Why Detailed Reason for File Corruption Can Help to Recover Your Data

Many times, our data recovery experts expect a detailed reason for the file corruption from you, instead of a simple message like “I lost my data” or “I failed to recover data”. Why? Because that will help us to recover your data.

Below is a real case:

Mike got a new computer. So he migrated all data from the old computer to the new one, as follows:

  1. He moved the Outlook PST file from the old computer to an external hard drive.
  2. Then he moved the PST file from the external hard drive to the new computer. During the moving process, the new computer was freezing so he had to restart it.
  3. After rebooting, he could find the PST file on the new computer.
  4. However, when he tried to use Outlook to open the PST file on the new computer, he get an error “The File Is not a Personal Folders File”.

Mike consulted us and provided his PST file, together with all the details that cause the data disaster. Based on his information, our data recovery experts tried the following steps:

  1. We try to use DataNumen Outlook Repair to repair his file, but only get about half of the emails.
  2. We analyze the raw data in his file with a hexadecimal editor, and find about half of the file is filled with all zeros, due to the abnormal restart during the move process. That is the reason why only half of the emails can be recovered.
  3. Based on the detailed information he provided, we believe the Outlook PST data may still exist on 3 devices:
    1. The hard drive of the old computer. Though Mike had moved the PST file from it, the data still existed there until some new files overwrote them.
    2. The external hard drive. Just like (1), the data still existed there.
    3. The hard drive of the new computer. The moving process was aborted, but there may still be some data in the hard drive, though not found in the PST file.
  4. Based on the analysis in step 3, we use DataNumen Outlook Drive Recovery to scan the 3 hard drives, and get promising results, as below:
    1. From the hard drive on the old computer, we get some emails not recovered in step 2.
    2. From the external hard drive, we get nearly completely another half of the emails.
    3. From the hard drive on the new computer, we get no more emails than those recovered in step 2.
      We get most data from (2), maybe because the hard drive is not used after the data diaster, so no data are overwritten by new files.
  5. We combined the data recovered in step 2 and 4, and recover nearly all the data for Mike.

In the above case, based on the detailed information provided by Mike, our experts can design the best data recovery solution and choose the most appropriate tools, so that to recover most of the data for him.

So, for your case, please also provide the information as detailed as possible, so that we can design the best way to salvage your data.