DataLab247.comHome About Us Contacts Login +1-416-762-1632

Can I recover my data using Norton or other disk utilities?

It Can Be Dangerous for Data!

We had known situations, when the drive had gone out without any 'dead sound' warning symptoms.

The damaged disk develops nicks, dents, scratches on the surfaces of spinning platters very quickly. When your data files are a great value to you, do not risk its integrity by trying to work out the problem by applying any of the utilities or recovery software.

While most disk utilities provide an excellent preventative maintenance by fixing minor hard drive's problems, on the contrary they can render data unrecoverable in the event of extreme corruption.

But if your drive starts failing

When you run any application on failing hard drive, including the software designed for data recovery purposes, you expose drive to extreme danger of ruining the magnetic layers on disks during extensive heads movement over the spinning platters.

Moreover, the same situation may occur even when you just leave your hard drive powered on (when computer is turned on and unattended). If you keep running your failing drive in the computer, the data can be devastated in the same terrible way. That happens because disks inside the drive keep spinning at all time, even when you don't read/write your data files. The computer is powered on, simultaneously, the hard drive is up and running: disks are spinning, and heads are flying over its surface. As soon as the first slim scratch is developed on the disk platter surface, the drive is undergoing through some serious risk of destroying its data.

Before starting a data recovery program you must make sure that...

Software recovery tools can be applied only to the fully functional hard drive in the working condition. Obviously, a defective device cannot be fixed by a computer program. HDD/SSHD must be mechanically and electrically functional before you start running any kind of software manipulations, including data recovery software utilities. A computer-booting BIOS/UEFI firmware must correctly identify the model of the drive, of course.

However, even when the drive is detected by computer correctly, it is not nearly enough to say for sure that your drive is 100% functional. The drive is fully functional only if all sectors on the disks are readable. When the drive has problem with accessing the sectors (for instance: if one of the heads is damaged, or drive has a damaged surface, i.e. micro scratches), any attempts to run software data recovery tools will lead to the further data damage, very often making further data recovery impossible.

Before using any recovery utilities, be sure your drive is fully functional: mechanically and electrically.

If you suspect any of hardware problems:

  • Do NOT run any repair utility as they can further aggravate the problem. The purpose of such utilities and what they are made for is to rectify the anomalies in the file system, but useless against other issues
  • Do NOT let anybody, even your support engineer, a.k.a. IT support experimenting with the failed media.
  • Do NOT keep working on the media.

When you hear any of strange noises or unusual sounds (grinding or clicking) coming from your hard drive this can be an indication of a hardware/physical problem. Continuing to operate your system may damage your hard drive beyond repair and/or cause permanent data loss. Professional, in-lab data recovery is the only solution for such situation, do NOT delay and seek for the pro service while the data is still recoverable.
Start right now and right here, by placing data recovery order with us, our professional engineers with many years of extensive experience in data recovery are capable and will save your data, handling the job right from the beginning.

Some of the hard drives recovered in Data Lab 24/7

After reboot the hard drive lost files, Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003
Windows 'sees' the drive. Seagate software can give the drive parameters. The drive appears to spin. I believe the drive over heated. No recovery attempts other than trying on different PCs and at different times.
Thanks for your service, looks good. You may count on my references of your services, whenever you need one. Cheers, Sam EnviroDesign M&E Systems Engineering

Repair Western Digital WD My Passport Ultra harddisk
The external USB drive slid down accidentally and hit the floor. Now it started making the beeping noise.
Your efforts in recovering our data are greatly appreciated, our highly recommendation to anyone who is in need of data recovery service. No need to go any further! DataLab247 is your place to get the data back! Thanks again. Richard Santa Fe, NM USA