How do you backup The Sims 2 data?
August 10, 2009 by Data Recovery and Data Backup Tips
Filed under Data Backup, Lost Data, Hard Drive Crash & FDE
Can you answer samantha mae’s question about Data Recovery?:
I have many downloads and other stuff. I don’t know how to backup my data on a disk. The files don’t give me a copy to cd option so I copied all the folders to My Pictures but I don’t know if I burn the disk from there if it will work right when I need to use the backup disk.
Raid Hard Drive Data Recovery
I have many downloads and other stuff. I don’t know how to backup my data on a disk. The files don’t give me a copy to cd option so I copied all the folders to My Pictures but I don’t know if I burn the disk from there if it will work right when I need to use the backup disk.
Raid Hard Drive Data Recovery
User data backup at a company, whose responsibility it is?
August 9, 2009 by Data Recovery and Data Backup Tips
Filed under Data Backup, Lost Data, Hard Drive Crash & FDE
Can you answer jinnytizer’s question about Data Recovery?:
Hi there,
Hi there,
I work as a Helpdesk in somde company where there are hundreds of computers. I want to know who is responsible for the backup of the data on the systems. We at helpdesk dont have enough resources to daily backup all the data of hundreds of PCs, so shouldn’t the user at least keep their most critical data on flash drives in case their system die beyond repair? or we have to do that too?
If you are working as an helpdesk, how do you handle this?
Encrypted Data
August 8, 2009 by Data Recovery and Data Backup Tips
Filed under Data Backup, Lost Data, Hard Drive Crash & FDE
Data security is a big issue for companies, and no one is untouchable. Even worse, the attacks on companies’ IT systems aren’t diminishing. In February 2007, 2.2 million active duty personnel records were compromised, and unfortunately, many of them were not encrypted.
What’s encryption? It’s when the data is scrambled using a cipher based on a key in such a way that no one can read it unless they know the key to unlock the cipher. With all that’s happening in the world today, you’d think everyone would encrypt their data, especially on laptops, hard drives, memory sticks, and other devices that are easily carried out of the office, but they don’t.
I do security reviews for companies all the time, and I can’t think of a single company that I’ve been to that didn’t have at least one laptop out in the field with unencrypted data. Workstations, especially laptops, need to have full disk encryption in place so if the computer is ever stolen, the thief will not be able to read any of the information. And in fact, none of the companies I’ve worked with yet use something called full-disk encryption on every single one of their laptop systems.
When it comes to data encryption, some people use the encryption tool built into their word processing program. That’s a good start, but it’s not nearly enough. When I travel I sometimes bring my “penetration testing” laptop with me if I’ll need it on that trip. On that laptop I have special “hacker tools.” One of the things I like to do during my presentations to business executives is set a password in my word processing program and then save a file.
Now everyone in the audience believes that data is encrypted, and it is, but only at the bare minimum. I then show the audience how easy it is to crack the encryption code.
The first thing I show them is how they can right click on the file, and then click on the summary tab. By doing this, you can read the first line of the file-even though the file is encrypted. So if you have an employee who you suspect may be up to no good, you can right click on their files, choose the summary tab, and read the first line of their files. Who knows…maybe you’ll see one that has a first line of, “This is how I’m going to sell our information to our competitors,” or something similar that would implicate the employee.
Then I run a password tool program on the computer-something any good hacker has in his or her arsenal-and usually by the first meeting break, the password program has cracked the code and all the encrypted data is available for full viewing.
At that, most executives are amazed. “Wow. I didn’t know you can do that,” is all they’re able to say.
On top of that, have you ever had your computer shut down abnormally, while you were in the middle of working in your word processing program, and when the computer rebooted and you tried to re-open your work, your word processing program displayed the file you were just working on with a message that it automatically saved a copy of your work? That’s an unencrypted copy-even if the original version of the file was encrypted. The danger here is that, if your word processing program saves unencrypted files as “backup copies” while you are working on the file, even though the word processing program deletes the files when you close out normally, the “deleted” unencrypted backup copies aren’t really deleted until they are written over. A malicious hacker could potentially use a data remembrance tool to read those “we thought they were deleted” unencrypted backup copies of your confidential information.
There’s also something in most computer systems called a paging file. It’s a way that the computer stores information about what you are working on “right then” even if you don’t have enough “chip memory” installed in your computer to process multiple and/or large programs. This way your computer doesn’t have to totally rely on just the chip memory you have installed. In other words, it sets aside part of the hard drive and pretends that it’s chip memory too. If your confidential document gets copied to the paging file while you are editing the confidential file, then that information gets stored in that paging file in an unencrypted manner.
So even if you use the built in encryption feature of your word processing program, there are still all these copies of your files available. That’s why you need what’s called full-disk encryption. Quite simply, it encrypts everything on your drive.
Many people say they don’t use full-disk encryption tools because they think it’s expensive. Well, it’s not expensive at all. I have full-disk encryption that came included for free with my laptop. Some people also believe that security is very difficult to configure. No. Enabling full-disk encryption only adds about forty-five seconds to your computer’s setup once the IT professional knows the procedure. It’s very easy.
Other people say, “Once you use full-disk encryption, it becomes almost impossible for the end user to use the computer.” That was true at one point. But now, if I want to lock my laptop, all I have to do is use the Windows L key combination and the computer locks, or I can just set the computer to lock automatically if I walk away for very long. Then whenever I want to get back in, I can take any one of my ten fingers and swipe it across the fingerprint reader that is on the front of the laptop. Now I’m ready to go again and can access all the data on the system.
People also tell me that encryption is slow. It’s not. I use my laptop to run large and involved programs all the time, so I need speed. And I have overkill encryption on my machine just to prove to audiences how fast it is. I have my data locked or encrypted three different ways, and it only needs to be encrypted once. This is to demonstrate the speed.
So in a nutshell, full disk encryption security is inexpensive, it’s easy for the user, it’s very important to have, and it’s easy for your IT administrators, too. So it’s time to be secure, and full-disk encryption is a great start to having some peace of mind.
Action Item: Investigate some full-disk encryption tools and make sure everyone in your office encrypts their data. Often encryption can be enforced for your employees that use computers belonging to your organization.
Thanks to Mike Foster, The Foster Institute for contributing this article to our Data Recovery blog:
What’s encryption? It’s when the data is scrambled using a cipher based on a key in such a way that no one can read it unless they know the key to unlock the cipher. With all that’s happening in the world today, you’d think everyone would encrypt their data, especially on laptops, hard drives, memory sticks, and other devices that are easily carried out of the office, but they don’t.
I do security reviews for companies all the time, and I can’t think of a single company that I’ve been to that didn’t have at least one laptop out in the field with unencrypted data. Workstations, especially laptops, need to have full disk encryption in place so if the computer is ever stolen, the thief will not be able to read any of the information. And in fact, none of the companies I’ve worked with yet use something called full-disk encryption on every single one of their laptop systems.
When it comes to data encryption, some people use the encryption tool built into their word processing program. That’s a good start, but it’s not nearly enough. When I travel I sometimes bring my “penetration testing” laptop with me if I’ll need it on that trip. On that laptop I have special “hacker tools.” One of the things I like to do during my presentations to business executives is set a password in my word processing program and then save a file.
Now everyone in the audience believes that data is encrypted, and it is, but only at the bare minimum. I then show the audience how easy it is to crack the encryption code.
The first thing I show them is how they can right click on the file, and then click on the summary tab. By doing this, you can read the first line of the file-even though the file is encrypted. So if you have an employee who you suspect may be up to no good, you can right click on their files, choose the summary tab, and read the first line of their files. Who knows…maybe you’ll see one that has a first line of, “This is how I’m going to sell our information to our competitors,” or something similar that would implicate the employee.
Then I run a password tool program on the computer-something any good hacker has in his or her arsenal-and usually by the first meeting break, the password program has cracked the code and all the encrypted data is available for full viewing.
At that, most executives are amazed. “Wow. I didn’t know you can do that,” is all they’re able to say.
On top of that, have you ever had your computer shut down abnormally, while you were in the middle of working in your word processing program, and when the computer rebooted and you tried to re-open your work, your word processing program displayed the file you were just working on with a message that it automatically saved a copy of your work? That’s an unencrypted copy-even if the original version of the file was encrypted. The danger here is that, if your word processing program saves unencrypted files as “backup copies” while you are working on the file, even though the word processing program deletes the files when you close out normally, the “deleted” unencrypted backup copies aren’t really deleted until they are written over. A malicious hacker could potentially use a data remembrance tool to read those “we thought they were deleted” unencrypted backup copies of your confidential information.
There’s also something in most computer systems called a paging file. It’s a way that the computer stores information about what you are working on “right then” even if you don’t have enough “chip memory” installed in your computer to process multiple and/or large programs. This way your computer doesn’t have to totally rely on just the chip memory you have installed. In other words, it sets aside part of the hard drive and pretends that it’s chip memory too. If your confidential document gets copied to the paging file while you are editing the confidential file, then that information gets stored in that paging file in an unencrypted manner.
So even if you use the built in encryption feature of your word processing program, there are still all these copies of your files available. That’s why you need what’s called full-disk encryption. Quite simply, it encrypts everything on your drive.
Many people say they don’t use full-disk encryption tools because they think it’s expensive. Well, it’s not expensive at all. I have full-disk encryption that came included for free with my laptop. Some people also believe that security is very difficult to configure. No. Enabling full-disk encryption only adds about forty-five seconds to your computer’s setup once the IT professional knows the procedure. It’s very easy.
Other people say, “Once you use full-disk encryption, it becomes almost impossible for the end user to use the computer.” That was true at one point. But now, if I want to lock my laptop, all I have to do is use the Windows L key combination and the computer locks, or I can just set the computer to lock automatically if I walk away for very long. Then whenever I want to get back in, I can take any one of my ten fingers and swipe it across the fingerprint reader that is on the front of the laptop. Now I’m ready to go again and can access all the data on the system.
People also tell me that encryption is slow. It’s not. I use my laptop to run large and involved programs all the time, so I need speed. And I have overkill encryption on my machine just to prove to audiences how fast it is. I have my data locked or encrypted three different ways, and it only needs to be encrypted once. This is to demonstrate the speed.
So in a nutshell, full disk encryption security is inexpensive, it’s easy for the user, it’s very important to have, and it’s easy for your IT administrators, too. So it’s time to be secure, and full-disk encryption is a great start to having some peace of mind.
Action Item: Investigate some full-disk encryption tools and make sure everyone in your office encrypts their data. Often encryption can be enforced for your employees that use computers belonging to your organization.
Thanks to Mike Foster, The Foster Institute for contributing this article to our Data Recovery blog:
Most executives would rather have a root canal than learn technology. Mike Foster has 25 years experience explaining technology in plain English to owners and executives. Executives learn tips to increase profits and avoid losses. IT professionals are empowered to be even more valuable to organizations. Learn more at Keep My Network Safe.
DIY Recovery Software and Over-writing of Lost Data
August 8, 2009 by Data Recovery and Data Backup Tips
Filed under Data Backup, Lost Data, Hard Drive Crash & FDE
This can be quite a distressing situation for you if the files that went missing were quite important and needed urgently. So the question arises – what to do in such cases?
Sending your hard drive to a professional data-recovery company will consume time – perhaps even weeks – and ultimately come out to be quite expensive. This is also not the option if you lost data in the morning but need it by the evening because an important meeting is coming up. The good news is that there are quite a few self-help (“Do It Yourself” or DIY) data-recovery software widely available online that you can use to recover the missing files.
These software are usually manufactured by companies which already are in professional data-recovery business. There are quite a few competing products out there. Choosing the right one is important. For this, you should get advice from your friends or people who have already used such software for feedback. Reading reviews by technology trade magazines can give you a very good idea about who the leading players are in the market. You should also use a search engine such as Google and Yahoo! to come across some DIY recovery software online.
Once you have made a list of about four or five products, you should search for the websites of their manufacturers. Each of these has details about the price, features and capabilities of the product. You should go through these in detail and finally make a decision about which one to go for. Ideally, you should choose one which allows you to recover data from a variety of situations so that it can be used by you for a long time in future as other data-recovery problems crop up.
Before paying for such software online and downloading it, you should be very sure that the data loss problem you have relates to a software error such as file corruption, virus attack, accidental deletion of a file and emptying of the Recycle Bin or a file simply refusing to open. DIY software will be absolutely of no help in cases of data loss due to hardware errors such as some mechanical or electrical defect in the hard-disk components or physical damage of data-recording surface. In these instances, it would be much better to contact a computer technician than a data-recovery company.
DIY software is specially created for ease of use. Anyone can download it onto their computer, go through the ‘help’ pages as well as follow the easy-to-understand instructions and start using the software right away with a minimum of delay and fuss. For all their benefits though, DIY software do present one terrible danger – over-writing.
Most DIY software are not bought at shops but downloaded from the Internet. Their files get stored on any random location on the hard disk that has been marked as “available” by the operating system. The biggest risk in this case is that due to your bad luck, this location may turn out to be the very same place where your missing data has been stored. Storing some data on an already existing piece of data in a storage device is called over-writing.
Over-writing is actually a sure way of deleting previous data permanently. Once a data has been over-written, it is very difficult to recover it. Even professional data-recovery companies may find it impossible to extract the over-written files. There are many commercially available data-erasing software that use the over-writing method to permanently delete data. They not only remove the original data but also over-write multiple times with garbage the space where it was residing.
What should be done to obviate this risk? As long as you download the DIY software onto your hard drive, the problem will remain. The only solution is to steer clear of your hard drive and instead of downloading the software, you should just order its installation CD. Running the software from the CD drive will not harm your lost data in anyway. If you do not want to do that, you can download the software to your laptop or any other computer, connect it to the computer where the lost data resides and carry recovery operations from there.
Running the software from the CD drive or from another networked computer are the only sure ways to recover your lost data without the danger of it being overwritten by the files of DIY software package.
Thanks to James Walsh for contributing this article to our Data Recovery blog:
Sending your hard drive to a professional data-recovery company will consume time – perhaps even weeks – and ultimately come out to be quite expensive. This is also not the option if you lost data in the morning but need it by the evening because an important meeting is coming up. The good news is that there are quite a few self-help (“Do It Yourself” or DIY) data-recovery software widely available online that you can use to recover the missing files.
These software are usually manufactured by companies which already are in professional data-recovery business. There are quite a few competing products out there. Choosing the right one is important. For this, you should get advice from your friends or people who have already used such software for feedback. Reading reviews by technology trade magazines can give you a very good idea about who the leading players are in the market. You should also use a search engine such as Google and Yahoo! to come across some DIY recovery software online.
Once you have made a list of about four or five products, you should search for the websites of their manufacturers. Each of these has details about the price, features and capabilities of the product. You should go through these in detail and finally make a decision about which one to go for. Ideally, you should choose one which allows you to recover data from a variety of situations so that it can be used by you for a long time in future as other data-recovery problems crop up.
Before paying for such software online and downloading it, you should be very sure that the data loss problem you have relates to a software error such as file corruption, virus attack, accidental deletion of a file and emptying of the Recycle Bin or a file simply refusing to open. DIY software will be absolutely of no help in cases of data loss due to hardware errors such as some mechanical or electrical defect in the hard-disk components or physical damage of data-recording surface. In these instances, it would be much better to contact a computer technician than a data-recovery company.
DIY software is specially created for ease of use. Anyone can download it onto their computer, go through the ‘help’ pages as well as follow the easy-to-understand instructions and start using the software right away with a minimum of delay and fuss. For all their benefits though, DIY software do present one terrible danger – over-writing.
Most DIY software are not bought at shops but downloaded from the Internet. Their files get stored on any random location on the hard disk that has been marked as “available” by the operating system. The biggest risk in this case is that due to your bad luck, this location may turn out to be the very same place where your missing data has been stored. Storing some data on an already existing piece of data in a storage device is called over-writing.
Over-writing is actually a sure way of deleting previous data permanently. Once a data has been over-written, it is very difficult to recover it. Even professional data-recovery companies may find it impossible to extract the over-written files. There are many commercially available data-erasing software that use the over-writing method to permanently delete data. They not only remove the original data but also over-write multiple times with garbage the space where it was residing.
What should be done to obviate this risk? As long as you download the DIY software onto your hard drive, the problem will remain. The only solution is to steer clear of your hard drive and instead of downloading the software, you should just order its installation CD. Running the software from the CD drive will not harm your lost data in anyway. If you do not want to do that, you can download the software to your laptop or any other computer, connect it to the computer where the lost data resides and carry recovery operations from there.
Running the software from the CD drive or from another networked computer are the only sure ways to recover your lost data without the danger of it being overwritten by the files of DIY software package.
Thanks to James Walsh for contributing this article to our Data Recovery blog:
James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. If you are concerned about data loss and would like more information on Data Recovery see http://www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk
Using an Online Data Backup Service
August 8, 2009 by Data Recovery and Data Backup Tips
Filed under Data Backup, Lost Data, Hard Drive Crash & FDE
Today, even the average computer user can find a reason to have an online data backup service. The college student’s research files and class notes, the grandmother’s collection of treasured photos, the crafter’s favorite patterns, and the hobbyist’s videos-in-progress are all very important to them. Many people today have small home-based businesses or trade collectibles with other enthusiasts. The loss of such data is devastating. Smaller files can be backup on DVD’s and stored. But for many, the lower price of today’s online data backup service is just the ticket.
Today and Tomorrow
The big companies store massive quantities of data in extremely secure conditions that is copied from offices all over the country. Today’s computer user has data that is just as important to him, and only needs a fraction of the storage copied from a single site on a less than daily basis. Some of the features of the online data backup service even enhance the computer use. Many small storage companies offer a communal account or public folders. Both features allow the user to access his information from multiple locations or share it with others. This helps a small business with several sites share information, enables a user to access data from home, school or a library, and allows members of organizations to keep up with the latest committee decisions.
The basic features of the usual online data backup service include software with an application that uploads and downloads files without the use of a browser. They typically offer file compression, encryption and security. An online data backup service might offer a choice between monthly or yearly pricing. Long-term storage is less expensive, of course. The biggest difference between one online data backup service and another is usually in the areas of price, capacity, ease of use and the degree of online management of your files that is possible. Once a user determines the extent of his storage needs and the features he prefers, he can choose among the plans offered by each online data backup service. When considering price, the user can compare the cost of other storage devices like DVD’s or USB devices as well as the cost of losing his data entirely. For the small business owner, the online data backup service is much less expensive than installing dedicated servers and hiring technicians to perform backups and service the servers. The costs of maintaining such technology is all supported by the online data backup service.
Thanks to Roland Jefferson for contributing this article to our Data Recovery blog:
Today and Tomorrow
The big companies store massive quantities of data in extremely secure conditions that is copied from offices all over the country. Today’s computer user has data that is just as important to him, and only needs a fraction of the storage copied from a single site on a less than daily basis. Some of the features of the online data backup service even enhance the computer use. Many small storage companies offer a communal account or public folders. Both features allow the user to access his information from multiple locations or share it with others. This helps a small business with several sites share information, enables a user to access data from home, school or a library, and allows members of organizations to keep up with the latest committee decisions.
The basic features of the usual online data backup service include software with an application that uploads and downloads files without the use of a browser. They typically offer file compression, encryption and security. An online data backup service might offer a choice between monthly or yearly pricing. Long-term storage is less expensive, of course. The biggest difference between one online data backup service and another is usually in the areas of price, capacity, ease of use and the degree of online management of your files that is possible. Once a user determines the extent of his storage needs and the features he prefers, he can choose among the plans offered by each online data backup service. When considering price, the user can compare the cost of other storage devices like DVD’s or USB devices as well as the cost of losing his data entirely. For the small business owner, the online data backup service is much less expensive than installing dedicated servers and hiring technicians to perform backups and service the servers. The costs of maintaining such technology is all supported by the online data backup service.
Thanks to Roland Jefferson for contributing this article to our Data Recovery blog:
Roland Parris Jefferson III is an online researcher based out of Los Angeles, California. Need more details and expert advice on Data Backup? Then please visit our Online Data Backup Resource.
