Computer equipment lasts only a few years before something is ready to give out; if problems occur they can affect the magnetic field and data can become lost or inaccessible. If the data is important an attempt must be made to get it back. Fortunately experts are there to help and in most cases it’s a near-certainty that your information will be returned largely intact within a short period of time. This article discusses data recovery from damaged storage memory media.

There are two types of damage that can present a problem to the retrieval of data from computer memory storage media: logical damage and physical damage. Partitioning is the allocation of memory into different sections to make it function as if the partitions were separate disk drives, which is useful if you are operating more than one system. After the disk is formatted a virus could strike however, or the partition table may not be recognized. The partition can be recovered with data recovery tools; the partition has not actually been deleted.

In other logic problems human error may be the root cause, and the search begins for files that have been accidentally deleted. A manual deletion is easy to recover if you haven't emptied the Trash Bin. If you are the nit-picker type who has to have a clean trash bin every five minutes, you're going to have to find the files another way. A good place to look in is temporary files and downloads where copies can float for years. Another possibility is that you've sent the files at some point and they may be in your e-mail system.

When the memory storage medium has physical damage, great care must be taken not to make things worse than they are. Professionals should be called when the files are irreplaceable. They have tools that can scan the magnetic field in question. It's best to shut down the computer and take in the unit for hard disk recovery, especially if it is making clicking noises. That lets you know that the hard drive will be completely useless in a very short time. You must not boot up the computer at this point; it may leave the data out of reach permanently. Hopefully you have made a back up, but the data you still need is inside a damaged machine and you must recover it.

It's not a good idea to attempt data recovery yourself if the data is important and you are not skilled in any way, shape, or form in computer technology - you may only get one shot at seeing your data again. Data recovery companies take two to five days, up to a maximum of two weeks to retrieve the data from the damaged storage medium. As long as you have not mishandled the device or damaged things further by launching a program or restarting the computer at the wrong time, the chances of getting your data back are about 98% overall from hard disk recovery efforts.

There are several ways to tell when your hard drive fails: either the hard disk starts on it own or makes a clicking noise; BIOS will not recognize or access the hard disk; the hard disk shows a boot failure then asks for the boot records to be updated; or hard disks become dead quiet. When any of these things happen, do an immediate back up and start thinking if you need anything else inside the computer before the end. It might be necessary to take out the damaged drive and let the data recovery experts have a look.