My friend Sharon called recently to ask for my email address. Her hard drive crashed and she was in the process of rebuilding a new drive–application by application and, it would seem, one email address at a time. Everything on her old drive was gone, including the photos from her recent vacation. Unfortunately, the backups she had been doing so religiously every night contained nothing.

No one really expects a disk crash but drive failures do happen—and often at the most inconvenient times. In addition to the possible loss of important data files, a disk crash can leave you with the daunting task of having to replace the dead drive and reinstall your operating system and all of your applications. While you’re doing this—assuming you know how to do this, your computer remains nonfunctional.

While this “rebuilding” time can range from mildly annoying to extremely aggravating for a home computer user, it can bring a computer-dependent small business, or even a large office, to a virtual standstill. Whatever you use your computer for, having a quick and easy-to-restore backup can eliminate both the distress and the expense of the prolonged downtime normally associated with a hard drive failure.

When you’re restoring from a drive failure, the best kind of backup to have is an image backup. Most backup software products are designed to provide a way to backup and restore individual files. There are, however, some backup software applications that make it possible to backup your entire drive. A complete drive backup is called an image backup or image copy. Some full-featured backup software products will provide both image backup and individual file backup. They allow you to make an exact image copy of your drive and then supplement this with regular (daily, weekly, etc.) file backups. This is useful because, while some files on your hard drive change frequently, many files hardly ever change and need to be updated only rarely if ever at all.

An image copy is a drive to drive copy. In order to create an image copy you must have a second drive to backup or copy to. This can be a second internal drive but it is probably best to use an external drive, such as a USB or FireWire drive as your backup drive. The nice thing about an external backup drive is its portability. You can easily carry it home or lock it up each night. You can remove it and take it with you in case of an imminent disaster, such as a hurricane or flood. The one essential feature of your backup drive is that it must be as large as or larger than your source drive. Your source drive is usually your internal C: drive but it could be any drive you want to backup.

An important issue to consider when transferring an image copy to your backup drive is whether the data will be compressed or encrypted. While compression and encryption are useful tools, they can introduce the possibility of data corruption and this danger is magnified when dealing with such a large data transfer. There are, unfortunately, a great many reported cases of users who, like my friend Sharon, realized too late that their “backups” were nothing more than empty folders or that their backup data was corrupted beyond repair. When choosing any backup software, but particularly an image backup software, be sure that there is a way to verify the contents of the backup to ensure that your backup files contain good, usable, restorable data.

Restoring from an image backup eliminates all the work and time normally associated with rebuilding a new drive. When you restore the image backup to your new drive, not only all of your data files but all of your applications, your preferences, your latest hardware drivers and even your drive partitions are all transferred to your new drive. If you are restoring a boot drive image, the new drive will be bootable as well. The actual time involved in transferring the data to the new drive will depend on the size and speed of the drives.

The only other issue to consider when restoring an image backup is the drive partition size. When you transfer an image of one drive to another, the drive receiving the image will create a partition to contain it. This drive partition will be exactly the size of the old drive. If, for example, you make an image copy of a 120 GB drive on a 200 GB drive, the 200 GB drive will contain a 120 GB active partition and 80 GB of unusable space. If you wish to gain access to the unused 80 GB, you will need to expand the 120 GB partition. This will require a partition expansion utility. Some backup and drive copy software programs include a partition expansion utility.

How do you know if you really need an image backup? Consider how much you value your data, how much time (and money, if you have to pay someone else to do it) it will take to rebuild a new drive if yours fails and how inconvenienced you will be until your computer is up and running again. With external backup drives becoming increasingly affordable, even home computer users can now enjoy the security that drive to drive backup software can provide.

What is an Operating System? A good answer would be “A set of programs that provide a GUI to interact with various devices in a computer”. This definition would hold good until a few years back, when an operating system is just a few icons and menus that you see when you switch on your computer. Operating systems provided file and device management using a Basic GUI. But with the development of computers, operating systems also evolved a lot. From simple file and device management solution, modern day operating systems should be stable and secure the data stored on a computer. The data stored on a computer can be anything from music, movies and photos to data that you have generated and stored in different files. It takes only a small virus, a power surge or a device failure to destroy data. Today’s operating systems try to anticipate such scenarios and issue warning messages and take pro-active steps to minimize the data loss. I would talk about Windows XP and Windows Vista because 80% of computers run on Windows Operating system and Windows Vista is an upgrade to Windows XP. Windows XP has been around for 8 years now and in considered one of the best operating systems released by Microsoft. When Windows XP was released it was considered a resource hogger. Windows XP required 128 MB of RAM to run smoothly. And there are many complaints from long installation times to frequent crashes. Microsoft released Service Pack 1 and things changed. Most of the security holes are fixed and Windows XP became stable. Windows XP was built to give a better user experience by easy installation and plug & play capability. After a few years with XP, internet threats have grown and Microsoft started bundling Anti-spyware products along with Windows XP. This didn’t help much, and since Windows XP is the most used, hackers tried to find ways to break into Windows XP systems. This triggered the need for a more secure operating system and there came Windows Vista into picture. Some of the problems with Windows XP are that password protection is not secure enough, users can use Bootable live CD’s like miniPE or Road Starter to bypass Passwords and access the file system. The other major issue is Internet Explorer 6 which is the number one target for hackers. By exploiting the security homes in IE6 hackers can take control of IE and hence the Windows XP box. And last but not least, when you try to search for a file under Windows XP, you have a terribly slow search tool. Now its Windows Vista which is structurally more robust and is much more visually appealing. Vista comes with Encrypted File System (EFS) which takes care of file level security. Vista allows one to encode an entire partition or hard disk with just a few clicks. In Windows Vista Internet Explorer runs with restricted permission. If a malicious piece of code enters the system through the browser it cannot do much harm, since Vista simply refuses to permit to run it. File Searching has improved a lot with Vista. But 2 of the night mares with Vista are getting your old hardware running and the annoying popup prompting you to allow or block any action you have performed.

MICROSOFT WINDOWS requires lots of tender loving care to keep it running optimally. In order to tweak settings, run needed maintenance and fix the inevitable glitches, you can search among myriad tools—if you’re able to get online.Most of us, though, don’t want to acquire dozens of separate utilities to meet any eventuality, and we need a solution that works when Windows won’t even start up.Spotmau provides an answer with its PowerSuite Professional 2008, a multifunctional and easy-to-use toolkit that provides all the useful utilities you need in one bootable CD. So whether you want to clean up Windows, or you require help getting Windows to operate, PowerSuite has everything you need.The downloadable software creates a CD-ROM (also available by mail for a small charge) that provides a full suite of Windows utilities, as well as the ability to boot up your PC and diagnose and fix the problem when Windows doesn’t open.The PowerSuite CD has easy-to-use interfaces and easy-to-understand directions for any PC user, from novice to expert. This everyday toolset for PC maintenance and optimization also provides an emergency kit for rescuing and recovering your precious data and system.Whether the issue is speeding up Windows, shredding or recovering data, or backing up and restoring your system, the PowerSuite toolkit has the solution for the task at hand. Among the nifty utilities, you’ll find the ability to recover lost passwords and Microsoft product keys, restore your Internet Explorer, and encrypt folders.The PowerSuite CD is so powerful that every PC user should keep one as a necessary toolkit to make sure Windows works the way you want it to, when you want it to.

NRG files are those file which can be used by CD burning software to create images into CD. In simple words, .NRG File is a complete CD in image format. Various burning software such as NERO burning ROM use this. These files can also be used by other softwares for mounting into virtual drives which shall serve the purpose of reading. Software such as Alcohol 120% and Daemon tools are used for reading purpose. NRG files are not images but data files. ROM burning software can be used to convert them to ISO format. Various softwares such as nrg2iso, fusenrg, nrg4iso and PowerISO are used for the above purposes. NRG files store data in chunks which is not readable. By converting it to ISO format it can be put in a CD and image file can be created for reading. This file is attached like a footer at the end of a data file. NRG file stores chunks of data and to read the same the footer should be read in the file.The basic purpose of creating an image or .NRG file is to create an exact image of the CD/ DVD so that the files can be accessed without the CD/DVD by using mounting software which shall enable the user to read the file.Conversion of NRG FilesNRG File can be converted using number of utilities. Few of them are:1.PowerISO: This utility converts the NRG File to ISO format for creating image files and to list and view different files in the NRG data file.2.nrg2iso: This utility is also used for conversion of NRG files to ISO format. This software reads the NRG file on DAO (Disk at Once) technology and will not work on the TAO (Track at Once) type images.3.nrg4iso: This is a far more modern utility which recognizes NRG Files and can convert DAO and TAO both types of images.4.fusenrg: It is also used to convert NRG Files to ISO format with DAO (i.e.; Disk at Once)Creating NRG Files.NRG Files, which are CD image files, can be created and converted by effective softwares. To create and convert the software used are NERO Burning ROM and Magic ISO. These can be downloaded easily and freely from the internet. One shall require NERO 5 to burn NRG image. Those running NERO currently can get the exact version at www.oldversion.com. The creation of Image file is easy after installation of the software. The option “write” allows creating an image file in NERO 5. While using Alcohol 120% the images can be converted by running the software with the option of slowest speed.Another powerful software which is also an image file editor is Magic ISO. This also acts as a CD/DVD Backup and burner too. This software can easily create extract burn and edit ISO files. With this utility all image formats can be converted to ISO. This software also creates bootable DVD and CD image files which can be used at any stage to view and run the images. BenefitsThe major benefit of creating .NRG File is to rip a CD and create an exact replica or image of the same on the computer. This shall help in discarding all digital media disk and storing everything on the hard disk making it possible to carry huge amount of images, video and data anywhere and everywhere.So, the next time you have some important images or data to be stored on your hard disk make sure to create a .NRG File and use it for creating ISO files when required.

The BIN File Format is used to denote those large files which consist of complete files present on the CD. This .Bin File Format can be used for creating new CD’s from this file. This CD which is made from the .BIN File Format shall be the exact replica of the original file. The software which creates the CD by using .BIN File Format requires a .CUE File. This .CUE File gives information about the data in the .BIN File. It shall contain the name of the complete file. There are various programs available on the internet which can emulate CD/ DVD Drive which have a .BIN File Name Format. By loading .BIN in the program it shows extra drives in windows similar to the CD/ DVD drives. This .BIN drive shall be the hard disk.There are various uses attached to .BIN File Format but the most popular are the images of CD/DVD and ROM’s. Windows uses .BIN File Format for SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) as mib.bin. Not only this but the printer driver also uses .BIN File Format. Some other places where .BIN File Format can be used are in emulation software. These days as online gaming is becoming popular, storage of same is becoming a big problem and the same can be easily tackled by storing such files in .zip format which has number of .BIN Files. By using a smart unzip program, these files can be used and stored in original size.Bin File Format extensions are used to represent the image of a CD/DVD. Some other related file formats may be .CUE File Format and .ISO File Format. The simplest and easiest way to use these files is to burn them. These can be burned either into a CD or a DVD. NERO is a very popular and common program which can help convert these files easily from the .BIN, .CUE and .ISO File Format to digital media disks.The best thing about these files is that they can be used as virtual drives to denote a CD or DVD. Various programs can be used to mount these files. Daemon tools is one such program which can be used to do so. Some other programs are available on the net but have to be purchased to use. Microsoft also has a free program for converting these files to media disk format..Bin File Format is not only the copy of CD/ DVD but also stores data in exact format be it music, games, video or any other software. .Bin File is not a collection of file but an exact duplicate of the volume attributes, bootable information, system specific data and raw data of the disc which is copied sector wise.Some great extractors can be used for extracting data form these .BIN File Formats like Magic ISO. These softwares allow users extract open and even edit the files in the .Bin File Format which other softwares do not allow.So, the next time you would like to convert your .BIN File format to ISO and convert all data into media disk use a good converter and check online for the numerous option on softwares available which shall help you extract and edit the information stored on these .Bin File Formats.

If you are assuming that formatting the hard drive or simply emptying the recycle bin permanently eliminates the data, which you want to remove, then you are making a huge mistake. The sad reality is that the files you have deleted are still there on your hard drive. Hackers or even the ordinary people, who are not much technically savvy, can recover the data and use it for their individual interests. In this way, you can put your security at risk. But there are some methods which can be used to securely delete your confidential data from the hard drive and preserve your privacy. The drive wipe software delete metadata, the information of the files and folders stored on the hard drive and which is not removed when your format the drive or delete a file. The wipe hard drive software overwrite the existing data and make it impossible to recover. The drive wipe software are actually very easy to use, even for the users who do not have much technical knowledge. Securing data after deleting is pretty convenient and effective and the drive wipe software are the best tools to use for the same. There are clear reasons why you want to make your information safe. Since you use computers daily with everything you do- business transactions, banking, company records, and other type of transaction and information traffic – it would make you vulnerable to information risks such as hacking or identity theft. To prevent the possible disasters of identity theft and data hacking, software developers have created drive wipe applications to do the job of efficiently removing the data from your hard drive before disposing it. Since your computer hard drive store your most critical and sensitive information, it becomes very important to use the powerful drive wipe software to ensure complete destruction of the data. The effectiveness and power of a wipe hard drive software could be measured by the number of passes it performs for overwriting the data. The more number of passes, the less chances of data recovery are. Stellar Disk Wipe is the most influential and award winning drive wipe software which ensures complete wiping of your hard drive. Once you have wiped your hard drive using Stellar Disk Wipe, there is no chance to recover the data by using any of the technology. This software performs up to 35 passes to overwrite the data. 29 different algorithms are used by this drive wipe software to get the job done and it facilitates the user to select a drive wipe software of its choice by itself. This hard drive wipe software comes in bootable CD and thus doesn’t require to be installed on your system. It can also wipe the previously deleted files and locked system files.

Media failure has two ways to go through: logical and physical. To differentiate, this is required to have a proper guideline so as to determine which case is data recovery service candidate and which one will get resolved easily through data recovery software. Data recovery industry offers you a set of commercial products, which say the words of data recovery as a result of some simple clicks, while, data recovery people are also standing to give you a manual help. All these comprise to make either the user itself or the expert technicians to access all the lost data. But the problem arises, when the user can’t discriminate between the cases. So first check it out, whether the hard drive is functioning or not. Try booting it from some another media such as CD or another hard drive which is fit and fine. A physically well hard drive is recognizable in CMOS, so can be booted. However, in case if you get some errors and hard drive fails to boot, using any of the trick, then problem is lying with the internals and so only data recovery service is a solution. But remember to stop there only, when you get an indication that hard drive has got physically damaged as damage could become more serious with the attempts. After determination, then comes the solution. Use data recovery software, if you find the drive bootable. However the data recovery success may vary with the application, but the basic criterion is the same which is scanning the hard drive and dealing with the file system. As the progress of scanning moves on, the intended meter shows you the same and within some time, you see the data recovery results enlisted. But before any use, be sure to read the instruction manual of data recovery software manual carefully. This will enlist all the requirements and stepwise guide to data recovery. For all of them one common thing is never to install the software on the affected hard drive as this will overwrite the recoverable data and make the likelihood of data recovery to low. On the other hand, if you get the sign of physical problems, don’t ever dare to use the software utilities. If you get some unusual sounds, no doubt, the problem is harsh. But making the correct decision of turning off the system will save the major data. Data recovery people daily receive lots of hard drive, affected from the physical mishaps. They, then, examine it thoroughly and predict data recovery chances and quotes for the same. Upon the approval of customer, the process begins with the determined tools and procedures. There is a bunch of data recovery companies offering the data recovery part. Some of them may be the unique combination of both help and hence are considered to be complete and ultimate. Stellar Information Systems Limited provides you data recovery solutions which have great power to bring results. Data recovery software for different operating systems scan the hard drive and recover all which has got lost due to logical problems. Also, the data recovery service is absolute cure with Class 100 Clean Rooms and expert technicians. You will find all your data recovered with Stellar. So have the hard drive recovery software or send your hard drive to us and see the results.

Using partition recovery software the right wayIn order to safely recover lost data using partition recovery software, do not restart your computer when the recovery process ends. Instead, save the drive with the lost partition as a secondary drive behind another bootable drive (meaning you need to have a second working drive with its own operating system, not just a secondary data drive). Now start the drive, and copy all of the files from the non-functioning drive to the one that is working. Safety is the first step.Does it really matter?Why do you need to do all of this when it would be so much easier to just reboot your computer. Partition recover software presents a problem when it asks you to boot the computer again once they fix the partition. The files may have corruption which you cannot tell beforehand, and you reboot, you can damage the partition and the data. Then you will never recover your files.If you are trying to replace data recovery with partition recovery software because you want to avoid using the required process, this is a bad idea. To recover your data safely with partition recovery software or data recovery tools, you must focus on data safety first, and hope everything goes quicker than expected.Knowing the steps to takePartition recovery software is meant to recover any number of partition tables on a hard disk drive. This is what allows you to recover your files successfully so that you don’t have to go through the time consuming task of actually making al your file from scratch again.Partition recovery software will scan the drive to account for all of the data still present and show its location; this includes deleted, corrupt and over-written data or partitions. For help visit: www.quick-selling-software.com The algorithms will then determine if any of the data is out of place and need to be reorganized so that it is functioning again.Finally, partition recovery software can virtually correct any problems and show the results. If you are satisfied with what the program says it can repair or recover, you can then command the partition recovery software to proceed.The biggest difference between partition recovery software and data recovery software is that one allows partitions to access files, and the other simply recovers your files. If you decide to use partition recovery software take the proper steps to keep from blowing all your data away for good.

The hard disk failure is a common physical failure issue. It is largely caused due to the disk controller failure. This is the circuit which acts as the intermediate between CPU and hard disk. The error messages “Hard Disk Controller Failure” or “HDD Controller Failure”, “Inaccessible Boot Disk”, hard disk not detected in the BIOS etc. may indicate its failure.

However, the same behavior may also be seen if the hard drive is not setup or connected properly or if hard drive cable is malfunctioning. If the hard drive is not booting up at all use a bootable CD or floppy to repair it.  For efficient hard drive recovery solution:

· Check if the hard drive is connected properly or not. We need to check all the connectors coming from the power supply to avoid any future issues as well like spark. We need to ensure that the power cable and the interface cable are firmly connected to the drive. Also, the interface cable is firmly connected to the motherboard or interface card.

· Make sure that the hard drive jumpers are properly set, if it is a new SATA, EIDE or IDE device. We need to check for the BIOS setup and see if the hard drive is getting detected.

· A bad cable can be another reason. The connecting cable can go bad and ultimately may result into the above mentioned symptoms.

· If all the mentioned recommendations have been applied and the issue still remains the same, it is quite probable that motherboard or the interface card has gone bad. We need to get it replaced, if under warranty or else serviced.

· The most unfortunate reason could be the controller card failure. If the hard disk is new and doesn’t contain important data, we need to get it replaced. However, if data is a concern, consult hard drive recovery service for retrieving the data.

Hard Disk Recovery

Hard drive recovery service is provided by expert technicians. The Hard disk experts try repairing the damaged drive with the fusion of tools and techniques under sterilized labs, called Clean Rooms. Hard drive recovery is a safe process, where failed hard drives are safely treated by technicians.

It demands ideal surroundings plus safe set of procedures. Thus, opening the failed hard drive on your own can affect the chances of data retrieval. The drive may attain a state where no recovery would be possible.

For the best results in hard drive recovery we should opt for Stellar Information Systems Limited. At Stellar labs, the Data Recovery Technicians have all the expertise and intellect one should look for. Under Class100 Clean Rooms, they analyze the crashed drive and carry out each possible data recovery operation at component level. It results in up to hundred percent data recovery.

Most of the computer users are unaware of the fact that “deleting” the files does nothing. Your data is not deleted permanently from your hard drive after simple deletion and it could be recovered. But do you know that the data could be wiped completely? No, then read below.

What does it mean that ‘delete’ does not remove data?

Whenever a new file or folder is created, its information is preserved in a system directory so that the operating system could find it. When you delete a file, only the reference information of file is deleted.

You operating system could not find the file but it still there on hard drive. That’s what the data recovery software look for. Malicious users can recover data in all such cases and may put you in trouble.

You really wish to do that

If you keep personal, financial, business, or medical information on hard drive, simple deletion of data is not enough. You need to completely Wipe Hard Drive before disposing it.

So what is the solution?

Complete safety of your data requires complete removal beyond the data recovery possibilities. It is possible only by overwriting of data as data recovery software can not recover overwritten data.

Generally operating system does not overwrite the data unless you go out of disk space. Thus you need to do it manually using Drive Wipe software.

Drive Wipe software are specifically designed to meet different users’ Wipe Hard Drive related requirements. These software overwrite the existing data with random binary digits (0 and 1). Most of the Drive Wipe software can wipe whole hard drive in a single go.

Stellar Disk Wipe is the most influential tool to securely Wipe Hard Drive and keeps your confidential data away from unauthorized access. With 29 different wiping algorithms, this software performs up to 35 passes to overwrite.

This Drive Wipe Software comes in a bootable CD and thus you don’t need to install it on your system. Along with general data and files, Stellar Disk Wipe can also remove previously deleted files, locked system files and operating system. This Drive Wipe software is compatible with most of the Windows versions including 2000, XP, 2003 and Vista.