Restoring files

There were a number of power interruptions at home yesterday. Jon was using the PC during one of those. When he turned the computer back on, he couldn't find Drives G and H anymore.

He texted the problem to me:

Jing, nagkaron ng brief power interruption kanina, nag-restart yung computer, pero parang drive C, D, E at F lang ang lumilitaw.
Sent:
24-Oct-2007
17:19:59

Naturally, I didn't see the text till I got home and he asked me if I saw his message. Apparently, he also called up PCX and was told the worst scenario is having to reformat the drives.

I turned on the computer last night and saw it for myself. Worse, one of my external hard drives is still connected via USB and the computer can't read it either.

Went to BIOS and Device Manager. Both recognize the hard drives to be connected.

Tried another route. Looked up the properties of the HDD and saw that the missing drives were unallocated. Also saw the description of the HDD settings... any power interruption may cause loss of data. Uh oh.

To test if my theory is right, I unhooked the "unallocated" external hard drive and plugged in my other hard drive. The computer could read that one.

Turned on the internet and did some searching. Decided that what happened is: the power interruption wiped out the allocation and partition data, rendering the disks unreadable. It does not mean that all data is lost however. If data is saved in a subdirectory rather than at the root (no subfolder), there's a higher probability it is still intact. Whew!

Downloaded the PC Inspector File Recovery program that's offered for free by Convar at this site: http://www.pcinspector.de/Sites/file_recovery/download.htm?language=1#

It allows you to read lost drives and look for deleted or missing files. I love the Convar guys for making this program free.

I was relieved to see that my data files are still intact. I just have to buy another HDD so I can transfer them before reformatting the affected drives.

Lessons?

1. Save your data files in subfolders/subdirectories instead of just saving them at the root directory(i.e. c:)
2. Make back-up copies so you don't have to resort to data recovery.
3. Putting data on CDs or DVDs keeps them safer than if left in a hard drive. Just make sure the CD/DVD is of high quality and stored properly.
4. If you do have a back-up drive, don't leave it plugged in the computer so the data don't get wiped out as well! Man, it was stupid of me to leave that drive plugged in before leaving for the office yesterday.
5. Having many but smaller sized external hard drives is ideal. Don't risk putting all your data in just one big drive. Besides, it is hell to recover data from a big drive.

I could have started data recovery last night but after 2 more power interruptions, I decided to just sleep early. Besides, I was feeling very sleepy and tired.