The key to data repair is to know the steps involved and to be practiced in their execution. While there are many different types of software programs available to assist you and specialist technicians available to do the work for you, the simplest solution is often contained within the program itself. By going through the appropriate steps in order you will avoid down time by over-treating what may be a resolvable problem in-house. If the problem can’t be resolved through the built in repair tools within the program, then it is time to begin to look outward for a solution.
If they can fix it, why can’t they prevent it?
If you have been frustrated by error messages about unreadable or unrecognizable files that were just fine moments ago, only to have them then repaired automatically by the program you may be wondering why companies don’t correct the issue in the next release of the authoring program. The issue is that no one is quite sure what combines to corrupt a file. Recreating data corruption is notoriously hard, but there are time proven solutions that work in most instances. This is why the focus has been on incorporating things like the inbox repair tool in Outlook rather than exploring ways to prevent the corruption in the first place.
The first step – let the program fix itself
Often, you will see an error message and the program may automatically run a scanpsd program or similar and effect its own repair. Sometimes, exiting the program and maybe rebooting the computer can be enough to allow the program to repair its own files because the issue was cluttered temporary memory and not the actual file. If this does not work, it is time to go on to the next step.
The second step – third party software
If the mysterious inner workings of the program are not enough to effect the repair, it is time to turn to third party solutions. You can use third party software made for specific programs, like repairing SQL or MDF repair, to correct what has gone wrong with the file’s internal structure. For just about every office and data management program made, there is a third party recovery program available.
The third step – the data specialist
If nothing in the first two steps is correcting the issue, it is time to bring in a data recovery specialist. These technicians are trained on all of the possible environments that can be created that cause data corruption beyond the typical repair expectations. They can work with your systems to trace and recover data and get you back in business as quickly as possible.
Alan Chen is President and Chairman of DataNumen, Inc., which is the world leader in data recovery technologies. For more information any of our products, visit DataNumen. If you have any questions concerning our products, services or your order, please contact us and we will be glad to assist you.