Platter Chatter - data-recovery

Clip: CBL Data Shredder - Costco Tech Connection

ChrisArchitect - CBL Data Recovery — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:26:47 GMT

The only thing we love almost as much as getting back our customers’ data is preventing it from falling into the wrong hands. The privacy of your information and importance of protecting data is a crucial part of what we do and of our digital society today. Getting rid of old hardware is one challenge, but what about the files and data stored on computers? Friend of Platter Chatter and tech reporter extraordinaire, Marc Saltzman, recently highlighted some key points about safely deleting data in Costco Connection magazine.

Can you trust data recovery service providers?

Andrew - CBL Data Recovery — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 20:37:00 GMT

The worst has happened: the computer or server with your confidential and time-sensitive data has crashed. Panic starts to set in, and a quick call or visit to your IT support confirms that this issue is beyond the scope of your help desk’s services. It’s time to call in a data recovery provider. IT support probably already has a provider in mind. But what exactly are they going to do with your data? How can you trust them?

Driveageddon latest in mounting problems resulting from Thailand Floods [1]

Andrew - CBL Data Recovery — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 21:17:25 GMT

This year’s monsoon season in Thailand has had a massive impact on the nation’s manufacturing capability, and has affected the global hard drive market. The effects of ‘driveageddon’ are likely to be felt for many months to come. By early October, the Rojna industrial estate, home to major production giants like Honda, Pioneer, Hitatchi and Nikon, had been flooded, rendering the entire area non-operational.

October Data Recovery Fire Drill [1]

ChrisArchitect - CBL Data Recovery — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 10:57:33 GMT

October is small business month and is a perfect time for organizations to consider a data recovery fire drill to ensure business continuity.

“Hard drives in your computer system are not fail-safe and can and will fail for numerous reasons,” says CBL’s president Bill Margeson. “Often those responsible for an organization’s IT may not be aware that one or more of the drives are acting up or about to go down causing major headaches for the business.”

To properly plan against a data loss crisis, running simulations now could prevent major headaches later. Check out our preparation tips after the jump.

CBL Pictures: Submerged

ChrisArchitect - CBL Data Recovery — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 13:45:03 GMT

You wouldn’t expect this situation to come up, but then again, most (many?) data loss disasters aren’t expected. We see natural disasters involving tornadoes, fires, earthquakes, heavy storms and the resulting water-damaged hard drives, burnt computers, and power-outage crashed hard disks….. but it’s the odd ones that come along every so often that get us.

Thinking Outside Borders: Data Recovery Making a Difference

ChrisArchitect - CBL Data Recovery — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 19:44:46 GMT

As thanks a happy customer donates to Doctors Without Borders after CBL successfully retrieves her data.

At Platter Chatter we like to focus our writing on issues of data loss, prevention, keeping business running through disasters and recovering critical data in emergencies — stuff that we live and breath at CBL Data Recovery. However, there are lots of moments of joy and good news when data is recovered.

Even Above the Clouds Computer Disaster Happens [1]

ChrisArchitect - CBL Data Recovery — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 15:53:05 GMT

Astronauts aboard the much talked about and followed final Space Shuttle mission experienced a computer glitch and were found scrambling early Friday morning.

As the unexpected computer failure alert was signaled, the crew got down to finding out what was wrong and taking action to get business back to normal in the middle of the night.

Keeping e-Health Healthy: Data Recovery when IT Happens to Medical Records [2]

ChrisArchitect - CBL Data Recovery — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 14:27:01 GMT

Today’s healthcare environments, from small clinics to megacity hospitals, are going digital faster than ever before. This means that more and more vital, personal, and confidential health information is being stored in digital format and this once paper-based world of doctors and healthcare professionals is now run on a huge variety of digital databases, patient data, and technology. Managing this amount of data presents increasing challenges for IT professionals and issues of security, accessibility and what to do in the event of data loss disasters arise.

Canadian Privacy audit finds breach at Staples: laptops resold with customer data

ChrisArchitect - CBL Data Recovery — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 20:53:58 GMT

Staples Business Depot, the office supplies store chain, was fingered by the office of Canada’s Privacy Commissioner in a recent report. The report details findings that Staples was reselling returned laptops and digital devices without properly wiping customer data off them.

Air France Black Box Data Recovery After Being Buried At Sea: Data is Resilient [2]

ChrisArchitect - CBL Data Recovery — Mon, 16 May 2011 15:20:12 GMT

French investigators reported Monday that crucial data had been recovered and downloaded off airplane black boxes from an Air France jet that went down in the Atlantic two years ago. How the data was retrieved out of the black boxes is not only interesting but a great example of how data is resilient, something that CBL Data Recovery sees first-hand in recovery and forensics projects.

Depending on Data: Downtime and the Domino Effect

ChrisArchitect - CBL Data Recovery — Thu, 12 May 2011 20:10:48 GMT

Depending on data is a part of business life in the 21st Century. Our dependency comes from the fact that it is often key to the successful operation of business. When data loss incidents and outages occur, they start a chain of consequences that occur one after another, like a sequence of dominos falling – aptly described as the domino effect of data loss.

Data is Resilient: Severe Weather Storm Tips for Your Hard Drive

ChrisArchitect - CBL Data Recovery — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 15:03:39 GMT

In severe weather and storms, when it comes to data on digital devices – all may not be lost. Here are some of our best tips and recommendations for when the clean-up begins to save storm-damaged computers and get data recovered.

Hate Doing Your Taxes? Avoid Electronic Tax Data Headaches

ChrisArchitect - CBL Data Recovery — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 14:48:30 GMT

North Americans hate to pay taxes and more and more of us try to alleviate the nuisance by filing our income tax returns electronically. Submitting tax returns electronically, or ‘e-filing’ is more popular every year. As the deadlines to prepare and file income tax returns approach, you do not want to increase your stress with extra electronic headaches.

New Jersey Hard Drive Data Security Breach A Reminder to Us All

ChrisArchitect - CBL Data Recovery — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 21:05:30 GMT

When the State of New Jersey was preparing to put a bunch of old computer equpiment up for auction to the public, it didn’t realize it was about to auction off the private data of members of that public. State Comptroller Matthew Boxer was reviewing the sale of hundreds of computers that is a usual occurrence in the state office when he discovered that the “hard drives in 79% of the machines had tons of private data on them” still! The sale was stopped thanks to the auditor’s investigation, but there is little doubt that the state had already been selling computers with confidential data on them for some time.

West Joins East: Western Digital buying Hitachi Global Storage

ChrisArchitect - CBL Data Recovery — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 20:39:05 GMT

Western Digital announced earlier today that it will be purchasing Hitachi Global Storage Technologies in a deal worth $4.3 Billion. The landscape of storage manufacturers just got a bit smaller, but it remains a massive growing technology industry.

iPad Recovery: It's All about the State of the Tablet Data

ChrisArchitect - CBL Data Recovery — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 21:53:47 GMT

With millions of iPad tablets making their way into homes and offices around the world, and competing products running flavors of Windows and Android becoming more prevalent, the number of tablets in our labs for data recovery is increasing.

A Large Piece of Storage Technology History

ChrisArchitect - CBL Data Recovery — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 15:20:46 GMT

Do you know what this is being loaded onto a plane?

Your Privacy: How Safe Is Your Data? (Part 5)

ChrisArchitect - CBL Data Recovery — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 15:11:12 GMT

While the cost of a new computer or laptop continues to fall, we truly are almost in an age when these former room-sized giants are now disposable. When last year’s speed-demon is today’s dinosaur, and the cost and hassle of upgrading and updating is on par with simply buying new, what happens to your beloved old digital friend?

(Part 5 of our series on Data Safety)

Protecting Backups: How Safe Is Your Data? (Part 4)

Andrew - CBL Data Recovery — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 14:36:42 GMT

Configuration of RAID arrays have been greatly simplified over the years. However, as we like to say, It’s Not A Matter of If, but When…. There are important details to remember when storing your data this way: even a RAID can fail.

(Part 4 of our series on Data Safety)

Protecting Backups: How Safe Is Your Data? (Part 3)

Andrew - CBL Data Recovery — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 20:53:18 GMT

Ensuring the protection of your data is just as important as the process of backing up your data in the first place. Making backups is certainly better than not making backups, but there are a few more steps you should consider to make sure that during emergencies your backup will get you up and running quickly.

(Part 3 of our series on Data Safety)

CBL Pictures: From the Ashes - Burnt Server Hard Drive

ChrisArchitect - CBL Data Recovery — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 18:48:30 GMT

When your home or office gets caught in a fire computers definitely feel the heat. Here’s an example of an extreme data loss situation we work on from time to time.

Happy New Year from all of us at CBL

ChrisArchitect - CBL Data Recovery — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 16:47:29 GMT

2010 has drawn to a close and 2011 is upon us.

The holiday season was celebrated in many parts of the CBL globe.

Ghosts of Data Disasters Past

ChrisArchitect - CBL Data Recovery — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 20:38:28 GMT

In the spirit of the holidays this year, we decided to take a look back at some of the data recovery issues from yesteryear, our own Ghosts of Recoveries Past!

In ye olde Olden Dayes, saw we challenges diverse and frightful.

'Twas the Night Before Deadline: a Christmas Recovery Poem

ChrisArchitect - CBL Data Recovery — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 14:53:51 GMT

A SOHO-Ho Computer Crash On Christmas Eve

Data Recovery Myth Busting: Hard Drive Platters

ChrisArchitect - CBL Data Recovery — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 18:20:14 GMT

We come across misconceptions about what we do all the time.

Some keep coming up time and time again, and we thought that we better take charge and dispel some of the ideas out there.

Your Backup: How Safe Is Your Data? (Part 2)

Adam — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 19:25:46 GMT

One day I’ll back up my data. One day.

“One Day” is here, mostly.

A variety of online backup services offer desktop-syncing programs to provide automatic backups of specific folders or files.

(Part 2 of our series on Data Safety)

Your Backup: How Safe Is Your Data?

Adam — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 13:56:23 GMT

If data safety was a coin, data protection would be one of the sides (the other being data destruction). For most of us, backing up is an arduous process we know we need to do, but it’s historically been such a headache that it goes onto the “one of these days” list.

CBL Pictures: Scraped Away

Adam — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 19:27:40 GMT

How do you know you have left that software scan run for too long? Fullsize after the jump…

All We See Is The Code

Adam — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 13:04:51 GMT

Unless you have experienced a hard drive failure, you may not be aware of the complexity how data is stored. A CBL data recovery expert sees a string of ones and zeroes organized in a perfect pattern otherwise known as your once-in-a-lifetime trip to Paris. It’s all about perspective.

Downtime vs Recovery time

Adam — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 13:50:19 GMT

Together, downtime and recovery time can add up to a significant headache. What are they really and how do they relate or contradict each other? They are both major factors in making decisions to take action and ultimately in maintaining business continuity.

Don't Let The Dust Build Up

Adam — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 14:59:45 GMT

After a summer vacation and back to school shopping spree you might think you are prepared for another school year, but don’t overlook your computer. The last thing you want is to encounter computer problems before the school year kicks into high gear. Grab some compressed air and let’s get started.

Week in Review

Adam — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 18:14:14 GMT

New feature: we’ll be highlighting some key stories from the week’s tech news and current events.

Storage for Students

Adam — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 17:03:24 GMT

Summer is over. That is the sad reality for many students. For the upcoming school year, here are some suggestions for students who need that somewhere to store important data.

Hurricane Earl-y Warning

Adam — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:46:55 GMT

Often the strength of tropical storms and hurricanes like Hurricane Earl are underestimated by those that weather them. CBL Data Recovery has extensive experience when dealing with natural disaster data recoveries and being prepared is the key to minimizing the effects on your data.

Spain Wins 2010 World Cup

Adam — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:54:14 GMT

CBL would like to congratulate Spain on their first World Cup victory. Several of our data recovery labs around the world watched closely during the competition.

Go-Go-Gadgets, Gone!

Adam — Fri, 14 May 2010 00:45:09 GMT

Today’s gadgets are smarter, faster, and more mobile than ever before. Our high-tech electronics allow us to work or play on the go, but also make a tempting target for thieves.

Broken Server + CBL = Disaster Relief

Adam — Wed, 12 May 2010 18:29:49 GMT

If you are an CIO you understand the importance of protecting corporate data. There is no magic formula for safeguarding vital information but certain steps can be taken. Many businesses have systems in place, backup redundancy, or hard drives upon hard drives — but how many are 100% confident those measures will hold up when the time comes?

With Tiny Tech Comes Great Responsibility

Adam — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 19:42:50 GMT

These days, much of our important data is being stored on smaller technology platforms and this is increasing the risk of data loss. When an incident occurs the errors, and thus difficulty in retrieving data, are magnified because of the architecture and small scale. When problems happen with data, getting advice from a specialist who understands the inner workings of the technology can be the difference between data saved and data lost.

CBL Pictures: Pieces of You

Adam — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 14:10:23 GMT

When we got this drive by regular mail with little padding we were a little worried. Being able to hear pieces moving around freely within the hard drive is never a good sign.

New Digital Camera Same Old Problems

Adam — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:11:10 GMT

Nowadays picking up a new digital camera is easier than ever. The functionality is familiar regardless of what brand you go with. Charge the battery and away you go. Problems can creep up when you want to review the great photos you just finished taking. The right and left arrows move you from picture to picture but sometimes getting back to the main menu can be tricky. Is it the “setup” button, the “down” arrow, or maybe the button with the icon? Before you know it you’ve pressed one too many buttons and are staring at a blank screen.

Did you just accidentally delete ALL of your photos from your shiny new digital camera?

When "Dead" Just Won't Do: Hands-on Hard Drive Diagnosis key to Recovery

Adam — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 16:20:48 GMT

Have you ever called up your auto mechanic, described a series of random sounds, and expected him to tell you how to fix it? Do you call your doctor when you are experiencing sharp pains and ask him what household products you can use to get healthy again?

You know these are scenarios where hands-on diagnosis is beneficial. We explore the similarities to describing and diagnosing data recovery problems and why getting the diagnosis right is the key to a successful data recovery path.

CBL Pictures: iPhone teardown for recovery

ChrisArchitect - CBL Data Recovery — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 18:05:41 GMT

Apple announcements about iPhones and OS 4.0 on the brain?

How DIY Can Lead to the Cleanroom

Adam — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 13:49:34 GMT

Home users have become quite computer savvy when it comes to fixing minor problems. More often than not we are finding less logical/software problems making their way to our locations. Even after fiddling with their hard drive and taking it to a local computer technician, problems are often still not solved. That’s when CBL gets the call.

Waiting Is The Hard Part

Adam — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:22:38 GMT

Sometimes you know when your computer is just not running properly. You do some investigating, and before you know it you have made a big mess and important data is missing. While it may not be for everyone, data recovery software can be quite useful if you know when and how to use it.

Storage Solutions For The Home User

Adam — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 13:30:31 GMT

HD videos, 12 megapixel cameras, digital music collections, oh my. The average home user now has more personal data than ever. Here’s a rundown of what solutions for large and reliable storage are available.

CBL Pictures: Just an Ordinary PCB

Adam — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:06:02 GMT

Just an Ordinary PCB?

Find out more after the jump.

More Density, More Problems

Adam — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:14:54 GMT

Increased capacities have allowed users to accumulate and store all of their data, and removed mobile limitations, but it has also made recovery jobs a little tougher.

Data Recovery by the Sector

Adam — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:38:52 GMT

Little known fact: “data recovery” occurs on a regular basis on every hard drive. It’s true. Whether you like to believe it or not, hard drives are not reliable on their own.

Surviving Little Human Errors this Spring Break

Adam — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:17:47 GMT

While hardware failures are usually stigmatized for being the main culprit of data loss there is another big factor: human error. Heads up this March Break if you’ve got kids home: school’s out and they’ll be logging more computer time than usual. Take a little precaution for any little human errors and prevent data loss from any little “Spring Breaks”.

Strobeshnik hard drive clock

ChrisArchitect - CBL Data Recovery — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:09:40 GMT

We can definitely appreciate coming up with creative uses of old hard drives here at CBL.