Data recovery software

View, Print, and Back Up Your Drivers

noreply@blogger.com (chris4302) — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 08:10:00 +0000

By Rick Broida, PCWorld

Documents? Check. Photo and music libraries? Check. Drivers? Better double-check. Even if you're religious about backing up important data, I'll wager you never thought to back up all your drivers.
That's an oversight. After all, if your system ever suffers a major meltdown, you'll need mouse, printer, video, and other drivers to get everything up and running again. And take it from me: driver discs always go missing when you need them the most.

Double Driver 4.0 makes fast and easy work of saving all your drivers. The utility scans your system, automatically detects and selects those drivers that aren't native (i.e. part of the operating system), and lets you back them up to any kind of storage: a USB drive, a network folder, etc.

I particularly like the choice of output options. You can save the drivers in a structured folder (meaning each driver gets its own sub-folder), a compressed folder (good if you're saving to, say, a space-challenged flash drive), or a self-executable file (which will automatically restore every driver when you run it).

Double Driver also lets you print a list of your installed drivers and/or save the list as a text file. Both could come in mighty handy if you ever lose the backup itself.

What I like best about Double Driver, apart from it being free, is that it's a portable application. There's nothing to install; it can run just as easily from a flash drive as it can from your desktop.
Ultimately, this is one of those must-have (and must-use) utilities. Take three minutes and make a driver backup. The system you save could be your own.

Back Up, Restore, and Migrate Firefox

noreply@blogger.com (chris4302) — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 08:04:00 +0000

By Lincoln Spector, PCWorld

With all its settings and add-ins, Firefox is a wonderfully configurable browser. Yet there's no obvious way to backup any of those configurations, or to move them to a new computer. There isn't even a clear way to save your bookmarks.

While there isn't a clear way, there is a reasonably easy one. You just have to know how. The trick is to back up one particular folder. I can't tell you the name of that folder, because the name is different on your computer than on mine, but I can tell you how to find it:

First, close Firefox. Doing this while the browser is running will be disastrous.

Once it's closed, select Start, then Run, type %appdata% (with the percentage signs) and press ENTER. Navigate the resulting Windows Explorer window to Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles (in other words, open the Mozilla folder inside your current location, then the Firefox folder inside that, and so on).

Now that you're in the Profiles folder, you'll see another folder with a random name and the extension .default--something like 4hw0enat.default. That's what you have to back up--that folder and all the files and folders inside it. Copy it to a safe location.

Here's how to restore it after you've bought a new PC or reinstalled Windows:

First, you'll have to install, run, and close Firefox on your new or newly setup PC. Then use the instructions above to find your new Firefox installation's Profiles folder. Copy your old .default folder from the backup into that new Profiles folder.

You'll now have two .default folders in Profiles. With the one you just copied selected, press F2to rename it, CTRL-C to copy the name, then ESC to not rename it, after all.

Move up the folder tree to the containing folder, which is called Firefox. Double-click the profiles.ini (Configuration Settings) file to open it in Notepad.

The last line of this file begins with Path=Profiles/. Select the rest of that line (everything to the right of the slash), and press CTRL-v to insert the name of your restored folder. Save the file, then open Firefox and everything should come up the way you want it.

Reboot System Restore

noreply@blogger.com (chris4302) — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 07:55:00 +0000

By Lincoln Spector, PCWorld

David Nelson wants to know if it's a good idea to delete all of his system restore points and start fresh.

It's occasionally a good idea, but losing all of your past restore points has considerable risks. Should you decide, tomorrow, that you need to restore Windows to where it was the day before yesterday, you'll be out of luck.

You can't delete individual restore points because no single one is a self-contained whole. To save disk space, System Restore saves only changes made since the previous restore point was created. If Windows creates a new restore point every day, and you tell it on Friday to restore back to Monday, it must successfully restore the points from Thursday, Wednesday, and Tuesday before it can reach Monday's. If Thursday's restore point is corrupt, you can't get to Wednesday's.

If System Restore is failing to restore your system, starting fresh may be your best option. At least future restore points will work.

It's also a good idea after cleaning up malware. Otherwise, you might accidentally reinfect your PC by restoring the wrong point.

To refresh System Restore in XP, click Start, then run, type sysdm.cpl, and press ENTER. Click the System Restore tab.

Check Turn off System Restore and click Apply, then Yes. After the long wait is over and you can access that dialog box again, uncheck Turn off System Restore and click OK.

In Vista, click Start, type sysdm.cpl, and press ENTER. Click the System Protection tab.

Uncheck all available disks, and confirm that you want to Turn System Restore Off. Click Apply.

After waiting, recheck the box next to C:, and then click Apply again.

For Windows 7, click Start, type sysdm.cpl, and press ENTER.

Click the System Protection tab. Select your C: drive and click the Configure button. Select Turn off system protection and click Apply.

After Windows finishes processing this command, select Restore system settings and previous versions of files and click OK.

How To Roll Back a Bad Driver

noreply@blogger.com (chris4302) — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 07:53:00 +0000

By Christopher Null, PCWorld

Updating your machine's drivers keeps the system current on bug fixes and support for new features. It can also break things that weren't broken, however, so if you notice that your PC is crashing or behaving strangely after applying a new patch, you should revert to an older version and see if that fixes the problem. Fortunately, whether you install new drivers manually (via download from a manufacturer's Website) or through Windows Update, you can revert to an older version fairly easily.

Open the Device Manager control panel.
Browse to the device whose driver you want to roll back. Double-click the device in question.
On the properties screen, click the Driver tab, then click Roll Back Driver and follow the wizard to revert to the previously loaded driver. A restart will be required.

If the option is grayed out, an older driver is not available. If you know that the driver has been updated, you may be able to recover it by using Windows' System Restore function, which will also undo driver installations.

How to Update Your BIOS

noreply@blogger.com (chris4302) — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 07:46:00 +0000

By Patrick Miller, PCWorld

Your computer's BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) is the first software your PC loads. It sets the stage for your operating system, so to speak, by finding all your PC's various hardware components and letting the operating system know it can use them.

As with any software, your computer or motherboard manufacturer periodically updates the BIOS to fix bugs, add compatibility with new devices, improve caching functions, and make several other hardware tweaks that can speed up your boot time and fix annoying issues. These updates are available at the manufacturer's site. But if you make a mistake in the update process, you risk rendering your PC unbootable. Here's how to make sure your BIOS update goes without a hitch.

Step 1: Identify your current BIOS version.

The easiest way to find your BIOS version is to open up the System Information app in Windows--just type msinfo32 into the search bar (for Windows 7/Vista) or the Run box (XP), and click System Summary; your BIOS version should now show up on the right under your processor speed. Record your version number (and the date that appears afterwards, if applicable).

Step 2: Check your PC/motherboard manufacturer's Website for BIOS updates.

Most PC manufacturers handle BIOS updates based on your specific line and model, so head over to your manufacturer's support page and check its listings for your PC, because if you download and install a BIOS intended for a different model, your PC probably won't work (although most BIOS updaters are smart enough to notice if you try to install them on the wrong hardware). If there is a BIOS update file available, grab it--along with any documentation it comes with, because often warnings and specific instructions are contained in the Read Me docs.

Those of you who assembled your PC yourself will need to look for BIOS updates from your motherboard manufacturer's Website. If you don't remember your motherboard's model number, you can look it up without opening up the case by downloading and running CPU-Z and clicking on the Mainboard tab.

Step 3: Read the included documentation.

Your PC's BIOS handles a lot of the nuts and bolts.The BIOS updater's Read Me file will most likely include a list of fixes and new functions, often to support new hardware. Updating the BIOS for my Lenovo Thinkpad T500, for example, added support for a new AC adapter and a 1600-by-900-pixel screen resolution on an external monitor; the update also fixed fan speed and Webcam issues that could not have been handled by updating Windows or my specific device driver software.

More important, however, were these notes in the Read Me file: If I was running Vista on my T500, I'd need to make sure that I had a certain patch installed; and if my T500 had a certain graphics card, I would need to update its drivers above a certain version before updating my BIOS. Read and reread your docs, or you might make your PC unable to boot without even knowing why.

Step 4: Update your BIOS.

Most newer PCs have a fairly easy BIOS update procedure: Just download the .exe file from your PC manufacturer's Website, quit all open programs, run the .exe, and let it handle the patch; then reboot. If your PC suddenly shuts down in the middle of the BIOS update, you won't be able to boot up, so make sure you're not running off a laptop battery. Ideally, you're plugged into an uninterruptible power supply (UPS), especially if you're in an area prone to blackouts.

Older PCs, however, might require you to set up your own bootable disk to update the BIOS yourself. You might still be able to download an app that configures a USB thumb drive, blank CD/DVD, or even a floppy disk so that you can boot off of it to update the BIOS, or an ISO image file that can be used in your disc-burning app of choice (if you don't have such an app, try ISO Recorder for Windows XP or the version for Windows 7/Vista) to create a BIOS update CD.

Other systems will have you copy a few files to your bootable disk, restart, and open up the BIOS during startup (typically by pressing a specified key for setup options), and change the boot order so your system looks for a bootable USB drive or CD before loading the OS from your hard drive.

Reinstall Windows Without Losing Your Data

noreply@blogger.com (chris4302) — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 07:40:00 +0000

By Lincoln Spector, PCWorld

How did things get this messed up? Windows has slowed to a crawl. Programs won't run. The free firewall you installed last year won't update or uninstall itself.

System Restore hasn't helped; neither have your assorted cleanup and antimalware programs. Only one option remains: Reinstall Windows and start from scratch.

I'm not going to lie to you--this is a scary and time-consuming job. Your PC may be unusable for a day or more. You could even lose all of your data.

And let's face it: You'd be wise to avoid this chore if at all possible. If someone in tech support tells you to do it, get a second opinion, and then a third.

If you have to reinstall--and sometimes it is necessary--here's how to make the process as safe and painless as possible.

Gather What You Need

You'll have to collect a few things before you can begin.

First, you'll need your recovery tool. What's that? If you're using the version of Windows that came on your PC, it's probably in a hidden partition on the computer's hard drive. That partition contains the information necessary to restore the hard drive to its factory condition.

Obviously, a hard-drive partition is not something you have to gather. But if your PC is a few years old, the recovery tool may be on one or more CDs or DVDs instead. Find the discs that came with your PC and see if anything looks promising. Alternatively, check the PC's manual to learn what kind of recovery tool came with the machine, and, if it's on a partition, how to access it.

If you upgraded Windows since you bought the PC--for instance, going from XP or Vista to Windows 7--the upgrade disc is now your recovery tool.

If you can't find a recovery disc, and the PC has no hidden partition (or offers no workable way to access that partition), contact the system manufacturer to see what they can do for you. Read "How Do I Restore Windows If I've Lost My Restore CD?" for details.

After Windows installs, you'll have to reinstall all of your programs. Collect all the original discs or downloaded installation files, and all of your license numbers.

You'll want an empty external hard drive with a capacity at least as large as your existing hard drive. Another external hard drive will come in handy later. That one doesn't have to be empty; you'll need only a part of it.

Finally, you'll need time. The best-case scenario for a reinstall is a day. The worst case: three or four days. You'll be spending a lot of that time waiting, so get a good book, too.

Back Up Everything

Things could go horribly wrong, so you need to make a backup of your entire drive. That way, you can at least return to where you were before the reinstall.

You also have to create a backup of your data, because the reinstall might destroy everything on your hard drive.

To manage both tasks, use cloning software to turn the empty external drive into an exact copy of your internal hard drive. I recommend EASEUS Todo Backup, which performs both image backups and cloning. For this job, I recommend the cloning because it will make the later job of restoring the data files easier. On the other hand, an image backup doesn't require an external drive all to itself (although it will require a large piece of one). Either option will work.

Be sure to create an emergency boot disc with EASEUS or whatever program you use to do the cloning. Without that, you may not be able to recover from a disaster.

Having a second backup of your data wouldn't hurt, especially since you're about to erase the original. If you don't already have another up-to-date backup, create one with whatever backup program you regularly use.

The Windows Reinstall

Exactly how you replace an old Windows installation with a new one depends on your recovery tool. If your PC came with a recovery partition on the hard drive, find the instructions for booting into the repair environment. Watch the screen as you turn on the computer; it might show a message such as 'Press F10 for Repair'. If it doesn't, check the manual or call technical support.

If your recovery tool is a disc, boot the PC from it.

Either way, follow the prompts.

If your recovery tool is an actual Microsoft Windows disc, the tool will ask what kind of installation to perform. You want the kind that gives you a fresh version of Windows. For Windows 7 or Vista, when the wizard asks about the type of installation, select the Custom (advanced) option. For XP, at the 'Welcome to Setup' screen, press Enter to Continue, not R for Repair.

Setting Up Windows

Congratulations: You have a fresh Windows installation. Now the hard work starts.
Remember that Windows will need updating. The patching will happen automatically, but if you want to get it out of the way, launch Windows Update and take care of it.

You'll have to reinstall at least some of your drivers. You can go back to the discs that came with your PC, printer, scanner, and so on, or you can download newer versions off the Internet. Alternatively, you can install the drivers off the clone you made before reinstalling.

If you reinstalled Windows from a vendor-supplied tool--one that returns your hard drive to its factory condition--you probably have a lot of junk on your computer. You'll have to uninstall the stuff you don't want.

The uninstallers that come with Windows applications are notoriously sloppy, leaving all sorts of remnants behind. I recommend either Revo Uninstaller or Total Uninstall. These programs run the application's own uninstaller, and then clean up the remaining mess.

The difference? Revo is free, but Total does a better job with uninstalls that require a reboot. Also, Revo doesn't work with 64-bit programs, while Total does.

Now that you've cleaned Windows of unwanted applications, you have to reinstall the programs you do want. Start with your security tools, and go from there. Don't try to install two programs at the same time, and if an installation requires a reboot, don't put that reboot off. Just do it.

Once everything is installed, take some time to make Windows your own. Pick your wallpaper, change your power and screensaver settings, and so on.

One More Backup

You just spent a lot of time taking a fresh Windows installation and customizing it. If you ever have to reinstall Windows again, wouldn't you like to skip that step?

Use image-backup software and an external hard drive to create an image of your hard drive in its current everything-but-data state. Should you have to reinstall again, you can use this backup as your recovery tool and simplify the process.

Again, I recommend EASEUS Todo Backup, although you can find other good programs that will do this job.

Whatever program you use, make sure to create an emergency boot disc with it.

Restore Your Data

Now it's time to bring back your data. If you used an actual Windows 7 retail or upgrade DVD, the data is in a folder called C:\Windows.old. If you used a manufacturer's recovery tool, your files might be in a special folder off the root, perhaps called C:\Backup. Otherwise, your data is no longer on your hard drive.

Aren't you glad you made that backup?

If such a folder exists on your hard drive, open it in Windows Explorer and navigate to its User folder (Windows 7 or Vista) or 'Documents and Settings' folder (XP).

If the folder doesn't exist, you'll have to get it off of the clone or image backup. Create a folder on the internal drive called Backup (it should be C:\Backup). Plug in the external drive with the clone, and copy the contents of that drive's User folder (Windows 7 or Vista) or 'Documents and Settings' folder (XP) to C:\Backup. Once the copying is done, remove the external drive (properly, of course, through the system tray's removal tool). Leave Windows Explorer open to the C:\Backup folder.

Whether you needed to copy the data from the external drive or not, you should now have a Windows Explorer window open and displaying multiple folders--one for each user logon. For convenience's sake, I'm going to call this window the Backup Location.

Open a second Windows Explorer window, and navigate to C:\Users (Windows 7 or Vista) or C:\Documents and Settings (XP). I'll call this window the Proper Location, because it's where your data should be--and eventually will be.

Do the following for each user:

Open the user's folders in both the Backup and Proper Locations. You will see additional folders, mostly the same ones, inside each. Drag some of the folders from Backup to Proper.

Which folders should you move? The obvious ones are Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos. Their names may or may not be prefaced with My. XP users needn't worry about the lack of Music, Pictures, and Videos folders--they're inside Documents.

You should absolutely not move AppData (Windows 7 and Vista) or 'Application Data and Local Settings' (XP). These folders are hidden, so it's likely you won't see them, anyway.

Use your own judgment about other folders. Just remember that the folders you don't move aren't going away immediately, so you can always correct that mistake.

You'll get several error messages as you move the folders. If Windows asks, yes, you do want to merge folders. Replacing a file with one that has the same name is also probably safe, but use your own judgment.

That process will take care of your documents, spreadsheets, pictures, music, and so on. Application data (Firefox settings, Outlook data files, and the like) is more complicated. Each application has its own way of handling the task, so I can give you no general instructions.

Just remember that you still have this data in your Backup Location, and you can restore it when you need it. You'll find it in the AppData folder for Windows 7 and Vista, and the Application Data and Location Settings\Application Data folders in XP. All of these folders are hidden, visible only if you tell Windows Explorer to display hidden files. See "Back Up, Restore, and Migrate Firefox" and "Back Up and Restore Outlook" for instructions involving two popular programs.

Eventually you'll be able to delete your Backup or Windows.old folder. But don't rush. Wait a few months until you're sure it has nothing that you'll need again.

Well, that was a long and difficult slog. Let's hope that you won't have to do it again anytime soon.
Contributing Editor Lincoln Spector writes PCWorld's Answer Line column and blog.

How to Enable Safe Mode in Windows 7

noreply@blogger.com (chris4302) — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 07:30:00 +0000

By Michael King, PCWorld

Computers are complex and delicate machines, with millions of lines of computer code manipulating millions of transistors just to bring you to your desktop! It's not surprising, then, that things can sometimes go terribly wrong while you're updating your BIOS, downloading new drivers, or just surfing the Web. But that doesn't mean you have to throw away this incredibly complex (and sometimes incredibly expensive) device and replace it with a new one.

When a computer goes haywire and the operating system has trouble starting or reaching the desktop, the problem often involves misconfigured recently installed software or drivers (special software that communicates with your hardware). The installation may go smoothly--but when you reboot the system, you start getting errors. If you can't get to the desktop, you can't uninstall the bad program or drivers, and you may feel trapped.

Luckily, Microsoft has included a tool within Windows called Safe Mode to help you get around (and hopefully out of) this problem. It's a bare-bones version of your Windows operating system that includes only the basic drivers needed to boot your system safely to the desktop without any settings or problematic software interfering. Once there, you can troubleshoot further, to eliminate the problem and boot the system normally again.

To get to Safe Mode, take these steps:

1. Turn on (or reboot) your computer.You can find Safe Mode in your Advanced Boot Options menu.
2. Wait for the computer to initialize the hardware and prepare to load the operating system.
3. Press and hold the F8 key while you wait for the Windows logo to appear. if the Windows logo appears or if the operating system begins to load, you may need to restart the computer and try again.
4.The Advanced Boot Options screen for Windows will appear. Use the arrow keys on your keyboard to select Safe Mode, and press Return.
5. If you need access to the Internet or network while in Safe Mode, select Safe Mode with Networking.
6. Windows will boot into Safe Mode. When the desktop appears, it will display 'Safe Mode' in all four corners to let you know that you're in this special mode.
7. When you're finished, click Start, Shut Down, Restart to reboot your computer as you normally would.
8. If the problem still prevents you from getting to the desktop, you may need to go back into Safe Mode or try something more drastic.

Double Driver

noreply@blogger.com (chris4302) — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 07:23:00 +0000

Note: This review addresses v4.0 of the software.

Even if you're religious about backing up important data, I'll wager you never thought to back up all your drivers. That's a worrisome oversight. After all, if your system ever suffers a major meltdown, you'll need mouse, printer, video, and other drivers to get everything up and running again. And take it from me: driver discs always go missing when you need them the most.

Double Driver 4.0 makes fast and easy work of saving all your drivers. The utility scans your system, automatically detects and selects those drivers that aren't native (i.e. part of the operating system), and lets you back them up to any kind of storage: a USB drive, a network folder, etc.

I particularly like the choice of output options. You can save the drivers in a structured folder (meaning each driver gets its own sub-folder), a compressed folder (good if you're saving to, say, a space-challenged flash drive), or a self-executable file (which will automatically restore every driver when you run it).

Double Driver also lets you print a list of your installed drivers and/or save the list as a text file. Both could come in mighty handy if you ever lose the backup itself.

What I like best about Double Driver, apart from it being free, is that it's a portable application. There's nothing to install; it can run just as easily from a flash drive as it can from your desktop.
Ultimately, this is one of those must-have (and must-use) utilities. Take three minutes and make a driver backup. The system you save could be your own.

Note: This program is donationware. It is free to try, but the author accepts and encourages donations towards further development.

Version: 4.1.0
Downloads Count: 56,394
License Type: Free
Price: Free
Date Added: Feb 3, 2011
Operating Systems: Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows 7
Requirements: 32-bit or 64-bit OS
File Size: 2.115 MB
Author: BooZet Freeware

Download Now

Disaster Recovery Appliance Comes With VMware

noreply@blogger.com (chris4302) — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 09:23:00 +0000

By Manek Dubash, Techworld.com

PlateSpin, a long-term VMware partner, has announced a physical appliance designed for disaster recovery of both physical and virtual servers. It uses a prepackaged configuration of VMware's VI3 infrastructure, converting production servers into virtual machines inside the box.

PlateSpin reckoned the Forge simplifies configuration and reduces total cost of ownership, and is aimed at small and medium-sized businesses, as well as departmental or branch office use within larger enterprises.

According to Platespin, The Forge's features include:

-- The ability to protect up to 25 physical or virtual workloads out of the box, with nothing else needed for either deployment or recovery.

-- Fast recovery time - on receiving a failure alert by email, Blackberry or within the web-based user interface, the administrator can recover workloads with a single mouse click.

-- Platform independence -- workload failback can be executed to any physical or virtual host.

-- Web-based management - the UI allows you to manage, monitor and report on workload protection and recovery, with a dashboard providing protection status.

-- Reporting - using pre-built reports, users can view the health of their recovery and protection plans, such as actual versus target recovery objectives, replication window sizing and protection logs for auditing purposes. Reports can be exported into Microsoft Excel for further analysis, or raw report data can be queried through an ODBC connection.

-- Workload replication - data centers can protect both system and data volumes within a single bootable recovery environment to avoid disjointed system and data restore. It can schedule incremental workload replication at either the file or block level to achieve different recovery point objectives (RPO). Organizations can protect physical and virtual workloads within a single technology investment. Workloads can be protected locally or remotely across a WAN for off-site recovery.

-- DR plan testing - users can do a dummy recovery to test the integrity of workload replication. This involves taking a virtual snapshot of the recovery workload, powering it on within a private internal network and validating the recovery plan. Test snapshots are fenced off from the production network, so users can work freely without having to be concerned with conflicts or the integrity of the production environment. Tests are performed on a snapshot that can be removed when testing is complete, obviating the need for full replication.

-- Failover preparation - users can power up the recovery workload on a fenced-off network while a failure is confirmed, and then go live with the workload, bringing the recovery workload online to failover for the production system or simply shutdown the recovery workload if the failure is a false alarm.

Hardware

The system consists of a re-purposed, dual-CPU, quad-core 2.6GHz Dell server with 16GB RAM, six Gigabit Ethernet NICs and 2.5TB SATA in a RAID5 configuration, which Platespin CEO Stephen Pollack said provides enough resources for 25 virtual machines. Dell will provide support for the physical appliance, he said, although he didn't rule out the future possibility of launching the software setup as a virtual appliance.

"Physical servers have traditionally had a backup model if they had anything at all. Maybe a quarter of your servers, the mission-critical ones - have full disaster recovery but not the rest," said Pollack. "This gives you the benefits of consolidation from a cost perspective but it's a managed implementation of virtualization.

"Consolidation was the primary driver that fuelled the first wave of server virtualization adoption, and affordable resiliency will fuel the next wave," said Stephanie Balaouras and Christopher Voce of Forrester Research. "Virtualization has lowered the cost of providing resiliency to a low enough point that firms are all but obliged to consider deploying virtualization to support a much broader set of applications than they might have in the past."

PlateSpin reckoned the box offers an affordable alternative to traditional recovery infrastructures and host-based replication systems because organizations can achieve a 25 to 1 workload protection ratio without incurring the expense of duplicate hardware and software licensing costs.

PlateSpin Forge will be generally available in North America on Jan. 15, with full U.K. availability in April - although if you want one sooner, Platespin won't turn your cash away. PlateSpin has set up an early access program for this purpose.
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Microsoft Readies Disk-Based Recovery System

noreply@blogger.com (chris4302) — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 09:21:00 +0000

Software giant will release its data backup and recovery system later this year.
By Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG News

Microsoft's System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) will be ready for prime time in the third quarter, the vendor announced today.

Microsoft has completed production of its disk-based data backup and recovery system and will release the product to manufacturing in the next 30 days, says Ben Matheson, group product manager for DPM at Microsoft. The vendor also has set the pricing for the product at $950 for one DPM server and the ability to protect three other file servers.

Microsoft will highlight DPM's impending release at its annual Worldwide Partner Conference, which kicks off Friday in Minneapolis. The server, which can handle nearly continuous disk-based backup of files running in a Windows Server environment, should be available to customers and partners between 60 and 90 days after the product's release-to-manufacturing date, Matheson says.

Also at the conference, Microsoft will reveal that it is integrating DPM within its Advanced Infrastructure competency in the Microsoft Partner Program. This means that partners will have access to training, certification, and marketing resources around the product so they can begin offering it to their customers.

Microsoft revamped its partner program about a year ago to focus on a series of competencies around which partners can get specific information and develop skills, Matheson says.

In the Works

Microsoft first began working on DPM more than two years ago but did not announce the product until September 2004. The product's first public beta was in April. Since that time more than 100,000 copies of the beta have been distributed, he says.

Microsoft designed DPM from the ground up to interoperate with existing tape-based backup and recovery products, but recommends that customers use disk as well because of the unreliability and time-consuming nature of tape.

"DPM doesn't really replace anything; it's designed to be complementary," Matheson says. "Ninety percent or more customers rely on tape backup, but when it comes time to do recovery, it's slow and unreliable ... we are advocating that customers have a disk-to-disk-to-tape backup scenario."

Microsoft hardware and storage partners such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Quantum will be developing storage appliances with DPM pre-installed at a cost-effective price for customers of all sizes, he says. Matheson estimates that these vendors can offer a 1TB DPM storage device for less than $5000.

New Disk Encryption Standards May Complicate Data Recovery

noreply@blogger.com (chris4302) — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 09:19:00 +0000

By Lucas Mearian, Computerworld

When the world's largest disk makers joined last week to announce a single standard for encrypting disk drives , the move raised questions among users about how to deal with full-disk encryption once it's native on all laptop or desktop computers.

For example, what happens if a user loses a password -- essentially leaving the drive filled with data that can no longer be unencrypted? Or what if a drive becomes corrupted or damaged, the data has to be recovered by a third party -- and your password is on the drive?

"Then you have just killed yourself," said Dave Hill, an analyst with the research firm the Mesabi Group.
The Trusted Computing Group (TCG) , made up of disk hardware and software vendors, last week published three encryption specifications to cover storage devices in consumer laptops and desktop computers as well as enterprise-class drives used in servers and disk storage arrays.

Some industry observers believe that within five years, all disk drive manufacturers will be offering drives, both hard disk and solid-state disk, that use the specifications for firmware-base encryption.
While enterprises using drives with full-disk encryption, such as the Seagate Momentus 5400.2, would monitor them through a central access administrator with a master password to unencrypt, consumers purchasing laptops or desktops with drives would face a more daunting scenario. They would need to either back up their data and their password, or lose the drive and data.

Robert Thibadeau, chief technologist at Seagate Technology and chairman of the TCG, said the current disk-encryption specifications allow users to create more than one password to access data, so that if a user were to lose one, he or she could still access their hard drive with a backup password.

"Furthermore, with some password settings you can provide a password that allows erasure so you can put the drive back into use, but the data will be gone," Thibadeau said.

If a drive were to become corrupted or the hardware damaged and a data recovery firm were needed to retrieve a users' disk, Thibadeau said the recovery firm could use the password to recover data from the damaged hardware. The TCG is also working with data recovery firms to create a technique that would allow them to recovery encrypted data on drives using the standards without needing a user password.

Currently, however, if a user loses their password and a drive becomes damaged or corrupted, the data is not recoverable, Thibadeau admitted.

David Virkler, CIO of AdaptaSoft Inc., a payroll systems software and services company, said administration of drives with hardware-based encryption is easy and he's seen no I/O slowdown. Virkler installed Seagate's self-encrypting, 2.5-in. Momentus 5400.2 drives in October 2007 on his company's Dell laptops in order to protect customers' financial data that his company often deals with in its service capacity. He paid a US$40 premium for each self-encrypting drive, spending about $120 total for each 80GB drive.

While the rollout was easy, he admits that if a company doesn't already have a group policy in place -- a domain name server and an active directory -- then it would be "painful" to roll out. "You'd have to manage each laptop individually," he said.

At AdaptaSoft, Virkler instituted a policy at the time of the rollout that warned workers not to keep critical data on their laptops; instead they were told to always use the company's network drive for the highest priority information in case of a drive failure. "If laptop crashes, I'm not going expend a lot of energy to get it back. I'd also imagine any data recovery options would be nearly impossible," he said.

Virkler said he's now interested in using self-encrypting drives in his data center, but he's not sure how they would work, as he also runs Citrix and virtualization software.

Ken Waring, IT director at CBI Health in Toronto, said his organization needs encryption on its drives to protect sensitive patient information, but he's also concerned about emerging technologies, including the standardization of full-disk encryption and the problems that it might create.

But, as Waring put it: "It's still a million times better than having nothing. And, as a business, you can only take what's available to you."

Dave Hill, an analyst with Mesabi Group, agreed, saying that not only is data with full-disk encryption safe if a computer is stolen or lost, the technology also automatically places a company using the drives in compliance with state laws such as California's data-breach notification mandate. That law requires companies to notify the public when unencrypted drives are lost or stolen.

CBI Health is a national network of more than 135 community and hospital-based rehabilitation, medical and health care facilities. Three years ago, Waring switched from Lenovo to Dell laptops in order to get hardware-based encryption, replacing a software-based encryption product that he found arduous to manage and unreliable. Waring found that drives encrypted with software would sometimes unencrypt themselves -- leaving the data open to theft. And "we've experienced five drive failures due to the encryption software, but none from hardware," he said.

Today, 90 of CBI Health's 200 laptops use Seagate's Momentus drives with native full-disk encryption. The other users will move to Seagate drives as they are replaced at end of life, Waring said.

CBI Health uses Wave Systems' Embassy Suite encryption management software to monitor its encrypted drives, including storing passwords.

Waring understands the concerns about lost passwords and damaged drives, but said Wave's software allows CBI Health to keep a single administrative password to access encrypted drives in case a user loses their password. In addition, Waring backs up all drives, so if one is damaged, the data is not lost.
"Our company as a whole is trying to harden every element of its architecture. We felt it was prudent to start where we are most vulnerable -- mobile devices that people leave in their cars or have in their homes," he said.

For more enterprise computing news, visit Computerworld. Story copyright © 2010 Computerworld Inc. All rights reserved.

Illuminator Shines Light on Data Protection

noreply@blogger.com (chris4302) — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 09:17:00 +0000

By Chris Mellor, IDG News

Start-up Illuminator has announced a data protection management reporting tool that embraces both snapshot and replication, as well as backup. Current DPM tools from vendors such as Wysdm and Bocada only include reporting from heterogeneous backup products.

Illuminator's Virtual Recovery Engine (VRE) is a recovery management software that ensures customers' data protection investments will pay off in operational and disaster recovery scenarios. It not only reports on snapshot, replication and backup activities but connects them to applications and can verify that the protection activities took place and were valid in protecting data. For example, a replication that has not been set up, leaving an application unprotected, can be flagged via red graphics on a bar chart.

Brad O'Neill, a senior analyst at the Taneja Group, said: "customers definitively state that tools like Illuminator represent a distinct new approach. Specifically, these technologies provide more insight and controls over data protection and recovery at both local and remote sites. This then makes backup and recovery, replication, disaster recovery and compliance management all much more efficient. We expect awareness of this trend to become pervasive over the next 24 months."

Recoverability requires coordination between multiple IT functions and staff, such as DBAs, storage sys admins, and operational staff. Where information is incomplete then things may fall between the cracks and line-of-business people be unable to get sensible answers about how well their applications are protected.

In effect VRE now provides a single data protection dashboard for all data protection activities and interested parties in an enterprise. Existing DPM products only report on backup, leaving enterprises in the dark about snapshotting and replication activities. VRE combines backup, snapshot and replication reporting, and tells customers whether protection service level agreements at an application or application group level are being observed. If they are falling short, for example with regard to recovery point objectives, then the cause is identified.

Historical charts showing application protection actions over time can identify non-protected periods and show where applications are vulnerable.

This is the first version of the product and supports EMC Symmetrix: BCV; Clone; and SRDF, and Network Appliance: SnapShot; SnapMirror; and SnapVault. Its design allows for the addition of additional data protection and storage platforms without modifying the core engine. Supported operating system platforms are Windows, all major versions of Unix and Windows.

Illuminator's design principle is that any technology that creates secondary copies of data for the purpose of supporting a failure scenario could - and should - be managed under a data protection management product, such as VRE.

Illuminator developed VRE with the help of leading Wall Street firms and telecommunication carriers as design partners and early beta customers. Pricing starts from US$50,000, or around £26,000 at current exchange rates.

Bocada is leery of quoting prices saying it depends upon the number of backup servers and associated clients. WysDM for backups starts at $15,000, based on 50 monitored systems.

Recover Lost Form Data in Firefox

noreply@blogger.com (chris4302) — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 09:15:00 +0000

By Rick Broida, PCWorld

Raise your hand if this has happened to you: After filling in (filling out?) a lengthy Web form, you click Next or Save or whatever, and poof: your browser crashes, the server times out, your Internet connection dies--in other words, all your hard work is gone.

As someone who blogs for living (a task that relies heavily on Web forms), I can't count how many times I've experienced this particular nightmare. Too many times, let's put it that way.

Fortunately, there's Lazarus, a Firefox add-on that makes it easy to recover lost form data.

Here's how it works: Lazarus automatically (and securely) saves every keystroke you enter into any Web form, blog tool, comment box, or what have you. To bring back your data, just right-click and choose Recover Text or Recover Form from the context menu.

At long last, this feature is now available in Firefox 3.5 in the form of Session Restore. (Now if only it were added to Internet Explorer.) Lazarus has saved my bacon several times since I first installed it a couple months ago. I now consider it an essential part of my Web life.

See more like this:
firefox,
add-ins & patches

Hard Drive but No PC

noreply@blogger.com (chris4302) — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 09:14:00 +0000

By Lincoln Spector, PCWorld

Jen's PC died. All she has left is the hard drive, which contains three years worth of files. How does she get that back?

Depending on its age, the hard drive almost certainly has either an IDE or a SATA interface. Both of these are standard and easy to access.

All you need is an adapter that converts SATA or IDE to USB, which will essentially turn your old, internal drive into a temporary external one. The adapter will also need an AC power source.

The BYTECC BT-300 USB 2.0 Drive Mate makes a good choice. Nothing fancy, but it works.
Once the drive is plugged in, you can search its contents and copy the files you need.

Now for the lecture: If the hard drive had died rather than another part of the laptop, you'd be in a much more serious situation. You would have lost your photos, documents, and everything else on your PC.

You need to back up your hard drive--or at the very least the data folders--every day. The concept is simple: Never have only one copy of anything. See 7 Backup Strategies for Your Data, Multimedia, and System Files for backup options.

Altered 4/15: I corrected an error. My thanks to boden for pointing it out.
Add your comments to this article below. If you have other tech questions, email them to me at answer@pcworld.com, or post them to a community of helpful folks on the PCW Answer Line forum.

See more like this:
hard drives,
recovery

Forensic Tool Will Advance Data Recovery

noreply@blogger.com (chris4302) — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 09:13:00 +0000

By Tim Greene, NetworkWorld

New computer forensic tools will make it possible to recover more data from corrupted hard drives so long as the missing filles haven't been overwritten.

Finding criminal data on cell phones and game consoles is tough

Tools designed to harvest images from disks even after they have been deleted from the file system can be adapted to seek other file formats including Word documents, says Nasir Memon, a professor at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University.

In research that he hasn't yet published, Memon says will show that techniques used to cull images can be adapted to find text files, a capability that would be attractive to businesses trying to salvage data that may be fragmented and dispersed across a corrupted drive.

The text tool will examine fragmented chunks of files that may be distributed across a disk and analyze their content to see which ones likely go together. "It looks at global differences, for example, Twain vs. Shakespeare. Syntax helps eliminate false positives," Memon says.

The tool is based on a recovery method known as SmartCarving that was discovered at NYU and is commercially sold by vendor DigitalAssembly, which was founded by former students of Memon.
SmartCarving can reclaim 10% to 15% of digital images that conventional forensic tools miss when trying to find files that have been deleted from the file registry, he says.

Traditional file recovery seeks a known header and footer for a file and gathers all the related data blocks in between. If the data blocks making up the file are fragmented, traditional tools crash when they hit a fragment of a different format that might be sandwiched between pieces of the file being sought, Memon says.
SmartCarving images involves drawing together data blocks from a single image that are arranged consecutively on a drive and linking them to other groups of data blocks based on whether they seem to blend using criteria such as pixel density and dimensions of the image.

In this way, it becomes possible to recover partial images when pieces are missing and to recover images when headers are missing, Memon says. "You look at what can be decoded and pick the best," he says.
The actual sorting is done by algorithms that graph data segments to see which are most like another based on preset criteria. The closer fragments fall on the graph, the better the fit they are considered to have.

Using the technique on photos can reassemble photos even if some of the image data is missing, resulting in a picture that has a band missing from it. The method can create approximate headers for image files as well, which results in gathering and reassembling enough pieces to recreate a version of the image that might not be as sharp as the original, Memon says.

New research adapts this technique to other file formats such as .doc files. It looks at the content in file fragments and classifies it based on syntactical similarities. This is akin to sorting a box of jigsaw puzzle pieces that contains the pieces for many puzzles so that all the pieces from each puzzle are put in separate boxes, Memon says. Each puzzle can then be assembled based on the shapes of the pieces and the image fragment printed on them.

Read more about wide area network in Network World's Wide Area Network section.

The Needle and the (hard Drive) Damage Done

noreply@blogger.com (chris4302) — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 09:10:00 +0000

By Chris Holt, Macworld

The people from DriveSavers really know how to make a point about data recovery.

A volunteer gets ready to go medieval on a hard drive at DriveSavers' Expo booth.Typically, the company's area of expertise--painstakingly rescuing irreplaceable data from damaged hard drives--isn't the sort of thing to attract an audience on a crowded trade show floor. But this week, the company pulled off what I think was one of the cooler demos at Macworld Expo.

The demo begins by showing a nice slideshow of DriveSavers' clean room facilities--get a closer look yourself in this Macworld.com profile from last summer--followed by what happens when a hard drive fails. A demonstration then follows in which "Dr. Data," DriveSavers' Expo MC, pulls a volunteer out of the crowd; the volunteer dons a clean suit. The Don't Try This At Home portion of the demo then begins: instead of opening a hard drive in a clean room environment with a trained professional, the crowd watches the audience member take a dental tool to an open hard drive wheel. This simulates the damage a hard drive might receive over time. Things wrap up with DriveSavers reps explaining more about how they do what they do.
You'll never look at a hard drive quite the same way again.

Business Benefits of Google Disaster Recovery

noreply@blogger.com (chris4302) — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 09:07:00 +0000

By Tony Bradley, PCWorld

Google Apps provides a variety of benefits for small and medium businesses. One of the most critical elements, however, is one that the businesses probably never considered when selecting Google Apps as a productivity or messaging platform: disaster recovery.

Disaster recovery may have come up in discussion, but probably not as a benefit. On the contrary, for many businesses weighing the options and exploring the possibility of leveraging Google Apps, the disaster recovery equation is often viewed from the other side--"what do we do if Google Apps is unavailable?"

Given the number of times that various Web-based services provided by Google have suffered outages, or incidents like the data loss debacle experienced by mobile customers using the Sidekick, it seems like there is enough anecdotal evidence to make that a credible concern. But, a temporary outage of service has much less impact on a business than a permanent loss of data.

As Rajen Sheth, senior product manager for Google Apps, points out in a blog post, "No one likes preparing for worst-case scenarios. When you use Google Apps, you have one less critical thing to worry about."
Sheth also explained "One of the most compelling advantages of cloud computing is its power to democratize technology," adding "Google Apps gives companies of all sizes access to technology that until recently was available to only the largest enterprises. And it's available at a dramatically lower cost than the on-premises alternatives, without the usual hassles of upgrading, patching and maintaining the software."

Granted, the fact that Google is synchronously replicating data in real-time to multiple servers in geographically diverse data centers is more for Google than Google customers. Google gets some CYA (cover your "backside") protection to ensure it doesn't make headlines for losing customer data, and it can improve the service overall--reducing latency and improving overall performance by being able to retrieve data from the nearest data center.

The reasoning behind it, though--whether altruistic or not--does not negate its value. Businesses need to back up data and have a plan in place to recover it in the event of a disaster. Like most information technology concerns, small and medium businesses have the same needs as larger enterprises, but lack the resources to implement it properly. A managed service just makes sense.

Traditionally, messaging and productivity applications are installed and maintained locally. Leveraging Google Apps is itself an example of basically outsourcing those duties to Google. Now Google is also throwing in the data backup and disaster recovery part of the equation.

Compared with the cost of purchasing, deploying, and maintaining the necessary hardware and software internally, and the expense of hiring and training the personnel to invest the time and effort in configuring and administering the technology, there are many aspects of business--IT in particular--that make sense for small and medium businesses to outsource to a managed service provider.

Tony Bradley is co-author of Unified Communications for Dummies. He tweets as @Tony_BradleyPCW, and can be contacted at his Facebook page.

Effectively Retrieve Rar Data With Easy Rar Recovery

noreply@blogger.com (chris4302) — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 07:27:00 +0000

By: MunSoft (ERR)

A lot of issues can appear during work with archives. One of the largest is breaking or deleting these files. In this case you will need to restore them. One of the best tools in this field is Easy RAR Recovery. This application was made specifically to solve problems like this.

Comparing to recovery included in RAR tools, recovering results in Easy RAR Recovery is much improved. This is because of the unique algorithms which are used in this application. These algorithms can restore archives with all kinds of damage. It can work not only with solid archives, but with any other RAR files as well.

This application was desgined for recovery of all kinds of RAR archives, created by any RAR archiver. The power of Easy RAR Recovery is enough to restore files where the size is greater than 4 Gb. So no matter what was in the RAR: documents, mails, songs, photos or even movies, it will be recovered. Easy RAR Recovery was created to retrieve RAR archives, but it also works with self-extracting SFX archives, which can be also restored. After recovery, these archives can be used with no problems.

Another welcome feature of this application is the supporting of Unicode. It means that all archives will be restored successfully and you will be able to read your files with no complications. The language of documents in the archive does not matter and you will be able to work with them like they were not damaged at all.

Easy RAR Recovery will work on Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008 and 7. It is very easy in use and you can always check your data before retrieval. If you have a large amount of lost archives this function is really useful, because you always can take a preview at the archive before recovering it. Besides, you can see how much of the data is damaged and be recovered whether either the entire archive or just some sections of it if file is damaged very badly. The latter case is very uncommon.

Easy RAR Recovery is very easy in use. To recover some documents, you just have to run the application and take a few easy steps, which does not demand any special knowledge or skills. You just need to select files which you are wanting to restore and then recover them. After finishing work, the application will show you results. This way, you can see which information can be recovered and which are not possible to recover.

As you can deduce, Easy RAR Recovery is one of the most effective tools for RAR recovery. Competitors to this application are not so feature-packed or cost much more money. This makes Easy RAR Recovery a perfect choice for any user who want to keep his RAR archives safe.

To evaluate the application, you can first try trial edition and than if you will like this application, you can purchase it. Do not waste your time and money for useless software and instead buy Easy RAR Recovery and you will never have problems with RAR files being damaged.

About the Author:
MunSoft concerns on development tools and utilities for home users. One of the most popular tools is Easy RAR Recovery software.

Backup Now Makes Archiving to CD-RW a Breeze

noreply@blogger.com (chris4302) — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 07:23:00 +0000

By Jon L. Jacobi, PCWorld

Simple-to-use and solid CD-RW-only utility also creates drive images and emergency boot discs, for just $60.

NewTech Infosystems, the developer of CD Maker 2000, has applied its CD-RW expertise to the dull but necessary chore of making regular backups. The result is the $59.99 Backup Now, a full-featured program that provides both file backup and imaging of entire drive partitions (à la Symantec's Ghost and PowerQuest's Drive Image) to CD-Recordable or CD-Rewritable discs. The version we tested was downloaded from the NTI Web site; a boxed version with printed manuals is available for $79.99.

Besides drive imaging, the major advantage Backup Now holds over other, similar programs (such as Veritas Backup Exec or Dantz Retrospect is its support for CD-R and CD-RW technology as well as the latest, greatest drives. NTI offers a list of supported drives on its Web site, and strongly recommends that new users check the list before buying the program. However, the top-notch CD-RW support comes with a price--Backup Now doesn't work with other common backup media, such as tape drives.

Installing Backup Now was a simple procedure, and when we started the program the first time it made several helpful suggestions, such as disabling screen savers and power management when performing backups. It even informed us that other programs running in the foreground could slow down or interfere with scheduling or backups. Although the program can't act on these suggestions itself, the help files cover how users can do so.

If you're familiar with other backup programs, you'll find nothing revolutionary in Backup Now. However, its EasyStep user interface is a tad friendlier than those of the other major programs: It divides the backup and restore tasks into easy-to-follow steps, all shown on the main screen. Backup Now has all the same major features its competitors do, plus some notable extras. It creates bootable floppies and CDs--for restarting after a hard-disk crash--and even lets you place an image of your boot partition on your emergency restart CD for seamless recovery.

Choose Your Backup Style

The program offers all the common backup and restore operations--including full, incremental, and differential backups--plus typical configuration choices such as whether to verify the backup, whether to append or overwrite the media, and what level of software compression should be used (CD-RW drives don't include the hardware compression found on many tape drives).

You can also exclude files individually, by type, or by the date modified; password-protect your backup; generate itemized reports; and back up the Windows Registry. Both file and drive-image backups may span multiple discs, and even system files that are in use are copied.

We were impressed by how informative the program's messages were during the backup process. If the media was missing, the program said so. If the media was present but the drive was still spinning up, that also was specifically stated. We also appreciated the option to erase the CD-RW disc without interrupting the backup if the disc was full or contained other information.

Unfortunately, Backup Now didn't provide the same pleasant experience during image backup or recovery CD creation: The program merely directed us to place a blank CD-R/CD-RW disc in the drive. If we tried to use a previously written disc, we had to stop the backup and use the dedicated disc-erasing function.
All of the backup and restore tests we performed on our 1.2-GHz Athlon system with a Ricoh MP9120A DVD/CD-RW drive went off without a hitch. The backups were created at a speed very close to the 10X CD-RW rating of the Ricoh drive, so each disc took about 7 minutes to write. The only bug we noticed was that every time we ran Backup Now, the program left a document open after it finished backing up, and the file couldn't be used until we shut down Backup Now. But overall we were quite pleased with the program's performance and stability.

If you already own another backup utility that handles CD-RW media, you probably don't need Backup Now. Some CD-RW drives also include a backup program (such as Adaptec's Take Two software, which is bundled with some Teac drives), although such programs don't include the advanced features of Backup Now. First-time buyers who want to use their CD-RW drive for backups should give it serious consideration; it's a bargain when you consider that it does double duty for drive imaging as well.

Backup Now is also available in a Windows 2000 version for $79.99. A free 10-day trial download of both versions is available, and you can purchase both versions from the NewTech Infosystems Web site.

How to Resolve 'IN PAGE ERROR' Running Microsoft Office Setup

noreply@blogger.com (chris4302) — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 07:10:00 +0000

File system and hard disk issues can root from a variety of problems, including power outages, improper system maintenance, virus infection, human errors, and hardware problems. When these problem occurs, the consequences are directly reflected in operations like, installing a new application, accessing an existing file or folder, repairing the existing installation, and more. Thus, you can easily analyze file system corruption. In worst cases, you might need to reformat the entire hard drive partitions and seek the help of Partition Recovery tools, especially when there is no data backup available.

After a general overview, let's narrow down the problem by a realistic problem,which can occur when trying to set up or repair Microsoft Office on a Windows hard disk. Specifically, when you attempt to repair or install Microsoft Office 2002 (XP), Microsoft Office 2003 or Microsoft Office 2007, the setup may exit silently without notifying or displaying any error message on screen. For say, when you try to install or repair Office, it prompts you to specify the Product Identification key, but exits unexpectedly.

For typical Office setup failure, you can examine the associated log file, which is created by Office Setup in Temp folder in .txt format. This file might contain one of the below or similar log entries with different module and function:

Exception code: C0000006 IN_PAGE_ERROR
Module: C:WINDOWSSystem32msi.dll
Function: 0x7642452f

Or

Exception code: C0000006 IN_PAGE_ERROR
Module: C:WINDOWSsystem32IMAGEHLP.dll
Function: 0x76c94afa

As mentioned, the depicted problem is generally the result of file system damage or hard disk problems. Thus, to resolve the problem, consider implementing the solutions mentioned underneath:

'Analyze' and then 'Defragment' the hard disk using Disk Defragmenter tool. To do so, you must have administrative rights to access the partition/volume.
Repair the disk using Autochk.exe, Chkdsk.exe,, and Chkntfs.exe tools. If the problem persists, reformat the hard disk and restore the deleted data from backup. Use a Partition Recovery Software while any kind of backup issues.

Use of a Partition Recovery utility allows to scan the logically crashed hard disk and restore the lost/deleted partitions in just few simple steps.

For best recovery and results, one of the best tools is Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery software. Equipped with advanced plus safe scanning algorithms, the Partition Recovery Software is compatible with Windows 7, Vista, XP, 2003, and 2000. The software comes with slew of useful options like, Raw data recovery, disk cloning, disk imaging, etc.

About the Author :

Hello I am Kmadhav and works with Stellar Information Systems Limited, which is the the foremost provider of world-class recovery applications to deal with all types of logical data loss situations. The partition recovery, windows data recovery and ,stellar data recovery are specialized and available for different OS

By : K Madhav

How to recover data after computer crash

noreply@blogger.com (chris4302) — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 07:06:00 +0000

One must accept that there are disadvantages of every technology along with its advantages. The same is with computers. Today, computers offer many benefits. Our lives have become very much simplified with the help this amazing invention, computer. So far, computers are known for their advantages but what is the disadvantage of computers. Actually, the disadvantage of computer comes in effect when a miss happening like operating system crash occurs.

You should know that crash of the operating system might lead into huge data loss. Therefore, you should be ready for this. Most of the people who have never come across computer crash do not feel the misery of data loss. There can be a large variety of data stored on your computer system like photos, documents, video files, songs, movies, etc. If you are a regular computer user then you must be ready to deal with computer crash, as the operating system can be crashed anytime. Once the system is crashed, you come across data loss; therefore, you are suggested to maintain full backup of the data stored on your computer.

Backup helps you to recover the lost data in case of system crash and thus helps you perform Windows disk recovery. It is also a fact that all people do not ever like to maintain backup or it is not possible to backup all data, if a huge amount of the data is stored. Such people even do not need to be panic when their computer meets the OS crash. They can even recover the lost data even when backup is not there. Those who do not have backup need to use Windows disk recovery software to get the lost data back. The Windows disk recovery software helps them recover the lost photos, documents, video, and other data stored on the computer, which has been crashed.

There can be many reasons behind the computer crash. Even the sudden power loss can also damage the operating system. Anyhow, once the operating system is damaged, Windows disk recovery software can help recovering the lost data. The software quickly scans the computer’s hard disk and recovers all of the available data on it. After recovering the data, the software displays the recovered data in a tree like structure so that you can easily find the required data. The Windows disk recovery software supports all types of Windows operating systems.

One must accept that there are disadvantages of every technology along with its advantages. The same is with computers. Today, computers offer many benefits. Our lives have become very much simplified with the help this amazing invention, computer. So far, computers are known for their advantages but what is the disadvantage of computers. Actually, the disadvantage of computer comes in effect when a miss happening like operating system crash occurs.

You should know that crash of the operating system might lead into huge data loss. Therefore, you should be ready for this. Most of the people who have never come across computer crash do not feel the misery of data loss. There can be a large variety of data stored on your computer system like photos, documents, video files, songs, movies, etc. If you are a regular computer user then you must be ready to deal with computer crash, as the operating system can be crashed anytime. Once the system is crashed, you come across data loss; therefore, you are suggested to maintain full backup of the data stored on your computer.

Backup helps you to recover the lost data in case of system crash and thus helps you perform Windows disk recovery. It is also a fact that all people do not ever like to maintain backup or it is not possible to backup all data, if a huge amount of the data is stored. Such people even do not need to be panic when their computer meets the OS crash. They can even recover the lost data even when backup is not there. Those who do not have backup need to use Windows disk recovery software to get the lost data back. The Windows disk recovery software helps them recover the lost photos, documents, video, and other data stored on the computer, which has been crashed.

There can be many reasons behind the computer crash. Even the sudden power loss can also damage the operating system. Anyhow, once the operating system is damaged, Windows disk recovery software can help recovering the lost data. The software quickly scans the computer’s hard disk and recovers all of the available data on it. After recovering the data, the software displays the recovered data in a tree like structure so that you can easily find the required data. The Windows disk recovery software supports all types of Windows operating systems.

About the Author :

Author of the article has expertise in the field of data recovery software, email recovery, email migration, hard drive recovery and password recovery. The entire range of his articles is information-rich and useful for dealing with data recovery issues and finding suitable solution. See More.....Windows disk recovery

By : comp article

EasyRecovery Update Rescues Data

noreply@blogger.com (chris4302) — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 06:52:00 +0000

By Lincoln Spector, PCWorld

Ontrack releases EasyRecovery 6, a trio of redesigned tools with varied data-recovery functions.

Ontrack has updated its trio of EasyRecovery programs, each application offering increasingly aggressive tools that can help you regain your lost data.

Ontrack markets all three products under the EasyRecovery 6 name and version number. EasyRecovery DataRecovery, priced at $199, is a basic data-recovery program that restores deleted files (including those on which Windows' own undelete capabilities would have given up long ago). It grabs what data it can off inaccessible partitions, and it repairs accessible but corrupted Microsoft Word and .zip files.

The $339 EasyRecovery FileRepair also mends Word and .zip files, using the same tools as DataRecovery. In addition it repairs Outlook, Access, Excel, and PowerPoint files.

EasyRecovery Professional ($499) bundles the other two products along with drive diagnostics and more-powerful recovery tools.

Ontrack also provides a data-recovery service for situations when the software isn't sufficient. You ship your hard drive to Ontrack and keep your fingers crossed. If you're lucky, you'll get your data back on CDs, along with a hefty bill.
Like its competitors, Ontrack gives away a free demo version (in Ontrack's case, it's the Professional product) that shows you if a file is retrievable. If it is, you can decide which of the three full products you should buy to retrieve it.

New Design, Old Limits

Ontrack says the EasyRecovery 6 programs sport an improved user interface and a more intelligent design. For example, when you loaded the version 5 applications, they scanned the hard drive and then asked what you wanted to do (such as restore a deleted file). Now the programs inquire first, which might result in a quicker scan because the programs know what to search for.

The company has also added the capability to recover data to an FTP destination, so you can save your restored files onto another PC--even over the Internet. But this works only when your system is in good enough condition to boot into Windows. If you're forced to use the emergency boot floppy, you'll have to restore your data to a local disk.

Data disasters happen. When you lose important files (or, much worse, entire drives) and you don't have backups, you need to recover your data--a difficult and expensive undertaking. Ontrack's new EasyRecovery 6 trio of programs just may make it easier. But it will still be expensive.

The price for EasyRecovery FileRepair has gone both up and down, depending on how you look at it. The entire version 5 package of tools cost $749, more than twice the current version 6 price. But you didn't have to buy the whole package; previously you could purchase just an Excel-specific version for only $129--a good buy if an important spreadsheet suddenly went bad. Today you must purchase at least the EasyRecovery FileRepair bundle to get support for Excel files. By contrast, Ontrack's competitor Recoveronix still sells an Excel-specific repair program priced at $149.

Recoveronix doesn't sell a DataRecovery competitor, but Runtime Software does. It offers separate versions of its GetDataBack program to recover FAT files ($69) and NTFS files ($129).

Data Recovery Software for 2010

noreply@blogger.com (chris4302) — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 09:07:00 +0000

An expert hard drive data recovery software for 2010 is a proficient and cost effective data recovery tool to recover lost data from any data storage media devices like pen drive, memory stick, zip drive, hard drive, USB digital media and many more.

Data recovery software for 2010 is an easy & uncomplicated software tool even for non technical users because this Windows data recovery software for 2010 has user-friendly GUI. Software can successfully recover data lost due to software crash, virus infection.

It works rightly even though the partition is formatted, damaged, deleted or lost. Data recovery tool for Windows is a proper solution that provides the greatest performance and reliable data recovery results.

This Data Recovery Software uses advanced techniques & fast algorithms for recovering deleted hard drive files from inaccessible Windows hard disk drive. Now, our all data recovery software is fully compatible with Windows 7 Operating System. Data recovery software for 2010 is a completely proficient tool for recovering lost files & folders from deleted/corrupted/formatted Windows file system.

Data recovery software provides 100% satisfactory data recovery result as this is one of the most superior hard drive data recovery tool. This file recovery software for 2010 can successfully restore hard drive data/files. Our hard disk data recovery for 2010 software supports Windows OS (95, 98, ME, XP, 2000, 2003, Vista & Windows 7).

Software supports IDE, EIDE and SCSI disk drives. You can easily get the FREE Demo by downloading our data recovery software for 2010 at http://www.data-recovery-software.datarecoverysoftware.org/ Data recovery software for 2010 provides four recovery modes: 1) Desktop Recovery 2) Raw Recovery 3) Remote Recovery 4) Image Recovery Every recovery mode uses different recovery techniques for providing trustworthy data recovery results.

Download Data Recovery Software for 2010

Easeus Data Recovery Wizard Free Edition Gets Back 1GB of Data--For Free

noreply@blogger.com (chris4302) — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 06:43:00 +0000

By Jon L. Jacobi, PCWorld

I love free because, err... it saves you money. And in the case of Easeus Data Recovery Wizard Free 5.01, it will also save you grief and data. 1GB of data to be specific. In some cases that will cover your needs; however, if you just lost your MP3, digital image, or video collection--probably not. Also, that's a running count--so each time you recover data, you can recover less of it.

When Easeus says "wizard," they mean it. The program steps you through the process with great care.

Still, Easeus Data Recovery Wizard Free actually works and it's not a glorified undelete program like some you'll encounter. It will do that--but it also does sector-by-sector recovery, which is required when your file or partition table goes kaboom. If the demo shows the files you're looking for, you can always purchase the full-blown, unlimited-recovery version for $70. That's $10 cheaper than R-Studio--one of my standbys--and a lot cheaper than Ontrack's EasyRecovery Professional, but more than Active @ File Recovery, which is another of my favorites.

DRW worked as advertised for me; recovering deleted data from an existing partition, deleted data from a deleted partition, deleted data from a corrupted partition, and deleted data from a partition that had been deleted, then overwritten with another. The latter two scenarios require that you select Complete Recovery which does the sector scanning.

Since, unlike most demos, this one actually lets you recover data--as well as see any data beyond the 1GB limit that can be recovered--it's a good bet as a download. It seems to work as well as the others, but I'd try them all and see which one you like (assuming the hard drive isn't in a state of constant deterioration) before deciding on Easeus Data Recovery Wizard or any of them.

See more like this:
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Data Recovery: What To Do When Disaster Strikes

noreply@blogger.com (chris4302) — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 10:00:00 +0000

Submitted by T J

Every data recovery plan starts with a corporate policy, which would outline what comprises a critical system. Whatever constitutes a critical system, the need to identify it decides what action you need to take to prevent massive system failures and ensure an efficient data recovery process. Once these policies have been specified and agreed upon, they must be turned into actions by the corporate IT department. The first step of the process usually involves evaluation where the initial analysis of the extent of the data lost is determined. After the prognosis, the experts and technicians would then proceed in cloning or copying the media and queuing it into their systems. The actual data recovery process occurs when the technicians secure and extract the data from the copy of the damaged media. For many companies, the first step of disaster recovery and data recovery is having a back up plan. Back up processes are a cycle that usually includes supplementary back ups daily, full back ups weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually. Many more ways are available and whatever you choose, you must make sure that the maximum amount of data lost is equivalent to that of data created or stored in a single day. This way, the whole recovery process will be simplified and much easier to manage. Aside from back ups, there is also a need to ensure protraction of equipment and the ability
to read and run media over time. The safest way to do this is to keep continuous updates on the type of media used for storing back ups. If the backup media cannot be read because the only hardware capable of doing so is too outmoded or is no longer in production, then your disaster recovery are completely laid to waste. Another reason why there is a need for continuance in back up media is the assurance that total recovery is possible with a complete back up system and disaster recovery policy. Time is also another factor. Disaster recovery and data recovery strategies may take longer if incremental back ups are done sporadically. If you are to restore systems quickly, you will need offsite hardware that is as close in specifications to your existing equipment as possible. These key back up servers will minimize the time it takes to do a complete recovery process. Again, continuous updates in these servers are fundamental to the speed and efficiency of the data recovery process. Having a disaster recovery plan is an essential part of your business. It is precisely for this reason that you not only need to have a data recovery strategy but also that these plans are regularly tested to make sure that theyre good enough. When you prove that your data recovery and disaster recovery strategies really do work, then that is the time for you to say that you have a valid data recovery plan.

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