/Laptop. Most OEM helpdesk techs don't care about your data; they only want the hardware back to normal.

RAID Collapse

Dos

  • Do back up your data early and often. Remember prevention is always better than cure.
  • Do check health status of the RAID Array regularly.
  • Do seek professional help if you're not 110% sure of what you're doing. RAID recovery requires very special skills as well as very good understanding of RAID system.
  • In case of RAID crash check the knowledge of the recovery specialist who is going to work on your RAID array recovery.
  • If you regularly backup your data on tape occasionally restore your data and check the conditions of the tape disks. It may give you trouble at the last moment.

Don'ts

  • Don't take the advice from any OEM support staff unless the system was originally configured by them and nothing has changed since.
  • Don't try to rebuild an array unless you know exactly which disks failed, why they failed, and most importantly, When they failed. RAID recalculation incorporating old data from a disk that fell off line first will corrupt all of your data.
  • Don't try anything unless you are ultimately familiar with the hard disks, configurations and controller routines.

Database Corruption

Dos

  • If you regularly backup your data on tape occasionally restore your data and check the conditions of the tape disks. It may give you trouble at the last moment.
  • In case of Oracle Database backup even your archive logs if database is configured on archived log mode.

Don'ts

  • Don't make a backup of the database to the same disk.
  • Don't restore a database until you make a copy of the current database files. Sometimes the backup is outdated or corrupted and the restore process will overwrite the actual data.
  • Don't use the disk or RAID array if the database corruption was caused by hard disk failure, RAID collapse, BAD Sectors or check disk utility.
  • Do make a copy of the database and log files to an alternate physical disk before you do anything.