How to Recover Files After Hard Drive Reformatting

Hard drive usually stores all the user data and operating system that allows user to read, write, access or share information with other users or group. Sometime, when hard drive error blow in or malware spread among PC, users needs to format their partition or whole hard drive in order to make it fresh or bug free. However, formatting will erase all the hard drive data and make it like a brand new as you use it at the very first day. Though, deleted files from hard drive or similar storage devices weren't deleted permanently and likelihood, you might able to reconstruct the deleted data back to its previous condition with the help of hard drive recovery program.

Formatting will only erases the address location or pointer of files situated in the hard drive and actual data will continue to exist in the hard drive till it's not written over with different files. So, its highly recommended to avoid using the problem drive till you successfully reclaimed deleted or formatted stuff.  Remember, formatting or reformatting will not change the status of deleted files or overwrites data, so beware if you think that reformatting will wipes off your data from the hard drive to let you safely dispose it off.

Note: Formatting done using command or in GUI mode, the source data will continue to exist in the storage media and file system will stores record of it into Master File Table (MFT).

Why hard drive needs to be formatted?
At many occasions, hard drive throws list of errors and ask users to format before they can use it. The same error would continue to arise till the formatting is done. It happens usually because of bad or failing hard drive components like platter, heads, PCB or firmware, virus/malware outbreak, power surges, human mistakes etc.

When hard drive faces any of the situations mentioned above, it'll start to throw errors or performs abruptly. The following symptoms will help you discover that hard drive suffers from serious errors and needs to be replaced.

1. Operating system not found
2. Hard Drive Goes Bad, Backup and Replace
3. Booting media failure
4. Disk Read Error
5. Non system disk or Non Booting Media

How Hard Drive Recovery Program Works?
Professional hard drive recovery utility will deeply scan hard drive up to the mark and find all traces of deleted documents from all over the hard disk platters. These disk recovery software is built using special technique and runs only in read-write mode to protects deleted stuff from being overwritten and recovers the original data as it's in previous state.

First of all, you'll need to use different PC or Laptop to scan and recover data from the problem storage media. You can unplug the problem device from the computer and connect it externally using IDE/SATA cable. Data recovered from the problem media should be saved on the targeted PC to prevent overwriting of deleted files.

Getting your data auspiciously recovered through using hard drive recovery programs?

Once you downloaded and installed hard drive recovery software on your PC, double click on it's icon from the desktop to start it.  Recovery program has simple Do-It-Yourself recovery wizard and makes your data recovery process lot more easier.

Recover programs should have hard drive recovery option or similar at the home screen where it'll automatically list the discovered storage media. Most probably, there you'll find your problem media listed along with drive name, size and status information.

Once you click to choose any specified media, recovery options will pop up like Quick Recovery, Advanced Recovery (FAT or NTFS) , Deleted File Recovery, RAW Recovery. All options have unique capability to search and find traces of deleted files within the specified storage media. You just need to select any one of them and start scanning the media. Depending on the drive size or level of corruption, scan process will takes time and soon flashes the scan results.

Navigate to your deleted or formatted media along with a red cross signs to it. Check mark the box and hit on Recover button to recover any or all your stuff at once.

That's it. Recovering precious files is never been easier but the moder techniques and growing advancement in data recovery industry lets user overcome from the troublesome situations without needing any professional help.

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How to set up multiple OS X on a single Mac system?

Your Mac must be having a large hard drive space, so large that you can use it for another OS X installation. Here is a simple justification why you need to have 2 version of OS X. First, if you got Lion 10.7 and facing problems to run some applications then you must turn to Snow Leopard in order to get those apps running. Same can happen with the latest Mountain Lion 10.8, where you eagerly want to get Lion on the same machine. Now the question arises, how one must proceed in order to get dual OS up & running on Mac OS X. 

Initially, you must organize your hard drive to get as much free space as possible. This can be accomplished by traveling to the Utilities<<Application<<Disk Utility and lancing the utility to partition your HD effectively. Though, OS won’t need a large hard drive space you can further create another drive partition to install other applications or software. 

Note: Prior to any activity, the hardware specification of the Mac machine is to be matched with the OS X version to avoid any non-compatibility troubles. Once done you must proceed by: 

1. Shut the Mac & start it again, press the key combination which is 'CMD & R' just after listening to the chime sound. The menu appears and brings in the Disk Utility in front of you. Locate the tab 'Partition' to perform the upcoming activities.
2. The blue space of the hard drive indicates that it is already been occupied by an OS. Take the mouse over the right-cornered re-sizing feature and bring it upwards to minimize free spaces. Once done, you notice the GREY space below the re-sized Mac partition, which is available for a new partition.  
3. Click '+' to add a new partition and supply with its name, format, and size.
4. Time now to save the partition changes by hitting 'APPLY'. Partition is ready to serve your purpose of having different copy of OS X.

Start your Mac installation with the help of the Installation disk (Lion or Snow Leopard). Put the disk into the Mac and navigate to Disk utility to select the disk & restart to begin installing another OSX version. 

Must check-out the alternative way of running two OS X using Parallels, where no dual boot is required. http://mac.tutsplus.com/tutorials/os-x/install-two-versions-of-os-x-on-one-mac-using-parallels/

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Restore Data from External Hard Drive Showing RAW Status

All the storage devices in this real world comes with their unique benefits and drawbacks, like hard drive and similar storage media. You can use your hard drive for saving precious stuff, running the latest OS, playing high graphics games etc. Similarly, removable media storage devices can be used as a data traveler or saving your precious stuff or sometime, installing or booting windows from it.

Being an electronic equipment, these devices may imminently fails or become inaccessible because of various factors like degrading internal equipments, infectious malware programs or sometimes you as well. The problem comes handy when everything was running fine but suddenly your storage device stops working properly or not at all and showing RAW in My Computer > Drives screen or under  Disk Management. After that, you'll not be able to re access your data or see the inside stored content. Moreover, if the situation is too tragic, you'll be asked to format the drive first to access device any further and thus, losing all the valuable data forever.

What that means and how you can fix it, wondering why? I've combined some possible reasons that could cause this and make your hard drive RAW along with subsequent possible fixes, preventive measures and steps to restore your data back.

                 

What that means/why did this happens?

Any digital data storing device comes with a preinstalled file system that defines its data storing sets or working mechanism. For every file system, there is a record in partition table or boot sector that determines the drive location and responsible for its proper functioning.

If the partition table or record becomes damaged or corrupted, it will no longer able to recognize the file system type and assigned the status as RAW.  Windows couldn't read any drive with such status and thus, ask you to format it first to assign a file system.

            

Windows inbuilt check disk functionality will also not work as the file system type is unknown and gives you error, like:

chkdsk cannot be run on the drive
The type of the file system is RAW.
CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives.

The drive can eventually becomes RAW due to various unavoidable facts like not safely removing it from the computer, power surges, shaking or dropping it in the floor, virus/malware infected PC damages the external drive file system etc.

You shouldn't plug the drive to already infected machine, always use Safely Remove Hardware option to disconnect the drive, keep it in safe and cool place. Other than that, you can take as more caution as possible to make the drive life longer.

How to recover data?

When the drive eventually becomes RAW and becomes inaccessible, it doesn't mean all your data is lost or damaged. Instead, it still exists in the drive and can be safely recovered using some powerful recovery program. Remember, things don’t come with any guarantee and so as any file recovery program.

All you need is to carefully follow the steps mentioned below and see if you're lucky enough to find your data back again.

1. Download recommended file recovery program and install it on your PC.
2. Connect the problem drive to your computer.
3. Choose the drive from the recovery program home screen and select any 
    standard method to scan the drive like Quick Recovery, Advance Recovery,
    RAW Recovery.
4. After few minutes, it'll list all the formatted contents from the problem drive
    and let you see the preview of recoverable content.
5. If you've still missing some important files, run RAW Recovery option. As it
    searches drive sector by sector, will take more time than other options, but
    give precise and accurate results.
6. Once you've find the missing or important files, can hit on Recover to safely
    restore it.

Probably, you've learned a new lesson in this case and will do a regular backup as well as distribute it to cloud or other storage media devices like CD DVD, USB or SSD.

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Why Boot Camp is slow on my Mac OS X?

Mac is the only hardware available in the world that let you run OS X and Windows on a same machine without any violation of EULA. Boot Camp is a great assistance to those geeks who wish to enjoy benefits of Mac & Win simultaneously on a single machine. Every single user wish to participate in Windows gaming, perhaps which is the best reason to install Windows OS on Mac. But boot camp assistance often ends up in misery when people reports complaint of poor boot camp performance in terms of speed. Even though the Mac is equipped with sufficient RAM and hard drive space still the boot camp crawls instead of high-flying. So, shall we conclude that even Macs are able to run Win but often with compromises? Here, I share an interesting post where 5 machines (two Macs and other including Dell, HP) were compared to test the performance of Windows. Obviously, Windows on Mac were tested through boot camp and all machines had equal hardware specifications. Surprisingly, the Macbook Pro outshines all the other system running Windows. So, you must kick out the thought that Windows are not meant for Macs. Here, are few reasons responsible for slow boot camps:-

• Lack of sufficient RAM space or hard drive, vice-versa.


• It has been reported that version of Windows on boot camp also makes a huge difference in its performance. Like Windows 7 is the best suited OS for boot camp than others like Vista, though Windows 8 is still to confirm with Mac OS X.


• Lack of a prescribed video card for Windows OS, if your interest is in gaming. You can't expect to flawlessly run Modern Warfare on machine in absence of the suited video graphics card.


• Missing appropriate boot-camp driver for Mac OS X. Update drivers to enjoy fast browsing etc.

So, Boot-Camp slows down the OS X is mere a myth: It just relocates the Windows OS to partition which remains separated from OS X. The only glitches it can produce is during boot since their exists more than one OSs.

Boot-Camp Alternatives: - Parallel is an alternative to boot camp but only when you left out gaming and use for small tasks like office etc. Else, if game is the priority then boot-camp is the answer as it offers alike PC experience for gaming.

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How to Uninstall Windows 8 in Just 3 Minutes

Windows 8 might be the biggest launch in OS industry and user upgraded their PC fearlessly from whichever version of Windows they were using to Windows 8, either by clean install or making it dual boot. But it’s true that Windows 8 is failed to leave strong remark of their existence and get mixed reactions from major hardware manufacturer and experts around the world.

Some PC users who upgraded to Windows 8 might not happy with their sudden decision and wants to switch back to Windows 7. At the Windows 8 download page, Microsoft says

If you decide to go back to your previous operating system, you'll need to reinstall it from the recovery or installation media that came with your PC, which is typically DVD media. If you don’t have recovery media, you might be able to create it from a recovery partition on your PC using software provided by your PC manufacturer. Check the support section of your PC manufacturer's website for more information. After you install Windows 8, you won’t be able to use the recovery partition on your PC to go back to your previous version of Windows.

So, if you decided to go back to Windows 7 from Windows 8, take backup of your important files to make sure that you not loose any files that may get formatted during the reinstalling procedure. Removing Windows 8 from the Dual Boot PC
If the windows 8 is installed on PC as a separate partition along with Windows 7 (dual-boot), you can easily uninstall it by removing that particular partition. Before that, copy/move any important files from Windows 8 partitions to an external media or Windows 7 folder and follow the steps mentioned below.

• Navigate to Start, Run and type msconfig in the open window. Press Enter.
• Find the 'Boot' tab and select the Windows 8 boot option. Choose 'Delete' and select Windows 7 as your primary boot partition or make it your default OS.
• Close msconfig window.
• You also need to format that partition from the 'Disk Management'. To do that, navigate to control panel, administrative tools, computer management and find disk management from the left hand pane. Right click on it and choose format.
• Reboot your PC.

Now, you will no longer see your Windows 8 or any of its content either. But, if you've overwritten Windows 7 partition with Windows 8, you better get prepare for the long go (see next part of this article).

Un-installing Windows 8, Installed by overwriting Windows 7
This step requires having your windows 7 installation media along with the product key. Prior doing anything, create full backup of your entire hard drive as it may completely wipe your PC.

Just boot using your Windows 7 installation media, typically Windows 7 installation CD/DVD or the bootable USB with Windows 7 on it. Follow the same steps as installing Windows 7 for the first time you did and completely format the Windows 8 partition. This will install a fresh copy of Windows 7 and successfully remove Windows 8 with all of its traces.

However, you always able to reinstall Windows 8 again on your PC without any trouble. This tutorial is for users who don't feel comfortable with the glitches of Windows 8 or get hard time to clearly understand this next generation OS. 

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Curious kid, more responsible for photo loss on Mac OS X

To be candid, kids are the most wonderful creation of god on this planet loved and cherished by all. There would be hardly any entity on the planet who doesn't share a cordial relationship with children.  Afraid to mention this but many time, especially younger kids attending play schools & elementary schools can pose a serious threat to the data stored on the Mac OS X hard drive. Must not forget that data loss in the form of images, videos, & audios frequently occurs either by human errors or by technical failures. Other than that, few exceptions like a sabotage of the Mac machine & it’s hard drive could also result in the data disaster. And, for all the above misadventures kids are the most suited to be blamed for.

Children, these days usually have access to their parent's laptops, desktops, USBs, & digital cameras. Not to ignore the fact that they learn technology quickly than adults, still there are unfortunate instances available where kids out of knowledge executes those commands which ends up inviting a mess. Accidental deletions of files even on digital cameras are quite frequently reported by their parents. Sometimes, the damage done is huge when an important document or a bank statement is man-handled. However, children are often not to be blamed for the drastic results but yes parents knew what amount of harm they have received in no time.  

As we know, there exist no cure to this problem we can only prevent it to a much extent. Putting the computer away from the child also seems to be illogical and harsh. So, what options do we have them? Trust this; there are few techniques where you can protect your data from peculiar kids. 

For Mac OS X users only: -

• Create a separate user account for your child on Mac OS X & even protect your account with a strong password. That will not only make the OS X safe from the kid but also from unauthorized person.


• Even though you can't create a separate account or share your account password with your child, try to manage your valuable files away from their reach. You can do so by saving your files on a dedicated partition & move all your child related applications to a different partition. In the midst, of all this, keep the boot volume away from your activities as some good amount of space will always be required to boot the Mac faster. Install all the games into volume dedicated for your child.


• If you want to assure the safety of your official files, then always create multiple copies stored on different location. For data less then 2GB, use Dropbox cloud service or Google Drive which are now a great source of free backup.


• These days, we now have external hard drives that can be locked with the help of a key in the form of credit card & works exactly like swapping a transaction. Although, you may have an external hard drive without this feature but in future the demand of such device may go high due to its safety features that prevents data theft to huge extent.


• With the assistance of the Disk Utility<<New Image option, you can create a password protected disk image & transfer the data to the image. Later, mount the disk image to access your files & folders with the help of the chosen password. This feature makes the files ultra-safe from all kind of threats including little children & any other users. The only risk involved in the features is when you loose your password which would deprive you of accessing any files stored on the mounted disk image. Learn to set password protection for important files.

Be aware of other utilities such as file protection tools & of course a Mac photo recovery software that would play an import an role in regaining any of the accidental deleted files.

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