The value of information stored in digital media nowadays is as crucial as the information stored in brick and mortar vaults. As digital information becomes more ubiquitous in this modern age, the need for reliable, secure, and spacious storage media is now more than ever very essential in everyday operations. No matter how advanced the storage medium, however, glitches can still appear arising from several aspects of the storage system. Errors may occur due to operating system failure, partition malfunction, hardware failure, and many others. Fortunately, the most common errors originate from software issues, which are resolved through the use of the best recovery software.
What to look for in a data recovery application
The best recovery software must have the most comprehensive recovery functions that should encompass a variety of data retrieval systems. Nowadays, data are not just stored in hard drives simply as ordinary files but are stored as database systems for use in computer networks. For hard drive recovery, the application must be able to recover compressed files. Recovering encrypted files sent through the network is also a great feature along with email and network data recovery. Finally, the application must be able to create an image file, which is an exact copy of the hard drive being salvaged for information.
Data recovery sources
In addition to the recovery features, files from various media and systems must also be covered by the software application. A basic undelete function retrieves data even after the information is deleted from the recycle bin. When data has long been deleted, fragments can still be recovered and the software shall return partially damaged files which can be rebuilt into something of value. Files lost because of viruses must also be retrieved.
Bad sectors on hard drives are a very common issue resulting to data loss. Very good recovery software can also salvage files from these failed file systems. Similar to bad sectors, cases of unbootable drives can also be repaired. Even through formatting disks and creating partitions are standard functions of the operating system, these operations can lead to potential loss of data. Applications with advanced programming revert this process to a certain extent and save critical information.
Supported drives
IDE (Intelligent Drive Electronics) interface is primarily supported by a recovery tool. This interface is used for mass storage devices and other external drives including the CD-ROM drive. SCSI (Small Computer Systems Interface), which is used solely for external drives, is also supported.
Serial ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment), the newer standard with similar features as the IDE, must also be supported since it is fast becoming the preferred hard drive interface over IDE. Of course, the application must also be capable of reading from removable media and external hard drives. On the other hand, RAID (Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks), which is commonly integrated in Linux operating systems, receives lesser support compared to other drives and must be secured especially when one decides to use Unix-like systems.
Miscellaneous support
Finally, the best recovery software and its technologies may not be particularly designed for the novice users. Hence, help and documentation must be comprehensive. Tutorials, illustrated examples, and introduction of data system concepts are very helpful towards the successful retrieval of data. As for the system configurations, Windows operating systems especially Windows 7, Vista, and XP are commonly supported.