Why? Because almost 80 percent of us do not even take the most basic of effort to backup our files. I have consulted with many small business owners and when I ask “so, where is the backup server or drive?”, I always get a blank look, or something like, “we do not really have anything of importance”. Really? Running a business and collecting customer data and personal records and you do not think you have anything of importance? Well, that is until they hear that clicking sound of the server’s hard drive going out. Then we get the usual annoying and very frustrating ” Do whatever you can to recover our files, no matter what it costs”. I say annoying and frustrating because the whole scenario could have been avoided or reduced to minimal cost if only the business owner had taken the time to put some simple processes in place to preserve their data.
I recently came face-to-face with the horrors of a hard drive crash on a production server and it was not pretty. If you’ve not been paying attentions to preachings about backups and business continuity plans, you had better start.
How do you handle that situation? The ideal thing would be that you have some sort of backup, even if it is not current. At least, you will get something back. If you do not have a backup, then roll up your sleeves and get ready for a long week if you are the Do It Yourself kind of person. The general advise is to let a professional help you.
As soon as you hear a clicking sound coming from your server’s hard drive, power the computer off. At this stage, there is the need to determine if the drive can still be salvaged. If you can still read data on the drive, you may be able to copy critical files. The mistake most people make, in my opinion, is that they try to clone the drive or copy everything from it. Depending on the level of damage, this puts additional stress on the drive and could make the situation worse. The main focus should be getting your critical files first. I personally prefer removing the drive from the computer, putting it in a USB enclosure and connecting to another computer, preferably running a Linux-based LiveCD, to see if it is recognized by the operating system. If you are lucky, the drive will open with some warning.
Once you are able to access the drive, make a list of what you want to recover in terms of priority then try copying your critical files first and work your way down. The Operating System partition, in my opinion, is the least of your worries since you can always reinstall the OS.
There are some tools out there that could help in the data recovery process – search sourceforge.net or freshmeat.net for “data recovery”, but the best bet is to always have backups especially now that online backup solution are all over the place. At the very least, buy an external USB drive and backup up your files to it locally. Windows, Linux and the Mac OS X all have built-in backup software. Windows 7 and Server 2008 actually have imaging capabilities (to an external drive) that can restore your entire system should something go wrong.
