Disk imaging basically means copying the entire contents of a data storage device or data storage medium and shifting it onto a similar device or medium. In other words, data imaging involves creating a duplicate copy of the hard disk drive including not just the data but also the programs, setup data and so on. This information is compressed and stored in a special file format.

The Purpose Of Disk Imaging
Disk imaging attempts to provide a quick and reliable duplicate of the data as well as the system of a computer. This proves extremely useful in the event of loss of data due to a disk crash. A disk crash could occur due to a virus attack or any other accident and in such a scenario; a replica of the crashed system is extremely useful for effective data recovery.

Disk imaging is also useful when a system set-up needs to be duplicated onto another computer for installation or when it has to be moved to another hard drive. As disk imaging creates back-ups of not just the data but also the configuration and system, it is extremely helpful in such a scenario.

Disk imaging software actually creates an entire ‘image’ of the computer system with its structure, software, registry programs and so on. Data recovery with this disk is easily facilitated as it can be used for smooth reinstallation of the system in the event of a crash. The otherwise complicated procedure of installing software and resetting the settings etc can be adroitly avoided with the help of disk imaging.

Disk imaging software is also beneficial for systems administrators in charge of several computers with similar configurations. Transferring data and system configuration information can be easily carried out by creating a replica of one computer system and installing it onto the other computers.

How Does Disk Imaging Help In Data Recovery
With disk imaging software, an exact replica or an exact ‘image’ of the disk at a particular point of time is taken. In case the data is lost from the system due to any catastrophe such as a virus attack, system failure and so on, data recovery is made extremely simple with the help of the disk image. The disk image makes a copy of the file systems and partition tables. Disk imaging also involves the creation of a Ghost Image where even the minor details regarding the operating system, the device drivers and the system settings are included in the disk image. Data recovery carried out with the ghost image thus helps in restoring the crashed disc to the exact system configuration and desktop as it was before.

How Can A Disk Image Be Created
Disk imaging is an essential tool for data recovery and in the event of system failure; it can be used many a time to recreate the entire storage device to what it was at the time of crash. It is thus a very popular method of data recovery.

Disk images are usually created with the help of specialized software. Such software is easily available on the Internet and can be downloaded. Software in the form of freeware and shareware is available on the Internet and in certain cases; limited edition trialware can also be downloaded. The disk image has to be stored on a separate media from the one that is being protected from loss of data. Disk imaging usually results in a large file consisting of several megabytes of data. Ideally the disk image should be stored on a removable storage media such as CDs or DVDs.

Data recovery from the disk image of the stored data is usually done with the help of the same software that was used to create the disk image. Clear cut instructions for data recovery are usually specified in the manuals of the disk imaging software. One of the most popular disk imaging software is the Norton Ghost created by the Symantec Corporation.

With the advent and subsequent popularity of the Internet, many day-to-day things that are usually conducted in real life have been moved online. Now, there is online communication via email and instant messaging (and even online phone, and webcam), and online books , news, and research papers. Perhaps the biggest impact of the Internet-one that has essentially created its own industry-is the creation of online shopping.

Shopping on the Internet can take place in many forms: there is the conventional shopping, where you buy items and they are delivered to your door. There are also delivery services that send you food and related perishable items to your door, without your ever having to step foot outside the house. However, aside from actual products, there are eBooks and all sorts of digital information, as well as online memberships,  that can be bought on the Internet. Because shopping is no longer limited to stores and your personal information can be accessed now by a third party source that is not necessarily trustworthy, it is very important when you are shopping to follow some standard consumer safety tips.

The first step is to know who’s selling to you-if the merchant is reputable with a well-known name and good reviews, then most likely you will be pretty safe when shopping with them. However, if that information is not readily available, then do check up consumer reviews on the company to see whether it is a scam or actually valid. Large online companies such as Amazon, Google, eBay, Yahoo, and related big websites that offer shopping opportunities tend to be fairly scam-free, though, you should be careful when bidding on auctions on eBay; though your personal information will not be shared, you must be certain that the merchant will actually send you the product before buying, so as to avoid losing money unnecessarily.

It’s also important to protect what privacy you have; you should be sure that you know what personal information your seller is asking. Read the privacy policy of the website carefully and make certain that you know how that information will be used or shared with others. Try to find certifications of the websites, such as seals from BBBOnLine or TRUSTe to show that the company is legitimate. Do not ever, ever give out your social security number, because that is not necessary for your purchase; neither is your personal bank account number, no matter what the seller claims.

To ensure that the product is delivered to you, check for the estimated delivery dates, and be sure to take shipping and handling fees into account (some websites will have deceptively cheap products and ridiculously expensive shipping and handling); also, see if the seller promises any warrantees, guaranteed satisfaction or return policies. Be sure of contact information before you make the purchase, and contact the seller if you are unsure about anything. Make certain that you print any receipts and records left of the transaction-this will be proof of your payment.

Although there are many reasons for data to get corrupted or lost, there are as many or more methods to effectively recover the lost data. Let us initially discuss the ways in which a MS word file could get corrupted and the effective methods of data recovery.

Data Recovery For MS Word Files
A word file usually gets corrupted due to various reasons such as power fluctuations, software crashes, unexpected system shutdown, virus attacks and numerous other such reasons. MS Word comes equipped with an in-built recovery utility which can be utilized to recover files which have only minor corruptions. MS Word also has a facility whereby a backup copy of the work is created each time a file is saved. This backup file can be easily accessed in case the .doc file is damaged or corrupted.

For example, assume you are working on a file abc.doc after enabling the backup option. Automatically a backup option of the file called “Backup copy of abc.doc” gets created. In case there is any corruption to the .doc file, the backup file can be accessed.

This option can be enabled with the following steps:

Click Tools > Options and click the Save tab. Select the Always Create Backup Copy checkbox.

AutoRecover Utility Of Office XP
The AutoRecover feature that is present in Office XP is extremely useful for data recovery. This utility constantly saves the data that you are working on. The next time the application is opened, MS Word restores the data that has been saved last and provides the recovered file. A “Document Recovery Window” with the list of recovered files is opened on the left side of the document screen. Double click the appropriate file or right click and select Save to save the file.

Third party utilities such as Kernel Word Recovery are extremely beneficial for easier and more cost effective data recovery. A Demo version of the Kernel Word Recovery software can be downloaded for free to evaluate the functionality and features of the software. This software supports data recovery of files from Word 97, 2000, 2002, 2003, XP.

Data Recovery For MS Excel Files
Data recovery of lost or deleted Excel files can be effectively carried out by making use of the inbuilt recovery utilities of MS Excel. The Excel files normally get corrupted due to virus attacks, registry corruptions, power failures etc. and the in-built recovery procedures of MS Excel are effective in recovering the data in most of the cases. In the event of corruption of an Excel (xls) file due to power failure or unexpected system failure, MS Excel displays a Document Recovery window, whenever the application is next launched. You can select the file that you require and the last saved data will be instantly recovered.
The manual process of recovery can be carried out if the file is not automatically recovered by MS Excel in the following way.

Open a new Excel worksheet and select Open option from the File menu. Click on the .xls file that you wish to open in the Open dialogue box and select Open and Repair option. Click on the Repair button to initiate the recovery process. The Extract Data button can be used to extract data if MS Excel was unable to repair a previous workbook.

Other methods of data recovery include saving a backup copy, opening the file in MS Word or notepad, opening the file on another computer system or hard disk and also using third party utilities. Third party utilities such as Kernel Recovery for Excel can be effectively utilized to repair and recover data and .xls files. This utility supports recovery of data from most versions of MS Excel including MS Excel 2003, 2000, 97, and XP.

Laptops are still considered rather unreliable when it comes to suddenly dying on you. Really, you never know when a laptop will die and never start up again. The best thing to do to avoid losing the data stored on your laptop is to back up the data onto a flash drive, CD, or separate, safe hard drive. Because laptop hard drives can become scratched from the moving of the laptop while the computer is writing on the hard drive, the damage may lead to a hard drive failure. In the case that you are missing files or information that you did not in fact back up , if your laptop hard drive dies due to hard drive failure, then there’s nothing you can do to get your data back. However, if your laptop is simply dead (battery problems, or something related to that), then do not despair-that information is not lost forever! It is, in fact, possible to retrieve old data out of a dead laptop. Read on to learn how!

The first thing you will need to do is buy a Laptop Hard Drive Adaptor Kit; this will enable you to plug the hard drive of your laptop into a normal desktop PC. Next, you need a functioning desktop PC that is able to read the file system of the laptop that died. A NTFS or FAT file system can be read by both Windows (2000 or XP) and Linux; however, if your laptop uses the EXT3 file system, then only a Linux desktop will do. Plug in your laptop hard drive to the adapter, and then plug the adapter into your computer as a second hard drive disk. You should now be able to access the information in the laptop hard drive by using windows Explorer on the desktop PC. Open up the folder that contains the files connected by the adapter, and you will have found your missing laptop files! Drag the ones you want and drop them into a folder on your desktop computer. This way, you have recovered lost laptop information!

There is, however, a second method to retrieve data from the hard drive of a dead laptop, in the case that the first method does not work out. For the alternative method, you will need to buy a 2.5″ universal serial bus (USB) 2.0 or a Firewire drive enclosure. Next, you need to find a working desktop PC with an open Firewire or USB port (depending on which one you chose to use) and plug in the cable. Be sure, as above, that you are using a desktop computer that can read the file system of the laptop. Next, wait for the tones emitted by the PC, and then you can move the data from the laptop drive to the main hard drive of the desktop PC.

What’s nice about this is that the laptop hard drive disk can now be used as a second hard drive disk for the desktop PC. And in addition to that, you’ve recovered all the info you needed from the laptop hard drive!

A virus is a computer program written by nefarious individuals with the malicious intention of altering the way a system operates without the knowledge of the people who use the system. The virus is capable of executing and rewriting itself. The reason why people dread viruses is that they can wreck havoc on the system. They can corrupt or delete files, render programs useless and can even reformat the hard disk which can result in data loss and system crashes.

How Viruses Can Get On To Your System

Viruses can find their way to your system by several methods. You can get viruses as attachments with emails and instant messages. When you open these attachments they can infect your systems. When you download and open a program from the internet that has been infected and when you share a file over a server that has been infected you risk infecting your own system. It can also transmit through infected removable disks.

Types Of File Viruses

There are many different types of viruses that can be classified based on their mode of infection, the area of infection and the method used to select a system to infect. There are viruses that infect the files, boot sectors, script hosts and macro environments.

Viruses that infect the file system are further sub-divided into various types. File viruses infect files using various methods. The simplest method is to overwrite the code of the infected file. This makes the file unusable and can result in system crash.

There are files that modify the code of the infected file and the file is not rendered useless, it remains partially or fully functional and such a virus is called a parasitic virus. The malicious code can be written either at the beginning, the ending or in the middle of the file. There are files that write themselves on to gaps present in the file or the empty sectors found in the file. Each time the file is accessed they ensure that the malicious command is also executed. These files need to have the right entry point in order to be executed soon or they may remain dormant for a very long time and can also be deleted before they can infect the system.

Companion viruses are file viruses that do not modify the original file that they infect instead create a duplicate file with the malicious code. When the original file is being accessed, the virus makes sure that the duplicate file with the virus gets executed.

There are files that copy themselves onto various directories and lie dormant until they are executed. There are certain viruses that modify the file system in such a fashion that the infected file is executed. These are termed as link viruses.

The boot sector and master boot record viruses are memory residents. They can infect the system when an infected disk is read on the system.  Multi-parasite viruses infect program files as well as the boot records. Both these viruses infect the start up files.

Macro viruses are those that infect data files. These files can be written in such a fashion that the other file apart from data files can be infected. They infect Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel, Word and Access files.

Script viruses are viruses that are written in script languages that infect other script files.

When the viruses infect the system it slows down without any explanation, it behaves erratically displaying error messages and you might find programs or certain files missing. Some files may not open and you may find some programs do not function as they should. The best way to deal with virus threats is to use an updated anti-virus that can scan and keep your system virus-free.