Their will come a time in almost every computer user’s life when an attack from malware, such as a virus or worm, will render some or all of his or her data inaccessible. Careful, responsible use can keep this from happening to some extent, but eventually many users are affected.
When a malware infects a computer it will often infect the system operation files needed to run properly. Furthermore, these infections do not do their damage until the computer reboots. At that time, the infection exacts its damage and the computer does not respond. Because the computer will not even boot to the operating system, all the important data contained on the hard drive is inaccessible. However, the data recovery is recoverable in many instances.
Prosoft Engineering has developed Data Rescue PC3 for Windows data recovery and it will recover data on a drive that will not boot up. The emergency boot CD that comes with the program accomplishes this task. The user inserts the CD and restarts the machine. The operating system on the CD will allow access to the files on the un-bootable main drive. Then the program recovers the files to a secondary location, such as secondary internal drive or external drive hooked up via USB 2.0, 3.0 or FireWire aka IEEE 1394.
Furthermore, the user must understand that when a virus attacks, data recovery must come before drive recovery or operating system repair. Repair to the drive first will do further damage to the data, often to the point where it cannot be recovered at all.