What Hard Drive Data Recovery Companies Do

If you've ever had a hard drive go down, chances are that you know that feeling of panic when you realize that you haven't backed up your files. Fortunately, for some people, data recovery companies provide relief in situations where computer users simply can't afford to lose their files.

The basic idea of a hard drive data recovery is pretty simple; you do what you need to do to get the hard drive operational and then copy the data onto another drive. However, there are quite a few things that can go wrong with a hard drive. The electronics can fail, the heads which read and write information can literally crash, the spindle (which spins the data-storing platters) can stop running, and none of these problems are treated in even remotely the same way.

Data recovery companies often employ highly skilled engineers that specialize in each area of a hard drive. Some data recovery engineers, for example, specialize in knowledge of the microcode on a hard drive's electronics board, while others may be skilled in working with RAID arrays or other media. All engineers are required to have the knowledge to fix basic problems with a hard drive.

One of the big myths is that all that's necessary to get data recovered is simply to pull the platters out of a hard drive and stick them into a similar drive. The reason this won't work--and no, you shouldn't try it at home--is that hard drives are extremely fine-tuned pieces of equipment. The heads of a drive spin up to very exact locations and even a microinch of difference will render all data completely unreadable.

In addition to this, they're also super sensitive. A single piece of dust on a platter can also ruin it, not to mention a finger print or a bigger contaminant. For this reason, data recovery companies must also have a class 100 clean room, a specially controlled area with a very low amount of contaminants (the standard is 100 contaminants per square foot, hence the "class 100") for any internal work they do with a drive.