Coping With A Serious Data Loss From Your Computer Hard Drive
By Darryl Peddle, Fri Dec 9th
Data loss is an expensive reality. It's a hard fact that ithappens more often then users like to admit. A recent study bythe accounting firm McGladrey and Pullen estimates that one outof every 500 data centers will experience a severe computerdisaster this year. As a result, almost half of those companieswill go out of business. At the very least, a data loss disastercan mean lost income and missed business opportunities.
The other side of data loss is the psychological and emotionalturmoil it can cause to IT managers and business owners.Despair, panic, and the knowledge that the whole organizationmight be at risk are involved. In a sense, that's only fair,since human error is one of the two largest contributing factorsin data loss. Together with mechanical failure, it accounts foralmost 75 per cent of all incidents. (Software corruption,computer viruses and physical disasters such as fire and waterdamage make up the rest.)
Disk drives today are typically reliable. Human beings, it turnsout, are not. A Strategic Research Corp. study done in 2000found that approximately 15 per cent of all unplanned downtimeoccurred due to human error. A significant proportion of thathappened because users failed to implement adequate backupprocedures, either having trouble with their backups, or havingno backup at all.
How does it happen that skilled, high-level users put theirsystems - and their businesses - at such risk?
In many cases, the problem starts long before the precipitatingsystem error is made, that is, when users place their faith inout-of-box solutions that may not, in fact, fit theirorganization's needs. Instead of assessing their business andtechnology requirements, then going to an appropriate engineeredsolution, even experienced IT professionals at largecorporations will often simply buy what they're sold. In thiscase, faith in technology can be an vice instead of a virtue.
But human intervention itself can sometimes be the straw thatbreaks the technology's back. When the office of a Venezuelancivil engineering firm was devastated by floods, its owners sent17 soaked, mud-coated disks from three RAID arrays to us inplastic bags. A tough enough salvage job was made even morecomplex by the fact that someone had frozen the drives beforeshipping them. As the disks thawed, yet more damage was done.(After eight weeks of painstaking directory-by-directoryrecovery, all the data from the remaining fifteen disks wasretrieved.)
Sometimes, the underlying cause of a data loss event is simplyshoddy housekeeping. The more arduous the required backuproutine, the less likely it will be done on a regular basis. Astate ambulance monitoring system suffered a serious diskfailure, only to discover that its automated backup hadn't runfor fourteen months. A tape had jammed in the drive, but no-onehad noticed.
When disaster strikes, the normal human reaction is panic.Because the loss of data signifies critical consequences, eventhe most competent IT staff can jump to conclusions, and takeinappropriate action. A blank screen at a critical time can leadto a series of naive decisions, each one compounding thepreceding error. Wrong buttons get pushed, and the disaster onlygets worse. Sometimes the pressure to correct the system failurespeedily can result in an attempt to reconfigure an entire RAIDarray. IT specialists are typically not equipped to deal withcrisis modes or techniques. Just as a goodphysician is trained to prolong life, the skilled IT specialistis trained to keep the system running. When a patient dies, thephysician turns to others, such as nurses or counselors tomanage the situation. When significant data loss occurs, the ITspecialist turns to the professional.
Data recovery specialists are innovative problem solvers. Often,the application of basic common sense, when no-one else is inany condition to apply it, is the beginning of the journeytowards data recovery. The specialist draws on awealth of experience, married to a "never say die" attitude, anda comprehensive tool kit of problem-solving procedures.Successful recovery outcomes hinge on a combination ofinnovative logistics, applied problem-solving, and "technologytriage," the process of stabilizing an affected system quickly,analyzing and treating its wounds, and preparing it for surgery.The triage process sets priorities, such as targeting whichfiles are needed first or which are absolutely vital to thefunctioning of the business, and establishes whether files mightbe recovered in less structured formats (such as text-only),which may be desirable when time is crucial.
The art and science of professional can spell thedifference between a business' success or its failure. Beforethat level of intervention is required, though, users can takesteps to ensure that the probability of a data loss disaster isminimized.
Basic to any business technology plan is a regular fire-drillprocedure. Back-up routines may be in place, staff may assignedto specific roles, hardware and software may be configured -but, if the user isn't completely sure that everything works theway it should, a data loss event is inevitable. Having adequate,tested, and current backups in place is critical. A hardwarebreakdown should not be compounded by human error - if themalfunctioning drive is critical, the task of dealing with itshould go to a professional.
Just as data loss disasters are rooted in a combination ofmechanical failure and human error, so, too, the data recoverysolution lies in a creative marriage of the technological andthe human. The underlying philosophy of successful data recoveryis that technology is something to be used by human beings, notsomething that uses us.
About the author:Name: Darryl Peddle Company: CBL Technologies, Canada Authordescription: Darryl Peddle is an Internet Marketing Specialistwith CBL Technologies, one of the largest data recovery specialists inthe world. Website: http://www.cbltech.com
