Generally speaking good quality CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW are a fairly reliable backup medium. This is assuming, however, that they’re kept out of direct UV sunlight and are kept free from deep scratches. But, occasionally user error can result in data loss. Like a gentleman from Kildare we helped last week. He had an Outlook .PST file from his old workplace which he had stored on a Maxell DVD-RW. He inadvertently performed a “quick format” on the disc, erroneously thinking a different disc was in his DVD tray. His heart sunk as he thought that 9 years’ worth of emails and contacts we now gone into the ether. He contacted us.
The data recovery process for this type of data loss is cut and dry. Firstly, we configured the read-speed settings on our DVD reader to read at the slowest possible speed and then ran a utility IsoBuster called on his disc. This recovered his .PST file quickly. However, when this file imported into Outlook, it still would not read. The error “outlook.pst is not an outlook data file” appeared. So, we ran SCANPST on the folder and re-tried. (SCANPST is a utility built into Windows OS to repair minor errors in .PST files). The utility found some errors which it repaired. The second import of the .PST file worked with all the client’s contacts and old emails now appearing. A very quick data recovery case! I hope this post helps someone else who has experienced the same problem.
Drive Rescue Data Recovery are based in Dublin, Ireland. We recover data from most brands of hard disk including Seagate, Toshiba, WD, Samsung, Iomega, LaCie, Intenso, Adata and Transcend. Find out more on: www.datarecoverydublin.ie