data recovery

In computing, any of several possible procedures for restoring a computer system and its data after a system crash, burglary, or other damage. The first line of defence in any computer system is back-ups.

Every system fails at some point, and typically the data on the system is more valuable than the hardware on which it resides. The best course of action depends on the cause of the damage, which may be due to an outside agent, such as a virus, or a simple mistake, such as accidentally deleting important files. Some antivirus software comes with tools to assist users to clean up their systems; for deleted files, utility software may be able to restore (‘undelete’) the data. In worse cases, specialists may still be able to restore the information by reading the hard disk's platters directly.