0 RAID Recovery for Windows

Hello hello! We are together with yet another data recovery related post, since I noticed that I skipped something after all. I've been talking about how RAID arrays work and all the technical information, but I just noticed that I never mentioned anything about how you can recover your data from your RAID array in a real life scenario.

Hence, today's topic will be RAID Recovery for Windows, also the name of the software we will be using.

First things first, you're supposed to remove all the disks from your RAID array, and connect them to your computer as individual disks. This might require some time since you will end up having to open your computer up in order to connect the disks.

After you're done connecting the disks to your computer one by one, it's now time to download the software we are going to use. For this, we are going to use a software called RAID Recovery for Windows, which works on every Windows platform. One downside is the fact that the software costs 99$, which is pretty expensive (in my opinion). You can find more information about RAID Recovery for Windows here.

After you obtain RAID Recovery for Windows, you're simply to choose the RAID array type you're using, (only RAID 0 and RAID 5 are supported) check the disks, and let the program do your magic. As we've talked before, there's a fault tolerance of one disk in RAID 5, so you can connect one disk less and still recover all of the data. In RAID 0, even though there's no fault tolerance, the software will try to save as much data as possible provided that your computer detects the disk.

After that's done, you will be able to access your files in an explorer window where you can copy them into another disk. You can also use disk images instead of the disks itself, if you're making images regularly. That will save you from the trouble of reconnecting the disks to your computer, and you can rebuild your RAID data quickly and put your array back online with a new set of disks in the case of failure.

I personally haven't gave RAID Recovery for Windows a try myself yet, since I haven't experienced problems with my RAID array in a long time, but I've been recommended by my colleagues to use it, as they said they had success with it. Maybe in the future, if I get into a position to need to use it, (hope not!) I wrill write a more extensive review about the software itself.

That would be all, I guess. It's a pretty straight forward process that every user can follow easily in order to recover their data. The same company also offers software for NAS data recovery if you're interested, since these these things pretty much go hand in hand.

Thanks for reading folks, I hope this makes your life easier!

0 QNAP RAID Recovery & NAS

Hello everyone! I've talked about RAID 5 data recovery in one of my earlier posts. I've mentioned that if more than one drive fails in a RAID 5 array, it won't be possible to recover data, and that's the way it works. But lately, I've come accross something while I'm browsing the web. It's a service called by a company called QNAP, and they allow you to recover your RAID (works with RAID 0,1 and 6 as well) even though more than the allowed number of disks are crashed.

The reason why I give credit to this company in my post is because before looking on their website, I didn't know such a thing existed. It always makes me happy to learn new stuff that I haven't known about before. I don't know if other companies offer services like QNAP RAID recovery, but it's definitely worth taking a look. I will keep you updated if I find anything else about other companies. (maybe a comparison post)

From what I've understood, this system works with a NAS. (Network-attached storage) For those who don't know, a NAS is a data storage which is connected to a network. Although, unlike hard drives, a NAS isn't just a file server, as it has its simply a computer by itself. It has its own parts and its own Operating System, and the RAID array drives are attached in it.

Using a NAS for your RAID array has many advantages such as being able to change the hard drives in your RAID array without too much hassle, better and easier volume management, better back up options (such as a cloud back up or a NAS replica), and a higher performance than a DAS on a network.

Finally, the main reason for me to write this article, the recovery of RAID arrays. Thanks to the QNAP RAID recovery software in the NAS, you can recover your RAID array even more than the expected amount of disks crash. Note that this isn't guaranteed, but I've heard good things about QNAP RAID recovery after reading about it on the internet. I haven't tried it myself, but I've heard many people had success with it.

They offer a variety of NAS drives which you can see on their website. It would be unfair to an extent for me to recommend QNAP & QNAP raid recovery right off the bat, as I haven't done much research about other companies and see if they offer services like this & their success rates, but I can only say that I've heard good things about it. So if you're looking for a NAS drive, make sure that you check their website out. Personally, back ups are really important in my view, (I'm sure it's the same for everyone) and this can save your life one day.

I usually write about the things I know about, but today was different for me as well. I hope you enjoy the post and find something which suits your needs!

You can learn more about QNAP RAID recovery in this page.

0 VLC Media Player

Nowadays, we all watch movies and listen to music on our computers, instead of watching them or listening to them in our stereo or DVD players. That being said, everyone knows that they need to use a program in order to do this. There are many alternatives to do this such as Windows Media player and Winamp. My recommendation though, if you haven't heard about it yet, is VLC media player.

The main reason I prefer VLC player over anything else is because it supports all the media formats that I've come across so far. With another players, there would be usually the trouble of finding codecs and everything in order to play media. VLC producers must've been aware of the issue before creating VLC, hence you can play anything you want with no codecs or anything on it.

The next important thing (for me) is that you can sync audio/subtitles easily in the settings. There are many cases where I can't find synced subtitles for the movie I'm watching. Luckily, it only takes a minute to sync the subtitles in VLC by simply going to Tools -> Track Synchronization.

There are many other fancy options in the software which I'm not using, but some people might find use for such as recording a part of the video you're playing, slowing & speeding up, taking snapshots, a fully customizable video effects panel where you can change the graphical attributes of the media you're watching and many more. (cropping, rotating, color filters etc.) You can also download plugins for VLC media player which makes it fully customizable compared to other media players. (although there are media players which support plugins, they're usually very limited)

All in all, if you like playing media on your computer and you're looking for a software which you can use, then VLC media player is the right way to go. Even if you're not going to use its fancy options in any way, it's still the best media player out there just because of its extensive support of different file types.

If you are interested and want to try VLC media player out (it runs on all platforms too!), you can download it here.

0 Hard Drive Repair Software

Hello there everyone! Today, our subject is something which has really troubled me in the past, repairing my damaged hard drive. It was the days didn't know so much about this stuff so it took me a while to figure out, and there wasn't so much information in the internet about it. That's the reason I felt like sharing this with you guys today.

There are many different hard drive repair software, also known as hard drive diagnostic software which can help you recover your hard drive. These software vary depending on the brand of your hard drive, so it's important that you choose the right one. Above is a list for the repair utilities of the brands I can think of right now.

Seagate SeaTools for Seagate & Maxtor hard drives (Available for Windows & DOS)

Hutil for Samsung hard drives (Available for DOS)

Western Digital Diagnostic Tools (Available for DOS)

Note : For the tools which are available for DOS only, you're required to burn them to a CD, since they will only work on boot. It's also recommended that you use this method rather than the Windows one as it is more effective.

I remember the time when I couldn't format my Seagate hard drive anymore, and I just happened to find a SeaTools disc which I've gotten out of a magazine by luck. It was the last thing I tried before I threw my hard drive away, and was quite shocked to see that it actually fixed my hard drive. I believe it was a MBR issue now when I think about it. (which I had no clue about at the time, so format not working scared me a lot)

Keep in mind that these software are capable of erasing/writing data on your hard drive as well as reading, so it's not recommended that you use these if you have any data which you can't afford losing at the time. You should back your data up before using any of these.

The working principle of these software is quite simple. It attempts to read all of your hard drive to start with to see if there are any bad sectors which interrupt data flow. The master boot record is also checked as there are master boot record viruses which can't be removed by ordinary format. (Low-level formatting is required for those who are interested) If the software detects anything unusual, it will report back to you so you can decide what to do. Nowadays, all the hard drive repair software are implemented with low-level formatting tools, so you can solve your problems right on the spot. Bad sectors however, are physical errors on your hard drives and there isn't much you can do about them.

All in all, make sure you run hard drive repair software on your hard drives to see what's wrong with them before throwing them away right off the bat. There's always a chance that these tools will save your life!

0 RAID 5 Data Recovery

Hello everyone! After a long break, today's topic is RAID 5 data recovery! First things first, let's start off with what RAID is. RAID (redundant array of independent disks) is a storage system where more than one disk is used. The data is distributed into those disks to prevent data loss in a case where one or more disks malfunction depending on which RAID level is used. There are different RAID levels from RAID 0 to RAID 6 (and RAID 10), each with different attributes.

Today, I will be specifically talking about RAID 5 since it's the most popularly used, (although being replaced slowly by RAID 6) and the safest RAID level.

Image from Wikipedia.

Link

First things first, let's start with how storage space works in RAID 5. Let's assume we have 4 disks for this example, and our disks are 2 TB each. In this case, we would have 6 TB of space in this array, which is calculated by the formula X * ( Y - 1 ), where X is the smallest disk in this array, and Y is the number of disks. A minimum of 3 disks are needed for a RAID 5 array.

As you can see in the picture, the data is divided into 4 disks, which allows data on the different disks to be accessed simultaneously, which is an upside of the RAID 5 array.

With all that being said, now we can talk about the main point, which is RAID 5 data recovery. In RAID 5, the data is striped between multiple disks like we have talked before, and a parity bit is added to each disk (which are calculated between the cylinders) , which is the reason why we see a decrease in total storage space in the array. For those who don't know what parity is, I will explain really quick.

Parity in RAID 5, in simplest terms, are digits which contain information (calculated by XOR of data). But how does that help in order to recover lost data incase one of the disks malfunction? The answer to this is the XOR function. Using the XOR function on the undamaged disks' parity bits give you the parity bit of the damaged drive, which can be used to reconstruct all the data on the damaged disk. Since we brought that up, let's also see how XOR works.

XOR is the principle where if there's a difference between numbers, then the result is 1, and if they're same, the result is 0. Therefore 1 xor 1 would be 0, 0 xor 0 would be 0, 1 xor 0 would be 1, and 0 xor 1 would be 1.

Since we know how XOR works now, let's see an example. 

Drive 1: 010111001

Drive 2: 110011100

---------------------

Drive 3: 100100111 is found by using the XOR function. This means the damaged drive's parity bit is 100100111, and can be used to reconstruct the data on the disk. The same method can be used over and over for each disk, given that only ONE disk in the array is damaged. If more than one disk is damaged, then the XOR function cannot be used, which means RAID 5 will be ineffective.

Of course, there are billions of numbers and calculations being made in a real life case, and this is just a stripped down example in order to learn how RAID 5 data recovery works.

According to the things we talked until now, you can see RAID 5 has a big advantage in the name of data recovery, and is also a good system if the disks are being read more than written on (which I've mentioned earlier)

RAID 5 also comes with its disadvantages like everything else, and that's no surprise. Writing on a RAID 5 system will surely be slow, since the parity data should be kept updated all the time. Therefore, RAID 5 shouldn't be used in places where constant writing to the disks is applied. RAID 5 will also require more RAM, and it makes you lose some part of your storage space.

All in all, I believe RAID 5 data recovery is one of the most miraculous things to happen in computer history, since everything is being stored in computers in this age, and losing important data could be a matter of life and death for a company or a business owner. I'm sure many of you heard the term RAID and wondered how it worked, so I hope this article made you understand it in a better way!

0 Making A Multiboot USB Stick

Hello everyone, today's topic is making a multiboot USB stick! I must say having a multiboot USB stick saved me a lot of time when I got in trouble with my current Windows installation. You can add many things to your multiboot USB stick such as a linux distro, a partition manager, MSDaRT, (this one saved my Windows so many times) hard drive utilities, rescue disks and so on depending on what you need.

Creating one is rather simple, and you're going to need the two programs above.

1) RMPrepUSB
2) SARDU

RMPrepUSB is the piece of software which prepares your USB Drive to be bootable, and SARDU adds the ISO files which contains the things you need on your USB stick.

After downloading both of them, we start by running RMPrepUSB. The settings in RMPrepUSB should be like the ones in the picture above.

After you selected these settings, click Prepare Drive and wait. Note that your drive will be wiped, so if you have anything important on the drive, make sure you get rid of them beforehand.

Now that we're done with making our USB stick boot ready, we can add the ISO files we want in it. Launch SARDU which we've downloaded beforehand.



Click the button which says ISO, and navigate to the folder where all the ISO files you want to add your usb stick are. (gather all the ISOs you want in one folder if you haven't done that yet)

Now you're ready to make your multiboot USB stick! Click the USB button on the right hand side, and wait until SARDU is done preparing your USB. (If SARDU has problems detecting your USB stick, use the Search USB button first)

And we're done! Now you have a multiboot USB stick with all the emergency system tools instead of having different CDs for them. When you're using the stick, make sure that your USB is the first boot option instead of your hard drives, cause then it's not going to work.

I hope this tutorial helped you, see you next time!

0 Cloud Computing

I'm sure many of you heard the term cloud computing a lot of times lately. Cloud computing is getting more popular every day and it's slowly taking over physical computing.. But what is cloud computing? That's probably the question all of you are asking if you're reading this right now.

Cloud computing, in most basic definition, is the usage of computer resources over a network, which includes internet. The computer resources could be anything depending on the type of the cloud computing, as there are many types of it.

Image from Wikipedia, created by Sam Johnston.

The most basic type of cloud computing is infrastructure as a service (IaaS). In this cloud computing type, you're basically given a computer which you can access via internet. These computers can either be physical computers or just virtual machines running on physical computers. IaaS is mainly used for the storage space, the ability to use different operating systems without altering your computer, being able to use an IP address of an another country, (for instance to be able to watch Netflix without living in US) and many more things you can do with a usual computer. In IaaS, you're only given the hardware and it's your responsibility to install the operating system, the software you need, to keep it updated and so on. Google Compute Engine is an example to this type of cloud computing.

The next type of cloud computing is platform as a service (PaaS). In PaaS, unlike IaaS, the operating system  and the features to test applications such as an execution environment is included. PaaS is used by application developers in order to test their software easily, instead of buying a new set of physical hardware to do so. Note that different PaaS providers support different programming languages, so you're supposed to find one which supports the language you are developing your software in. An example to PaaS is Google App Engine.

The ones who are familiar with gaming will know this one, which goes by the name software as a service (SaaS). In SaaS, a software is hosted on the cloud and it's accessed by people via a web browser. The upside of this system is that the software you're running via SaaS won't take any resources on your computer, since the computers in the cloud will be providing it. The first example I think of for this is certainly  Quake Live, as a gaming fan. OnLive is also a different example of SaaS cloud computing, and is considered as the future of gaming lately. SaaS is also used in different areas such as accounting.

STaaS must be the one that everyone is familiar with, unlike the others, because STaaS is being used by many home users. STaaS stands for Storage as a service, and is the principle behind many popular storage services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud and more. In this model, you're only given a storage space which you can access by using the internet wherever you have to.

There are many more types of cloud computing such as security as a service, database as a service, data as a service etc, which I won't be talking about right now, but maybe in the future.

I hope this helped you clear the question marks in your head about cloud computing!

Let's move on to the advantages of cloud computing now.

First things first, mobility is what makes cloud computing an amazing thing. You can't really have access to a physical thing all the time, but you can access your cloud wherever you want just with an internet connection. This plays a major role in the SaaS/STaaS system.

Second advantage would be cost, as it is cheaper than buying a physical computer to buy a cloud instead. IaaS and PaaS are the examples to this advantage.

Third advantage, in my eyes, is performance. You can always rely on big companies' cloud systems more than you can rely on your own home computer.

That being said, the only disadvantage which comes with cloud computing is the fact that if you don't have internet connection, you won't be able to access anything. But in the world we are living right now where even mobile phones are connected to internet 24/7 via 3G, where cities are covered in Wi-Fi coverage, I really doubt this would be a problem.

All in all, cloud computing has an answer for each one of your needs, if you are a home user, if you are a gamer, if you are a software developer, or if you are the owner of a business. I really believe it's the start of a new era in computing as it is growing so rapidly.

That would conclude everything I wanted to say about cloud computing for now, so see you all later in a different post!