Thursday, 2 June 2016

How to Do Data Recovery from Windows 10?

Nowadays, lots of people upgrade their existing windows to windows 10. Windows 10 come up with the latest and smooth technology. It provides a very easy working environment. But recently, I have gone through some forums site and find that people are facing the data loss issues after upgrading their old windows to Windows 10. They lost their data after installing the new Windows version.

If you are new to Windows 10 and want to know about its amazing features, then here is a short description of it. Windows 10 screen just looks like a phone and worked like PC. It is also best for the gaming. There are much more existing features in Windows 10 which will encourage you to install it. You can have detailed information about windows 10 by visiting this link.



Have Lost Data After Windows 10 Upgrade?

If you have upgraded to windows 10 without taking backup of your precious data, then you are in big trouble as it will delete your entire data from C:/ folder. Once you install the new windows, then it overwrites the existing drive on which your old windows were installed. However, data recovery is still possible with the professional data recovery tool but don’t forget that all tools are not efficient enough to perform the successful recovery.


Being a Reviewer of Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery Software, I would recommend you to use this tool to Recover your Lost Data

Stellar Phoenix Windows data recovery is designed to recover your data which was get lost due to Windows upgradation. This tool works with the advanced techniques which help to recover deleted data from hard drive. Data that you have lost because of Windows 10 upgradation still become available for recovery until unless it is not overwritten by other files. If you have lost your precious data from hard drive and don’t want to take any risk, then use professional and trustworthy data recovery tool.

This utility provides four recovery options: quick recovery, deleted recovery, advanced recovery & raw recovery to recover the lost data from hard drive. You can choose “deleted recovery” option to recover your deleted files from Windows 10 drives.




After completing the recovery process, it gives the option to take a preview of all recovered files. You can preview all your files by clicking on the file name one by one. Once you have reviewed all your deleted files, then you can click on the recover button to complete the recovery process. When the software completes its recovery process, then it will give you the option to save your files at desired location. You can choose your desired location and safely restore your files.

Other Solution:

You can look for your lost data in C:\Windows.old folder, this is the only resort where you can find your lost data. If you don’t find your files in Windows.old folder, then there is no other way to recover your lost data except using a professional data recovery software. 

Conclusion: 

Windows 10 is the feature rich version which helps to maintain your files in structured and safely manner. Whereas data loss is the problem which can occur anytime without giving any notice but to overcome from the data loss problem you should always have a backup copy of your data. 

Tuesday, 31 May 2016

How to Recover Data from Raw Partition

                                       

A filesystem is the way files are organized on a storage device. Operating systems use filesystem to access and keep track of data residing on the storage. In absence of a file system, the partition is called a Raw partition and it cannot be used to store data. Examples of file systems are NTFS, HFS+, FAT and more. Normally, a Raw partition is not accessible and requires formatting it to make it usable. In addition, before a partition can be used, it needs to be mounted in the system for the operating system to work with it. NTFS file system was developed by Microsoft and is widely used in its systems. In this article, we will discuss identifying Raw partition, why a partition may change from NTFS to Raw and recovery options.

Identifying Raw partition:

A Raw partition can be identified with following characteristics:

• The system will ask to format the partition before it can be used. It is advised not to partition the partition if it contains data as this will lead to loss of data

• During certain console operations system will pop up an error saying filesystem cannot be identified. This indicates that a partition was not at all formatted or it has changed to Raw partition due to an error

• Windows explorer will display used and free space as 0 bytes and will not mention any filesystem format type

• Disk management will show it as a Raw partition. It can be checked at Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management.

• The CHKDSK command will say the partition is RAW and the command is not available for Raw drives

Filesystem changes from NTFS to RAW:

A working NTFS formatted partition may change to a Raw partition and data becomes inaccessible due to many reasons. In such a case, if the partition is formatted, all data residing on the partition is lost. Let us see most common scenarios that lead to this situation.

1. Bad sector formation on the partition may cause the filesystem to turn into Raw partition. The partition remains inaccessible in this state.

2. A sudden power failure will lead to improper shutdown of the system and after turning it on again, may show a particular partition as not formatted. This will restrict access to the data residing on it.

3. Partition table corruption may also be a possible reason for this inaccessibility issue.

4. Damage to a hard drive while its improper removal from the system is also one of the reason why this happens.

5. A corruption caused in the file system itself due to many reasons will make certain partitions turn to Raw partitions.

6. Virus infection that causes disruptions in a partition table will make the partition to change from NTFS to Raw.

7. Hard disk drive cable failure will also cause a partition to go raw and may have damaged the file system.

Recovery from Raw to NTFS filesystem:

It becomes a nightmare if the NTFS partition on the hard drive storing important data turns to Raw format. This makes all data, which may include important financial data, inaccessible since the partition will not open at all. Here we will look at few manual methods that may help to recover from a Raw partition to NTFS partition without causing much data loss.

Follow The Steps to Complete the Process:

1. Right click the affected partition from Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management.

2. Select the option to Change the Drive letter and path.

3. Enter a desired drive letter to easily distinguish it from other partitions.

If you try to open this partition from My Computer, it will show the message saying whether to format this partition. Select NO to preserve the data. Formatting it will lead to complete loss of data on the partition.

Next,

1. Go to Start > Run

2. Enter cmd This will open up the command prompt.

3. Enter chkdsk [Drive letter] :/f (option f will ensure that chkdsk function will try fix the errors on the disk.

If the command ran successfully, it will convert the Raw partition back to NTFS and make the data accessible. Immediately back up all your important data to secure it against such a failure again.

In case, the chkdsk function did not work, TestDisk, open source software is available to recover lost partitions. It is an efficient tool that can be used to recover data from affected NTFS partition that changed to Raw format.

Note: In case the change from NTFS filesystem to Raw partition happened, any attempt to write the data on the partition should be avoided. In addition, if user is unsure of using any method to recover the data from hard drive or partition, a professional help is advisable as repeated repair attempts may damage the partition completely.

Best practices:

In order to maintain the filesystem in healthy state and avoid situation of data inaccessibility following precautions should be taken. Here is the list of such best practices:

1. Keep an external power source (UPS) to avoid unexpected shutdown of the system which may lead to filesystem corruption.

2. Keep a periodic check on the cables that connect the storage to the system to replace them if any damage has occurred.

3. Always close the applications running on the system properly. An unexpected closure of some application may lead to damage to the partition.

4. Use reliable antivirus software to avoid damage caused by a virus attack on the system. A malware or a virus invading the system may cause considerable harm to the filesystem.

5. Do not abruptly remove or be aware of accidental removal of storage device while the system is powered on. This will risk the filesystem to get corrupted.

6. Take a timely backup of the data on an external storage to keep the data safe against unexpected loss due to failure of the filesystem.

Thursday, 14 April 2016

Concept of Boot Sector

Boot Sector is that section of the hard disk or any other storage device which holds device code to be loaded into RAM by a system’s built in firmware. Boot sector is the most significant part of the hard disk which allows booting process of a computer. It is having a length of 512 bytes. It simply instructs the computer on how to boot any storage device. Boot Sector are divided into two parts: i) MBR, i.e., Master Boot Record, ii) Volume Boot Record.

Hard drives are made up of number of sectors and the boot sector is the most important sector in them. The boot sector is located as first sector in each partition of hard disk drive. It helps to load an operating system on drive. Boot sector exist in the internal part of drive and this is the only reason that it may easily get affected by viruses.

How Boot Sector Works?

When we start a computer, the very first thing that occurs is it send a signal to a motherboard which in return send a power supply to a computer to start. After supplying the power to each device, it sends a signal called “POWER OK” to BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) which is in the motherboard.

Once the BIOS receive this “OK” Signal, it starts the booting process by first initializing the “Power on Self-Test(POST) process.  The work of a POST is to check whether all the devices are getting the appropriate amount of power supply or not and then check for the memory status whether it is corrupted or not.  Then it initializes each devices and the handover the control to the BIOS for further Booting Process.

Now, only the final step of booting is left. For this, the BIOS first search 512 bytes of image known as “Master Boot Record(MBR)” or boot sector from the floppy disk or hard disk which is used for booting. The priority is set by the user in the BIOS setting.

On finding the boot sector, BIOS loads the image in memory and execute it. If a valid boot sector is not found, BIOS remain searching in the next drive until it gets a valid boot sector. If a BIOS is unable to find a valid sector, it stops the execution and gives an error message “Disk Boot Failure”.

What are Boot Sector Errors?

A sector should have a specific disk signature which makes it highlighted as the boot sector in BIOS. A boot sector signature should be 0x55AA and is contained in its last two bytes of information. If, somehow, the boot sector signature gets corrupted or changed, then error will take place. BIOS will not recognize the boot sector and also not able to perform further commands.

Following Errors will represent the Issue with Boot Sector: 

• Invalid Partition Table
• Boot Manager not found
• Missing Operating System
• A Disk read error occurred
• Error loading operating system

How to Repair Damaged Boot Sector Windows 7?

Use Window Recovery to troubleshoot the Windows bootable issue. For this, you just get a startup repair option in the system recovery window. If this doesn’t help you out, then use Bootrec.exe tool to repair MBR or boot sector or boot configuration data store.

Learn How to Run Bootrec.exe tool?

Assuming, you are a Windows 7 user. Now just put the Window 7 media in the DVD drive and then start your system.

1. Now press a key when you are prompted
2. Select a language, a currency, a time, an input method, and then click Next.
3. Now click on repair your computer
4. Select the Operating system that you want to repair and then click next.
5. Click Command Prompt in the System Recovery Options box.
6. Then type Bootrec.exe and then enter.

Bootrec.exe tool will give you various options to repair Bootsector of the hard disk such as /FixMBR, /FixBoot, /ScanOS, /RebuildBCD. You can choose any of them as per the requirement to repair your hard drive boot sector.

Have you lost your data After Repairing Boot Sector?

Most of the time it happens, when after completing the Boot sector repairing process, user lost their precious data from hard drive. This is the most painful situation that ever faced by any computer user. To overcome from this problematic situation user should take help from professional data Recovery Company instead of using any manual recovery options because manual recovery can make the situation worst.  User can download any free data recovery software from a trustworthy site like Stellar Phoenix to recover their lost data from hard disk drive.

Tuesday, 12 April 2016

How to Solve Hard Drive Error Code 0142 Issue

What Hard Drive Error Code 0142 Mean?

The error code 0142 signifies that your hard drive is corrupted and no longer be able to store data. Mostly this error code appears when you try to diagnose your unbootable system. Whenever you face this error issue, it signifies that your hard drive is dead.

Nowadays, this error code becomes a very common issue after BSOD. Recently, my friend has shared his experience with me. He faced the same error code issue. He had dell 1764 laptop which was running fine for many years. One day when he turned ON his computer and shocked to see that only Blue screen and cursor are only visible to him. He discussed this issue with me, I suggest him to troubleshoot this issue by booting his system with the help of repair disk.

Here are the following steps he had followed to troubleshoot the issue:


  • Insert windows repair disk to boot his computer.
  • Pressed F12 key to boot his system with repair disk.
  • Select the correct time and keyboard type.
  • Clicked on Repair your computer in lower left corner
  • Select troubleshoot from choose an option screen
  • Clicked on advance option in troubleshoot screen
  • After this Command Prompt opened and he run the following commands.
  • Type BOOTREC /FIXMBR, and then press ENTER.
  • Type BOOTREC /FIXBOOT, and then press ENTER.
  • Type BOOTREC /REBUILDBCD, and then press ENTER.


After executing the last step, Blue screen windows came up with the error code 0142 and boom.


He was feeling like lost as the drive which was failed had his years of important data.

How to Fix Error Code 0142 in Dell Laptop?

This error can be fixed by troubleshooting the “custom test”, this test helps to identify the issue with the hard drive and give the reliable result. 

Follow the Below Steps to Run the Custom Test:
  • Turn OFF your system and then turn it ON again and repeatedly press F12 key.
  • Boot menu will appear on the computer screen, highlight Diagnostics option and then press enter.
  • Now press the tab key to highlight the test system and continue to the diagnostic system.

Note: Sometimes the error occurs at time of the custom test, then you can press Y or N to continue or discontinue the memory test. 
  • Suppose, you have press Y to continue the memory test, then it will take hardly 10 to 20 minutes to complete the Express Test.

If this doesn’t help you then there is one option left, just remove your hard drive from the system and replace it with the new one. If that ruined drive holds your precious data and you want to recover it then download any free data recovery software. Let’s suppose you have downloaded Stellar Phoenix free data recovery software to recover data from your damaged hard drive, then connect that drive as the external one and start the simple recovery process.

Conclusion: You may lose your data anytime without any warning, so always keep the backup of your precious data to make yourself relax and tension free.



How to Recover Lost Data with Stellar Phoenix Data Recovery Free Edition

We all know where to find our files on the computer and they always stay there when we need them. It is very easy to assume that our important files that we have on our system always be there, where we have stored them. But actually, in reality, it is not true; the files can easily vanish from system even without giving any notice.  The reason behind data loss could be anything such as accidently deletion of files, hard drive affected by the virus, hard drive bad sector, boot sector issue, etc. Whatever is the reason behind hard drive corruption but in the end, you will lose your data, maybe even the partition of the hard drive also.

If data is lost due to logical failure, then recovery of data is possible with simple manual commands or free data recovery software. Let me tell you some issue which may lead data loss issue and it's fixed.

File System Corruption: File system is used to instruct, how data is stored and retrieved on the hard drive. Once it gets corrupted then user becomes unable to access their data and the hard drive partitions turn into the raw state.

To resolve raw partition issue and get access to your data just follow below steps 

•    Do right click on the partition that you want to repair and recover data from

•    Then Click on Properties and got to Tool tab

•    After this click on check now button in error checking box


It will scan the whole partition to check and fix all errors in partition including file system corruption.

Hard drive bad sector: Bad sectors on the hard drive are those sectors which stop responding while user attempt to read or write on the hard drive. It may cause data inaccessibility issue but can be resolved by check disk command. 

•    To fix bad sector issue on hard drive use check disk command 

•    Open Run command and type cmd then enter

•    Command prompt will open just wright 

chkdsk E(drive name): /F (type f to fix the error) and then enter


It will scan and fix the whole drive issues.

Nothing Worked for You? Go with Free Recovery Tool!

If the above solutions doesn’t work for you then try Stellar phoenix free data recovery tool to get your lost data back.  This tool has outstanding capability to recover lost data from internal as well as external hard drives. You can download this tool from here and can run it to scan the whole drive for lost data recovery. 

What you can do with this free data recovery software

The tool gives four recovery options such as drive recovery, photo recovery, CD/DVD recovery and Emails recovery. You can choose any of them as per your requirement. 


Note: Remember don’t download this tool on the same hard drive from which you want to recover data. If you will download the software or even do anything on the drive from which you want to do recovery then your lost data will be overwritten by the new files and you won’t get your files back.

You can choose Drive Recovery option under Data recovery tab to recover your lost or deleted data from hard drive.

If the drive is in the raw state then choose Raw Recovery option, otherwise choose any of them as per your desire to scan the hard drive for lost data recovery.



Once you have clicked on recovery button, it will scan the whole drive or partition to extract all lost files. 



After scanning the whole drive, it will allow you to take preview of your lost data


You can choose your desire files and folders for recovery and click on recover button to complete recovery process. If the files are under 1 GB limit then it allows you to save your recovered files at you desire location without paying anything. If you want to recover data above than the free limit then you can convert it into paid version. 

Sunday, 27 March 2016

Free Data Recovery from Windows 7 Partition

Now day’s Windows data recovery becomes a very necessary task for tech people. They lost their data either because of RAW Partition format or due to accidental deletion. There are much more other reasons for data lose but after losing data and realizing its Importance people only blame their self for what they did. Anyways, whatever be the reason for data lose, you always need a reliable tool for successful and safe recovery like Stellar Phoenix data recovery.

What you should do to increase the chances of successful recovery

First, make Sure yourself that you really have lost your data by checking recycle bin and searching your files in all partitions of the hard disk. 

Avoid Use of Hard Drive: IT Experts always advise, if you have lost your important data from hard drive and now want it back then first remove it from the system to prevent data overwritten issue. Prevention of hard drive use prevents data overwritten issue and increases the chances of recovery as well.  

Where You Can Look for Data Recovery 

Google DropBox:  Have your data is really vanished from hard drive? Now, what you can do to get your precious files back. Just calm and think about the Google dropbox, might be your data is safely stored there. Check dropbox to search your lost files, if you don’t find your files there then go forward for another resolution.  

Check for Backup: Usually, we make a backup of our important data in external hard drives or somewhere else in the computer. Try to remind if you also have taken backup of your lost data, if don’t find backup in external hard drives or in the computer then don’t get upset. Just use the Windows 7 Backup and Restore Tool to recover your lost data. 

Just click on Windows icon and click on control penal and go to system and maintenance and then click on Restore and Backup. Then now click on restore my files. By doing this you will easily restore your all lost files.

Previous Versions: If this doesn’t help you then choose the previous version to restore your lost data. 

Case 1 : If you have lost some of your files from particular folders then do right click on that folder and click on Restore previous versions

Case 2:  If data lost from particular partition then do right click on that partition and click on restore previous version.

Test Disk Tool: If still you are unable to get your lost files back then use free test disk tool to recover your lost data. Test disk tool is the most powerful tool for recovering lost data from hard disk. Test disk tool undelete files from only FAT, NTFS and Ext file system partitions.

If test disk tool doesn’t help you in getting your lost data back then try Professional data Recovery tool. The safest method to restore deleted files from hard disk is with free data recovery software like Stellar Phoenix. Which will helps you to restore your deleted files with easy and quick recovery steps. You can download this tool from here. This tool works efficiently to recover lost or deleted data from hard disk drives and supports various Windows OS such as Windows 7/8/10, Vista, XP, etc.