Questions tagged [data-recovery]
This tag is for questions about techniques for recovering lost data — e.g., from deleted files and/or damaged or corrupted digital media. Please review the tag wiki before posting a question. Do not explicitly ask for tools or other products; such questions are off-topic on Super User.
2,289
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How much time until an unused hard drive loses its data?
Do you guys know how much time needs to pass until the data stored on a hard drive starts to degrade?
To keep the data intact for long periods of time, I heard you need to periodically rewrite it on ...
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How to destroy a CD/DVD rom safely?
I have old CDs/DVDs which have some backups, these backups have some work and personal files. I always had problems when I needed to physically destroy them to make sure no one will reuse them.
...
user165733
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How do I recover lost/inaccessible data from my storage device?
What steps can I take to try to recover lost or inaccessible data from any storage device?
Answers:
This applies to any computer storage device, e.g. internal/external hard drives, USB sticks, flash ...
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Why does my SSD internally encrypt data, even without a password set?
Recently I had an SSD fail and am attempting to do a data recovery. The data recovery company tells us that it is complicated because the build-in drive controller uses encryption.
I presume this to ...
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How do I find out the file type without an extension? [duplicate]
After recovering my HDD, I ended up with a lot of files with no extension. Many of them are .bin files.
Is there any way to find out what file format they actually are?
Many of them have no ...
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48
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USB flash drive not working or is appearing as an empty disk drive, Disk Management reports "No Media" with 0 bytes size
I have a USB flash drive which is no longer recognized by my computer. Windows Disk Management and DiskPart report No Media with no storage space (0 bytes) on the drive and I cannot partition or ...
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43
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Recover Data from Card that cannnot be read
I am trying to help a friend who is very concerned that she has just lost all of the data on her 32GB SanDisk microSD card. I told her I would post this and see if anyone could offer help.
Here are ...
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Running chkdsk on a disk partition without a drive letter
I have a hard drive that shows up in Disk Management as having two partitions.
One of the partitions says 69.71GB and that's it. The other says 4.82GB and, underneath that, Healthy (OEM Partition).
...
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37
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9
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How can I read a reel-to-reel tape from the 1970s?
A close friend of my mother worked at DEC in the 1970s and 1980s. She recently passed away, and in sorting through her estate, my mother discovered some reel-to-reel magnetic tape. We are curious ...
user35138
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2
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Where to find clipboard history Ubuntu 14.04
I have deleted something but I had copied before. Ctrl+v shows only the last copied text. I tried to install diodon and cliplt. As I understand they start to archive some history of the clipboard. But ...
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Automatically 'brute force' a few bytes to recover a corrupt file
Does anyone out there know of a way to brute force values at a particular offset in a file? It's 4 consecutive bytes which would need to be brute forced. I know the correct SHA-1 of the corrupt file. ...
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32
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4
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Why erase file with random patterns instead of all 0's or 1's?
Computer files aren't actually removed when they are deleted on Windows. The address pointer is simply released and that space freed for overwrite later.
For sensitive information, it is recommended ...
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31
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5
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What actually is "unallocated space"?
Once again, here I am trying to wrap my head around some HDD and filesystem concepts.
When Windows displays a drive as having "unallocated space" and prompts for the drive to be initialised, what ...
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How many passes do you need to wipe/shred your files to make them not undeletable?
If you have a private data on a recent, normal hard drive - how many passes do you need to delete the data to make it unrecoverable?
Not in the sense, that a forensic team of 20 experts with a budget ...
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Best way to salvage SD cards exposed to salt water and contents of the lithium batteries?
So, right off the bat, I want to acknowledge that the data on these cards is likely lost to time. However, I am hoping someone may know some best practices to check for sure.
I recently recovered some ...
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