WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.840 Data loss. No matter what you do, it can still happen sometimes as it did to us 00:00:04.880 --> 00:00:11.840 when our main SSD server spectacularly went down, which you can check out in 00:00:09.600 --> 00:00:15.480 this video up here. But, we were able to get back up and running thanks to our 00:00:13.240 --> 00:00:19.760 friends at We Recover Data who worked with us on this episode, which is 00:00:17.560 --> 00:00:23.200 sponsored by them. So, data loss is a little like the sword of Damocles, 00:00:21.440 --> 00:00:28.360 constantly hanging over the head of anyone who stores anything important 00:00:25.080 --> 00:00:30.320 electronically. But, after it happens, 00:00:28.360 --> 00:00:34.760 is it really gone for good? Often, the answer isn't clear. What if you delete a 00:00:32.680 --> 00:00:39.400 file by mistake, suffer corruption due to power loss, or have physical damage 00:00:37.080 --> 00:00:43.080 like a head crash where the read-write head of your hard drive crashes into the 00:00:41.240 --> 00:00:46.120 platters that store your data? Fortunately, there's a number of 00:00:44.640 --> 00:00:50.960 techniques that have been developed over the years to rescue inaccessible data 00:00:48.320 --> 00:00:54.360 before it becomes permanently lost. Let's say that you've been the victim of 00:00:52.720 --> 00:00:59.720 the all too common accident where someone empties your recycling bin, and 00:00:57.240 --> 00:01:05.080 it turns out that you had a mission critical selfie inside of it. Since 00:01:02.440 --> 00:01:09.240 deleting a file in Windows is only actually marking the data as free space, 00:01:07.560 --> 00:01:13.800 it just sits on your drive until something overwrites it. So, sooner is 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:17.600 better if you're using simple recovery software, lest your selfie get 00:01:15.680 --> 00:01:21.960 overwritten by something completely irrelevant like a tax return. But, what 00:01:19.800 --> 00:01:26.240 if you can't even access your drive due to some type of serious corruption with 00:01:23.840 --> 00:01:30.160 the file system itself? In that case, certain utilities like open source 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:34.720 TestDisk can attempt to repair the underlying problem with the drive. But, 00:01:32.280 --> 00:01:39.800 if that works, you could attempt a file technique called file carving, which 00:01:37.720 --> 00:01:44.840 despite its name is the process of reassembling files from fragments by 00:01:42.480 --> 00:01:49.320 looking at their headers to try and figure out what kinds of files they 00:01:46.560 --> 00:01:52.760 were, whether they were MP3s, JPEGs, or whatever else. But, if you have a hard 00:01:51.160 --> 00:01:57.320 drive with a platter that just won't spin, or maybe bad sectors, or a bad 00:01:54.800 --> 00:02:00.840 PCB, or an SSD module that somehow came loose, you'll probably want to send it 00:01:58.840 --> 00:02:04.680 off to a data recovery specialist as they have the correct hardware to 00:02:02.600 --> 00:02:08.000 physically examine the disk. If you don't have that, you're putting your 00:02:05.920 --> 00:02:11.720 hardware at risk, which is putting your files at risk, which is probably not a 00:02:09.640 --> 00:02:14.920 great idea. In the case of a hard drive, it'll need to go to a clean room that 00:02:13.160 --> 00:02:19.440 might look like something out of a movie about a killer virus since any type of 00:02:17.280 --> 00:02:23.680 dust or particulate can potentially wreck that part of the data on the hard 00:02:21.240 --> 00:02:27.760 drive or platter beyond recovery. Some drives can be rebuilt with new 00:02:25.360 --> 00:02:33.560 components, while other drives have to be examined by special machines that can 00:02:30.800 --> 00:02:38.080 read data directly off of platters. Pretty cool. Of course, however, even 00:02:36.400 --> 00:02:42.600 with the most advanced recovery methods, you can't get all of your stuff back in 00:02:40.320 --> 00:02:46.640 every case. This can be for reasons ranging from physical damage that's too 00:02:44.320 --> 00:02:50.640 extensive to having proprietary storage medium that needs to be reverse 00:02:48.400 --> 00:02:55.480 engineered to the target data being overwritten before you can recover it. 00:02:53.120 --> 00:03:00.040 It's virtually impossible to recover overwritten data using current methods, 00:02:57.640 --> 00:03:04.840 which is why it's a great idea to intentionally overwrite your hard drive 00:03:02.400 --> 00:03:09.680 with something like DBAN, also known as Darik's Boot and Nuke, before you sell 00:03:07.120 --> 00:03:15.840 your PC. After all, who knows what the next owner might find hiding inside. 00:03:13.440 --> 00:03:20.080 lynda.com. 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