ANY DEVICE

When they were first introduced many years ago, flash drives were commonly called “thumb drives,” “key drives,” or sometimes by their more proper name, “USB drives.” It was easy to see how they got these nicknames. Flash drives aren’t much larger than your thumb, and people often carried them around on key chains. Also, you inserted them into the USB port of your computer much like you insert a key into a keyhole. Back then, flash drives held, at most, 2MB of data, and were primarily the domain of IT experts. “Computer geeks” wore these odd-looking drives on lanyards around their neck, soliciting strange looks from the people whose computers they worked on when they inserted one of these mystical devices…

You’re not running a business on your computer. You don’t even trust the Internet to pay your bills. Most of the files on your hard drive are photos of the grandchildren, school papers from those night classes you took, and family recipes. But now your computer isn’t booting up and you’re not sure what to do. The contents of your hard drive aren’t worth a lot — but they mean a lot to you. At 24HourData, we understand that not every hard drive recovery involves sensitive corporate data, top secret government files, or financial statements for a Fortune 500. But that doesn’t mean the data isn’t important. While we often work with big and small businesses, government institutions, and health…

Many people use an external hard drive that connects to their PC or Mac for easy and convenient data back-up. This may seem like a good, cost-effective data back-up solution, especially for individual users and small business owners. But consider these facts about external hard drive data storage: – If you store your external hard drive in the same location as your computer system, it is subject to the same dangers, including floods, fires and theft. If someone steals your computer, what’s to stop them from taking your external hard drive, too? – If files become infected with a computer virus on your PC, those same files will still be corrupt and unreadable when you back them up to your…

24 Hour Data has been recognized as one of the most popular local businesses in the US. 24 Hour Data ranks in the top 250,000 businesses in all of the US. Less than 1% of businesses receive this honor. Visit www.google.com/favoriteplaces/business to lean more.

When a Hard Drive makes a clicking sound that is a sure sign that you have mechanical issues with your drive. Clicking is a symptom that should be an alert to immediately power down your hard drive. Continued use of a clicking Hard Drive could result in your data being unrecoverable. There are several reasons a Hard Drive can start clicking. The most common cause of Hard Drives clicking is failed heads. Failed heads are the main reason to power down your drive when you hear clicking. The reason being is that a failed head can easily cause surface damage to the platters that store your data. This is called media damage. Media damage if severe, will render your data…

Many people mistake their External Hard Drive as a backup drive. In the world of Data Recovery we see people come in everyday for recovery on their backup drives.The question is always asked, if this is your backup drive then where is the data that was being backed up? The fact is if your data is not at least in two places there is no backup. Purchasing an External Hard Drive is a great idea. However, if you are using the drive to extend your storage capacity you better purchase an additional drive for backup. Data Backup is critical not only for businesses, but also for individuals. The question is not if your drive will fail it is when. If…

Every year in March, April, and May we see an increase in drives needing to be recovered from power surges. Many companies and individuals alike do not protect their systems from surges of electricity caused by lightning strikes. We highly recommend using a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) with any computer system. Protecting your data from power surges and sudden shut down is vital. Power surges can cause havoc with controller boards on any drive. Solid State Drives seem to be more affected by power surges and loss than hard drives. Now that we are in the season of rain and thunderstorms, make sure you protect your data with a UPS or at least a surge protector. Thunderstorms are much more…

When you are faced with Data Loss your next steps are critical.  Take a few minutes to go over our Data Recovery Checklist to help you make the best decision.

The Washington Post posted a great article about upgrading from hard drive to SSD in your laptop. There is some very good information here http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/01/AR2010040104824.html. You can get some basic ideas about SSD technology and if your laptop is able to be upgraded.

Mac computers use HFS as their native file system. At 24 Hour Data we have many clients that think their external hard drive has failed, because their Mac will not mount the drive. Most External Hard Drive manufacturers like Western Digital, Seagate, Hitachi, and more Pre-Format drives with Windows file systems. By default most externals are formatted FAT or NTFS. Macs will see HFS, FAT, and NTFS. However, if you have a Mac you will not be able to write to NTFS formatted drives without a third party application. Many Mac users get a drive from Frys, Best Buy, Comp USA, and so on that is pre-formatted FAT. When they start using the drive they have no issues. This because…