http://articles.fastcomputerrepair.com/rss.xml A blog about fastcomputerrepair.com daily 365 1901-01-01T00:00+00:00 http://articles.fastcomputerrepair.com/?a=36508 <p>by Gregg Hall</p><p>Computers are a blessing, until you get the infamous blue screen of death, or perhaps less dramatic, you accidentally erase a file. In many cases of deleted files, the file can be retrieved.<br /><br />If you recently deleted the file, look through the Recycle Bin (or Trash for Macintosh users). In the Recycle Bin you can browse through a list of deleted items, or search for a specific item. Restoring the file from the Recycle Bin is simple. You can restore it directly from the Recycle Bin, move the file to the desktop for restoration, or open the file and resave it.<br /><br />If the Recycle Bin or Trash does not have your file, look throughout the computer for a back up. The back up could have been manually created by you, or automatically created by your computer. If you are in a network, look through the server's files for your missing file. If you find a backup, be thankful and resave the file.<br /><br />If at this point you still have not been able to find the file, you will likely need to start spending some money. Be sure to consider how much time and money the lost file is worth. If it is not much, now would be a good time to cut your losses and recreate the file. If the file was one of a kind, not redo able, find a file recovery system program or hire a human recovery specialist. These specialists understand the ways of a computer and where it puts things; but will not be inexpensive.<br /><br />If you lost your entire hard drive (this may or may not have activated the blue screen of death), first take a deep breathe and let it out. Secondly, use the disk repair program included with Microsoft and Macintosh software. If the software disk does not help, move onto a disk repair program purchased from another company. Your last choice is to have a specialist come in, or bring the hard drive in to try and recover as much information as possible. This option will be costly with no guarantee of success. Once you go through this process once, there is the guarantee that you will not want to do it again.<br /><br />To avoid losing every file you have made, back up every file you have made to a location other than the hard drive. Disks, USBs, CDs or servers are all good options. After each major change to your file, remember to save the file to both, or all, locations.<br /><br />When installing a file recovery program, use the program from its installation device to avoid accidentally rewriting any of your files. Lastly, try to install this program before you have lost files. The likelihood of recovering lost files greatly increases if the program is installed ahead of time.</p><h3 class="popup">About the Author </h3><p>Gregg Hall is an author living in Navarre Beach Florida. Find more about this as computer repair at <a href="http://www.fastcomputerrepair.com/">http://www.fastcomputerrepair.com</a></p> 2006-11-24T18:14-05:00 http://articles.fastcomputerrepair.com/?a=36507 <p>by Gregg Hall</p><p>You have just returned from the vacation of a life time and downloaded your pictures to your computer, typed up the diary you kept while vacationing and drafted many emails to your friends about the trip, now it is all gone, thanks to some incomprehensible computer glitch. Understandably, losing documents that meant time and significance is quite frustrating. However, occasionally not all is lost.<br /><br />Start at the Recycle Bin of your computer. If your file is there, the recovery will be easy. If not, try a tool that will undelete a file. Although this may find your file, it may not find every part of the file. In this case the file will be corrupt and not likely much use to you. If your file is large, the chance of corruption is higher than that of a small file, simply because more information groups have the chance to get lost. For example, photos are often larger files than text documents, thus lost photos can be difficult to find.<br /><br />Losing a photo can be slightly more traumatizing because often a photo is more valuable than words, and secondly, photos can be more difficult to recover. Once the deleted photo file is used more than once, a recovery program often does not know what it is supposed to be looking for. Since the program will not help you right away, you need to know what it is you want to find. Do you know what kind of file it was? JPG, TIFF, GIF? The more you know about the deleted image, the higher your chances are of finding the image. Even if you find the image, it is likely to be corrupt. At this point it is difficult to put together your image.<br /><br />E-mails function in a way not like photos or text files. The chances of getting back a deleted e mail depends on the type of e mail program you have. Most programs have a Trash or Deleted folder. Typically you set how frequently the e mail service deletes everything in these folders. If you have a habit of deleting e mails accidentally, set this option for the greatest length of time possible. It is very simple to recover a deleted e mail from the Deleted folder; a click of the mouse will usually suffice. However, if the Deleted folder has been emptied by your e mail service, it is unlikely you will be able to find and recover the deleted e mail.<br /><br />Beyond these options are special programs and offered services to assist you with recovering files. Recovery programs exist especially for photos, Microsoft Word and Excel files, e mails and other file types. You also have the option of hiring a human specialist to find your files. You often get what you pay for with all these services. A human specialist can be costly and recommended only for use with extremely valuable files.<br /><br />After you have spent much time, and possibly money on this project, be sure to save your file and save again. Save on disks, USBs, hard drives and servers if these options are available to you. If this file is changed often, remember to resave the file in all the original locations to ensure you can always access a recent version of your work.</p><h3 class="popup">About the Author </h3><p>Gregg Hall is an author living in Navarre Beach Florida. Find more about this as data backup at <a href="http://www.fastcomputerrepair.com/">http://www.fastcomputerrepair.com</a></p> 2006-11-24T18:01-05:00 http://articles.fastcomputerrepair.com/?a=36407 <p>by Gregg Hall</p><p>Before attempting any recovery, make sure you have a viable back up copy of the information on your computer. It is essential to do a back up at least once a month, though every week is better in some cases. If you own a business, you need to have back ups.<br /><br />You can back up your computer on disks, tapes, or sometimes on another computer and then transfer information. It is best to have a back up on a permanent disk or tape, however. Not having a back up can destroy your business.<br /><br />Obviously, it is easier to manage a hard disk drive recovery on a personal computer over a business computer. Businesses demand access to their former records and programs in order to function. If you are a business, you should rely on daily or weekly back ups.<br /><br />On a personal computer, items like favorite web pages, email addresses, financial records, and other documents risk destruction in a hard drive failure. These are items that you will want back ups.<br /><br />Businesses are a little trickier. Software, financial documents, business databases, personnel records, customer records, and tax information are commonly stored on a hard drive. If one employee's computer crashes it is a manageable event. If the entire server crashes, it can take hours, possibly days for a computer system to be up and running again. This can be costly to any business.<br /><br />Hard drive recoveries require your system to be erased and then items are reinstalled one by one. All programs have to be reinstalled. Information is added back in. It is a time consuming process that any computer expert dreads.<br /><br />There is a way to eliminate a good deal of the hassle involved with a hard drive recovery. Instead of relying on your own back ups, there are companies who charge a minimal fee to go in and perform back ups for you. They keep these back ups stored in their location. If a system restore is necessary, they can then have you link to their website and transfer all your information to the correct folders and files.<br /><br />To perform a hard disk recovery, you usually run a software program that restores it for you. There are online programs that will keep your data stored safely offsite with their company. Using one of these programs can save time and money. Instead of having to restore items one by one, you can retrieve pertinent information from their company.<br /><br />Instead of dealing with the incredible stress and excruciating headaches that a hard drive failure can cause, why not have a solid back up available? A world of pressure can be removed from your shoulders by relying in a firm specializing in system back ups.</p><h3 class="popup">About the Author </h3><p>Gregg Hall is an author living in Navarre Beach Florida. Find more about this as well as hard disk recovery at <a href="http://www.fastcomputerrepair.com/">http://www.fastcomputerrepair.com</a></p> 2006-11-19T16:03-05:00 http://articles.fastcomputerrepair.com/?a=36406 <p>by Gregg Hall </p><p>DWG (Design Web Format) files require a separate recovery procedure. Linked to AutoCAD, Design Web Format files are rich in graphics. Therefore, a specialist in disk recovery may not have a clue into saving your DWG files.<br /><br />If a file is lost during a hard drive crash, it takes a specialist to retrieve the damage. An Intel CAD system cannot fix the damaged files on hard disks or storage mediums. The repairs have to follow a unique course of action.<br /><br />If your hard drive does crash, stop using that computer immediately. Hopefully, you have a back up. If not, do not attempt to run any data recovery program that came with the computer. Usually, this type of program writes over the original data. Using one of these programs can erase your important files.<br /><br />The first step is to allow a hard disk recovery company to restore your pertinent files. Contact a reputable company immediately. They will probably ask you to bring your computer to their location. Although, there are a few companies who come right to your home. At-home computer services will charge more. With any luck, the few of your DWG files will be repaired, however many more will still need attention. Missing files or data out of sequence will keep these files from working properly.<br /><br />To find out which files were saved by the hard disk recovery firm, you can run an Intel CAD program called AuditDWG. This will tell you which files were repaired.<br /><br />Once the company has done what it can, you will probably need to talk to a specialist in DWG file recovery. Often, the first company you deal with will put you in touch with a specialist. This person will then come in and try alternate methods to retrieve and recover your missing information. In some cases, the hard drive will need to be mailed out for repairs. It is a better option than losing your files permanently.<br /><br />Even after taking these steps, there may be issues that could not allow the retrieval of your files. If there is damage to the hard drive, you may suddenly have bad sectors that prevent the recovery of information. There really is little you can do if this occurs. Try running Acad, but this will not always work.<br /><br />When the damage is extensive, you may have to personally rebuild certain files from scratch. Though time consuming, it really is the only way. Not words you want to hear, but at least some files were recovered.<br /><br />DWG files can be a pain to recover during a hard drive failure. Remember that you are not the first to experience this problem, and you will not be the last. There are experts who are ready to help!</p><h3 class="popup">About the Author </h3><p>Gregg Hall is an author living in Navarre Beach Florida. Find more about this as well as hard disk recovery at <a href="http://www.fastcomputerrepair.com/">http://www.fastcomputerrepair.com</a></p> 2006-11-19T15:53-05:00