If Your Hard Disk Crashes, Is Your Data Covered By Any Warranty?

This was a question that was recently put by forward on a TV consumer show. One guy had his hard disk crashed and lost all data. He was able to get his hard disk replaced because of a warranty.

To retrieve the data he had it sent to a data recovery company to get it recovered. The price tag was about $ 1500. But, he also wanted to have that extra cost covered by the same warranty.

I'm not a lawyer, but I believe it is quite clear that any warranty from any hard disk manufacturer doesn't include restoration of data. That said, with the long life time and high durability of today's hard disks they could very well afford this when it is caused by a hard disk failure.

As long as the hard disk only have a mechanical or electronic fault and it have not been exposed to water or fire the track record for restoring the data by a professional data recovery company is quite good. However, you have to expect to pay a chunk of money to have it restored. And you can never be 100 % sure they will succeed.

It's always worthwhile to backup all your data or at least backup the data that is most important for you. This is the best warranty against data loss.

If you use the computer for leisure, playing games or surfing the Internet you may not need to take any backup at all. But today, more and more people store important document and information on their computers. Some store data vital to their professional life. This can be years of work such as academic thesis or it can be the content for a new book they are writing. Most people store at least some important information such as address books, emails, text documents, family pictures, music or company records.

Should you take backup? If so, what type of backup is best for you?

This all depends on: The value of the data if it becomes lost. The time it will take to recreate lost data. The cost to make the backup.

In most cases the data you need to backup are limited to specific files or folders. If that is the case you don't need to backup the complete hard drive and the cost to make backup is reduced. If you only need to backup documents, emails and address books then there are many cheaper alternatives including USB flash memory keys, online backup or backup to CD's/DVD's.

If you install important software from Internet then you need to take a full backup of the hard disk at least once. This is because nearly all software programs store system related information in what is called the reg keys deep in the operating system which must be backed up on a full backup.

As an alternative, make sure that you save the installation files and any accompanied software registration keys in one specific folder after you have downloaded the software. If you do this and include the folder in one of your regular smaller backup, then you are capable to recreate it.

If you get a hard disk crash and you want to minimize the downtime and you don't want the hassle to install the operating system and all the software's you have on installation CD's. If that is the case then you should consider making a disk image backup.

This is a backup of the complete disk drive. Included in the disk image software is a boot utility. From it you can create boot diskettes or boot CD's.

Thus, if you hard disk crashes you first install a new hard disk. Next you boot up from your diskette or CD. From the boot program you are then able to create your disk image directly on the new hard disk. So by doing this type of restoration you don't have to install the operating system and all you other programs from any installation CD's. This saves you time.

Copyright 2006 Per Strandberg

Rate Article

Related Videos
Play Video How to Backup Your Data From Your Phone	Play Video Data Backups for Windows Vista	Play Video Off-Site Data Backups	Play Video How to Backup Data in Windows Vista	Play Video How to backup Data for Windows Mobile 6 and 6.1 Pro

Listed below are more articles related to the above article from the "Data Backup Recovery" article category.

People interested in the above article "If Your Hard Disk Crashes, Is Your Data Covered By Any Warranty?" are also interested in the related articles listed below:

 

How to Recover Data from Windows 7 Hard Drive?

Data is very important for many organizational/institutional/personal operations because it contains chief information. To get back deleted data, first you have to look in the Recycle Bin. But, if you have already emptied the Recycle Bin or deleted the files using Shift+Del, then using a third-party software tool is a viable option. Recover Data's Data Recovery Tool is an excellent software tool to recover data from storage media devices or Windows Operating Systems such as 98, ME, XP, 2000, 2003, Vista and also Windows 7.

Understand Different Backup/Storage Medium

There are different types of backup medium, like CD, DVD, USB devices. Different mediums have different pros and cons. You can choose your backup medium according to your specific needs, like the backup volumn, frequency, restore process and also your budget.

Things To Do In A Data Loss Situation

If you face a data loss situation, you should do certain things to prevent further or permanent loss of your data. A data loss situation may rise for various reasons like hard drive failure, crash, accidental deletion, files overwritten, power outages etc.

How To Prevent Data Loss

In a bright morning you are trying to open a file containing important business information, but your computer is showing the error signals and can’t open the file. Such a situation is common in everyone’s life.

Advanced Outlook Repair - A Valuable Workplace Tool

Advanced Outlook Repair is a recovery tool designed to work with almost every version of the Microsoft Outlook program. Microsoft Outlook is a piece of "personal information management" software that comes bundled with the Microsoft Office suite and includes a popular e-mail program, calendar, task manager, and much more. Outlook is the application of choice for BlackBerry users for e-mail management also. As with any program, occasionally something may become corrupted or accidentally deleted and if this is important information, you could be looking at some serious problems in the workplace. This is where Advanced Outlook Repair comes in.

The In's And Out's Of Data Recovery

This is the process of saving (salvaging) data from failed, damaged, inaccessible or corrupted storage media that cannot be accessed normally. Salvaged data is usually from media formats like HDD (Hard Disk Drives), CD's, Storage Tapes, DVD'S, RAID and many other electronic storage devices.

Advantages of Data Recovery with NTFS Recovery Wizard

So, with NTFS Recovery Wizard you can fix your hard disk and distortion of a file system with the simple and very convenient wizard. And if you casually formatted disk or just tried to use Windows checkdisk on the damaged disk you don't have any requirements to bring your hard disk to the laboratory of a data recovery! You can save your time and money while using the Wizard of Restoring of file system NTFS just to return your data and to reach perfectly working disk completely automatically.