Easy Data Recovery

Does anyone still use film? I recently heard someone ask this question earlier this week. The question struck me because I recently had a problem with the insufficiency of compact flash data recovery technology – particularly as it pertains to a frazzled vacationer who suddenly realizes that all the pictures he took were suddenly corrupted because of the malfunctioning battery of a “state-of-the art” digital camera!

You think the makers of the gizmo would’ve packed in some kind of auto backup function considering what they charge for it!

The demand for compact flash data recovery has dramatically increased in the past couple of years. This is mainly because a host of devices that do NOT use flash storage have become obsolete.

The most common example of this is, of course, the digicam. Other devices that rely on a CF database are PCs, laptops, and measuring apparatuses.

More data solution companies now offer compact flash data recovery to address the needs of photographers (both pros and hobbyists), security personnel, journalists, doctors, etc.

But merely doing business in this day and age should make anyone concerned about CF backup issues. If you use any kind of digital recording device, PDA, cell phone, or notebook, then CF backup should be an important concern.

DIY data recovery seems like a good idea when you consider what online services charge. But do-it-yourself is not necessarily the best way to go. You first have to consider these three backup issues:

1. What caused or is likely to cause data loss?
2. How much data was lost?
3. What kind of data was lost?
4. How important was the data lost?

If yours is a medium to large company, you may want to build your own database backup team to handle your needs. You can eventually use this capability to get back your investment and turn a profit by taking on outside jobs.

DIY’s main advantage is the time element. When you do it yourself, you can start data recovery immediately before your business feels the impact of data loss.

DIY data recovery has a cost advantage if you regularly use the service or the data loss is so minimal or simple that it can easily be handled by you or your IT team. D-I-Y also makes sense if you regularly backup your work.

The cost disadvantage of DIY data recovery is if data loss is so massive that it takes your IT team more than a few hours to handle the problem. In this case, paying a few hundred dollars to fix things will probably be the better option.

The much-maligned floppy is still used by many people because it is one of the things that can help preserve your sanity. You can boot from it if your system crashes (it can apply to anything from Linux to Windows) and you can even save accounting data on it (e.g., from MYOB or Quicken programs) faster than you can burn a CD. But what if your floppy has gone bad? Enter the QuickBooks data recovery tool!

A QuickBooks data recovery tool has been designed by both data recovery and repair service companies affiliated with Quicken and organizations not formally connected with the software publisher. And the tool’s capacity extends to recovering data from damaged media like the floppy.

MYOB has similar services. In fact, both accounting programs are said to have the same database functionality, only differing in the number of licenses each software package provides. MYOB is a single-user product and Quicken is a multi-user package.

The truth is accounting software publishers make good money off technical support such as data recovery. So the best place to get a QuickBooks data recovery tool or service is from online forums where you can ask for free advice or inexpensive downloads of recovery and backup tools.

There are also forums that offer you no repair-no charge data recovery service. One of them is QuickBooksUsers.com (http://quickbooksusers.com/datarepair.htm). Fees start at under $400 (which you don’t have to pay if they can’t fix your problem) and turnaround times are relatively fast at 12 hours to 2 working days.