Five Ways to Lose Your Data

By: James Walsh

Data loss can be categorised into four broad types.

Hardware failure is the leader of this pack. It has earned this title because of the many opportunities it presents, for you to lose your data. Around 40% of data loss occurs this way, commonly.

• When a sneaky little electrical spike snakes its way from the power outlet to your computer’s hard disk or motherboard, it can evaporate your data and deep fry all the sensitive components like memory chips, processor etc.



• Micro dust particles can accidentally find their way into the rarefied confines of the hard disk drive and get wedged between the read / write head and the surface of the rotating media. The resultant scratches or damage to the recording surface results in data loss.



• Loose connections (especially of the data bus) between the various critical components inside a CPU, like the processor, hard disk, memory etc. are instruments of data loss.



• Since the hard disk consists of moving parts and as gravity affects everything on this planet, some of these parts loosen or routinely suffer from wear and tear, which if not rectified in time, can pose a real threat to the data.



• Sometimes, the software that controls the functioning of the hard disk can malfunction and cause data loss.



• Improper handling of the storage device and physical impacts also a present a high risk of data loss, due to physical damage sustained by the recording medium.

• Accidental deletion of data by using potentially destructive system commands or wrong commands.



• Not saving the work periodically or lapses in concentration while executing critical work.



• Indiscriminate usage of third-party software packages without being sure about the credentials of the software.



• Repeated installs and uninstalls of third-party software can result in accidental deletion of your data.



• Poor system maintenance or badly organised data on the storage media.



• Trying to set things right on your own, without even having the faintest idea of the problem or solution, only worsens the problem.



• Botched up data recovery efforts by the professionals.



• Storing data on defective media or unreliable storage media.



• Misplacing the storage media with the data on it.



• No backups.

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James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. If you are concerned about data loss and would like more information on Data Recovery see www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk

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