On occasion, friends who know I’m a bit of a geek email me with questions on how to service and troubleshoot their computers (MS Windows, I’m not a Mac guy). Often, my answers tend to be more comprehensive than they expected. I figured it might be useful to share these answers across the system of tubes that is the Interwebs. You’ll find one of these exchanges below.
Please note that this is how I handle these issues. There are likely other/better ways. Please feel free to post comments if you have further suggestions.
QUESTION
Hi, John!
My laptop died and the drive needs replacing and I sure would like to recover my data. Problem is I am paranoid about having BestBuy send my drive out and risking exposure of my financial and other data. Any
suggestions?
Thanks for your ideas!
ANSWER
It’s hard to say without knowing exactly how the disk crashed. What do you see when you try to start up (if anything at all)? Blue screen of death? Does MS Windows boot but then freeze? Is there physical damage to the disk (scratches on the plates)? Did it die due to age/wear-and-tear? If it is either of these two scenarios, then you have no choice but to send the disk out to a special service to recover the data. This also tends to be very, VERY expensive. So, get a quote before you authorize any work. Generally, these companies stay in business by working extensively to protect your privacy while recovering data. That said, if I were forced to send a drive to an outside company to recover data, I would probably have my bank/investment accounts, credit cards, PayPal, and all other personal accounts changed to protect myself. I would also change my login information for social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc.
If you have to send the disk out, you can do some comparison shopping to see if you can save money. Here’s two companies I found on Google:
http://www.datarecoverylabs.com/
http://www.drivecrash.com/
I haven’t used either, but they’re a good place to start.
If there is no physical damage to the disk, and the problem resides at a sofware level (either BIOS or MS Windows boot, or a virus), then it may be possible to recover the data without sending the disk out. Have you tried booting the computer in SAFE MODE? If you can get in via SAFE MODE, then you may be able to copy data to a thumb drive, burn to a CD, or at least delete data. Once you do that, you can just wipe the drive with a fresh install of the operating system. But, if it’s an old(er) drive, then I recommend replacing it before it does kick due to old age.
You may also be able to “unstick” a drive with virus/malware issues using either (or both) of these open source anti-malware solutions:
I have both of these installed on my system, because either could miss a particularly crafty bit of malware. I’ve seen SpyBot catch stuff that AdAware has missed; I’ve seen AdAware catch stuff that SpyBot missed. I don’t think there’s many buggies that will get around both solutions.
You may also be able to unclog your drive using this open source MS Windows optimization tool:
- CCleaner (formerly Crap Cleaner)
The second part of these little tragedies is MAKING SURE IT NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN! Which is to say, backing up your data automatically. Don’t feel bad if you never remember to back up your data. No one does. I don’t. You have two options for backing up your data without your own involvement:
*** BACKUPS TO PHYSICAL DRIVES ***
My laptop is connected to an external hard drive: http://bit.ly/hngQO. You can also get a much higher capacity version of this drive: http://bit.ly/3mUOjY. I’m probably going to buy a 1TB drive in the near future. To backup the data on my laptop to my external drive, I use a very nifty piece of open-source software called Cobian Backup (currently version 9). Cobian allows me to select certain folders on my laptop and back them up to my external drive automatically at a time of my choosing. Most people schedule backups to occur either while they’re asleep or at work, or you can schedule them on the fly. When Cobian is running, it does use up some system resources and your laptop’s performance may suffer just a hair. For the average user, it won’t matter if you’re working on the computer while a backup is running.
*** BACKUPS TO ONLINE DRIVES ***
This means you’re going to enlist the services of an online company to backup your data via a high-speed internet connection (DSL, cable,). You sign up for the service (pricing is usually annual or monthly) and from there you can set up backups in much the same way as Cobian. You pick the folders you want backed up and when you want them uploaded to the service’s online data centers. The data is encrypted, so the folks working and maintaining the servers can’t get at your private stuff (at least not easily). These sites are generally as safe as the banks and credit card companies where your sensitive financial/personal data is already stored (this may or may not give you comfort…).
I have heard many good things about these two services:
I use Mozy.com and like them a lot. Pricing is good; services are solid. Yes, I backup to *both* a physical drive on my desk and to an online service. This is because I once had the horrible misfortune of having both my computer hard drive and back-up hard drive die at the same time. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. My backup drive slipped out of my hands, bounced down a steep flight of stairs, and exploded spectacularly on the bottom step.
So, I like having two levels of redundancy to my backups. The peace of mind is worth what I pay Mozy.com on an annual basis.
Cheers,
John
