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Computer Virus

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computer virusHow to protect from getting a virus?
In today’s world having anti-virus software is not optional.  A good anti-virus program will perform real-time and on-demand virus checks on your system, and warn you if it detects a virus.  The program should also provide a way for you to update its virus definitions, or signatures; so that your virus protection will be current (new viruses are discovered all the time).  It is important that you keep your virus definitions as current as possible.

Once you have purchased an anti-virus program, use it to scan new programs before you execute or install them and new diskettes (even if you think they are blank) before you use them.

You can also take the following precautions to protect your computer from getting a virus:

  • Always be very careful about opening attachments you receive in an email — particularly if the mail comes from someone you do not know. Avoid accepting programs (EXE or COM files) from USENET news group postings. Be careful about running programs that come from unfamiliar sources or have come to you unrequested. Be careful about using Microsoft Word or Excel files that originate from an unknown or insecure source.
  • Avoid booting off a diskette by never leaving a floppy disk in your system when you turn it off.
  • Write protect all your system and software diskettes when you obtain them. This will stop a computer virus spreading to them if your system becomes infected.
  • Change your system’s CMOS Setup configuration to prevent it from booting from the diskette drive. If you do this a boot sector virus will be unable to infect your computer during an accidental or deliberate reboot while an infected floppy is in the drive. If you ever need to boot off your Rescue Disk, remember to change the CMOS back to allow you to boot from diskette!
  • Configure Microsoft Word and Excel to warn you whenever you open a document or spreadsheet that contains a macro (in Microsoft Word check the appropriate box in the Tools | Options | General tab).
  • Write-protect your system’s NORMAL.DOT file. By making this file read-only, you will hopefully notice if a macro virus attempts to write to it.
  • When you need to distribute a Microsoft Word file to someone, send the RTF (Rich Text Format) file instead. RTF files do not suport macros, and by doing so you can ensure that you won’t be inadvertently sending an infected file.
  • Rename your C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT file to C:\AUTO.BAT. Then, edit your C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT file to the following single line:
    auto. By doing this you can easily notice any viruses or trojans that try to add to, or replace, your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Additionally, if a virus attempts to add code to the bottom of the file, it will not be executed.
  • Finally, always make regular backups of your computer files. That way, if your computer becomes infected, you can be confident of having a clean backup to help you recover from the attack.

What types of files that can scan and set for auto-protection?
Here’s a list of file extensions that you should make sure your anti-virus software scans and auto protects:

386, ADT, BIN, CBT, CLA, COM, CPL, CSC, DLL, DOC, DOT, DRV, EXE, HTM, HTT, JS, MDB, MSO, OV?, POT, PPT, RTF, SCR, SHS, SYS, VBS, XL?

What are some good indications that the computer has a virus?
A very good indicator is having anti-virus software tell you that it found several files on a disk infected with the same virus (sometimes if the software reports just one file is infected, or if the file is not a program file — an EXE or COM file — it is a false report).

Another good indicator is if the reported virus was found in an EXE or COM file or in a boot sector on the disk.

If Windows can not start in 32-bit disk or file access mode your computer may have a virus.

If several executable files (EXE and COM) on your system are suddenly and mysteriously larger than they were previously, you may have a virus.

If you get a warning that a Microsoft Word document or Excel spreadsheet contains a macro but you know that it should not have a macro (you must first have the auto-warn feature activated in Word/Excel).

What are the most common ways to get a virus?
One of the most common ways to get a computer virus is by booting from an infected diskette.  Another way is to receive an infected file (such as an EXE or COM file, or a Microsoft Word document or Excel spreadsheet) through file sharing, by downloading it off the Internet, or as an attachment in an email message.

What should do when get a virus?
First, don’t panic! Resist the urge to reformat or erase everything in sight. Write down everything you do in the order that you do it.  This will help you to be thorough and not duplicate your efforts.  Your main actions will be to contain the virus, so it does not spread elsewhere, and then to eradicate it.

If you work in a networked environment, where you share information and resources with others, do not be silent.  If you have a system administrator, tell her what has happened.  It is possible that the virus has infected more than one machine in your workgroup or organization.  If you are on a local area network, remove yourself physically from it immediately.

Once you have contained the virus, you will need to disinfect your system, and then work carefully outwards to deal with any problems beyond your system itself (for example, you should meticulously and methodically look at your system backups and any removable media that you use).  If you are on a network, any networked computers and servers will also need to be checked.
Any good anti-virus software will help you to identify the virus and then remove it from your system.  Viruses are designed to spread, so don’t stop at the first one you find, continue looking until you are sure you’ve checked every possible source.  It is entirely possible that you could find several hundred copies of the virus throughout your system and media!

To disinfect your system, shut down all applications and shut down your computer right away.  Then, if you have Fix-It Utilities 99, boot off your System Rescue Disk.  Use the virus scanner on this rescue disk to scan your system for viruses.  Because the virus definitions on your Rescue Disk may be out of date and is not as comprehensive as the full Virus Scanner in Fix-It, once you have used it and it has cleared your system of known viruses, boot into Windows and use the full Virus Scanner to do an “On Demand” scan set to scan all files.  If you haven’t run Easy Update recently to get the most current virus definition files, do so now.
If the virus scanner can remove the virus from an infected file, go ahead and clean the file.  If the cleaning operation fails, or the virus software cannot remove it, either delete the file or isolate it.  The best way to isolate such a file is to put it on a clearly marked floppy disk and then delete it from your system.

Once you have dealt with your system, you will need to look beyond it at things like floppy disks, backups and removable media.  This way you can make sure that you won’t accidentally re-infect your computer.  Check all of the diskettes, zip disks, and CD-ROMs that may have been used on the system.

Finally, ask yourself who has used the computer in the last few weeks.  If there are others, they may have inadvertently carried the infection to their computer, and be in need of help.  Viruses can also infect other computers through files you may have shared with other people.  Ask yourself if you have sent any files as email attachments, or copied any files from your machine to a server, web site or FTP site recently.  If so, scan them to see if they are infected, and if they are, inform other people who may now have a copy of the infected file on their machine.

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Remove Password Protection from Microsoft Word Document

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word documentNearly all Microsoft programs have an option for setting up different levels of passwords. These passwords can be used for specific actions, such as, preventing reading, accessing or modifying any particular file. We have all used the feature at some point and it can be easily said that it is a great tool to have at your disposal to protect the privacy of your work. The only problem is what do you do if you forget the password yourself? Is the file forever inaccessible? Can You recover the Lost Password? Well there was a time when, if you forgot your password it was gone for good, but these days there have been huge advances in technology and there are software’s available to help you remove password protection from Microsoft Word and other MS Office Programs. So if you wish to recover your lost password and access your important file again, and then continue reading this article to find out how…

Microsoft Office 2007 and onwards came out with significantly improved security features. Passwords to open Word documents are extremely hard to break but nevertheless they can be cracked. Only two basic methods of password breaking can be used: dictionary search and brute force attack. The quicker option is dictionary search; however this option won’t be off much help if the password was created artificially. The other option is Brute Force attack, this method tries to track the password down by searching all possible combinations of specified symbols, starting from very short sequences, so you can recover a password no matter how long or complex it might be. If the forgotten password contained less than six symbols, it can be recovered quickly. Long Passwords will take a while to recover, but with the aid of good software they can be retrieved fairly easily.

So if you have accidentally lost or forgotten an important password to a Microsoft Office (Word) Document, then don’t eat your brains out over it, you can still recover the lost password and remove password protection from Microsoft Office. All you need to do is get your hands on a good Password Recovery Software and you should be able to access your restricted files in a matter of minutes. Most Remove Password Protection Software’s offer a Free Download these days, so you can try out the program risk free to see if your passwords are recoverable.

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Dealing with the Complexity of Storage Systems

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In fact, even with all the advancements in storage technology, only about 20%* of back-up jobs are successful (*according to Enterprise Strategy Group).

Each year hundreds of new data storage products and technologies meant to make the job faster and easier are introduced, but with so many categories and options to consider, the complexity of storage instead causes confusion – which ultimately leads to lost time and the loss of the very data such new enhancements are meant to avoid.

Hence the question for most IT professionals who have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in state-of-the-art storage technology remains, “How can data loss still happen and what am I supposed to do about it?”

Why Backups Still Fail
In a perfect world, a company would build their storage infrastructure from scratch using any of the new storage solutions and standardize on certain vendors or options. If everything remained unchanged, some incredibly powerful, rock-solid results could be achieved.

However, in the real world storage is messy. Nothing remains constant – newly created data is added at an unyielding pace while new regulations, such as Sarbanes-Oxley, mandate changes in data retention procedure. Since companies can rarely justify starting over from scratch, most tend to add storage in incremental stages – introducing new elements from different vendors at different times – hence the complexity of storage.

All this complexity can lead to a variety of backup failures that can catch companies unprepared to deal with the ramifications of data loss. One reason why backups fail is due to bad media. If a company has their backup tapes sitting on a shelf for years, the tapes could become damaged and unreadable. This is a common occurrence if backup tapes are not stored properly. Another reason why backups fail has to do with companies losing track of the software with which those backups were created. For a restore to be successful, most software packages require that the exact environment still be available. Finally, backups fail due to corruption in the backup process. Many times companies will change their data footprint but not change their backup procedure to keep up – so they are not backing up what they think they are. Without regular testing, all of these reasons are likely sources of failure.

What to Do When Your Backup Fails
No matter how much a company tries to speed operations and guard against problems with new products and technology, the threat of data loss remains and backup and storage techniques do not always provide the necessary recovery. When an hour of down time can result in millions of dollars lost, including data recovery in your overall disaster plan is critical, and may be the only way to restore business continuity quickly and efficiently. When a data loss situation occurs, time is the most critical component. Decisions about the most prudent course of action must be made quickly, which is why administrators must understand when to repair, when to restore and when to recover data.

When to Repair
This is as simple as running file repair tools (such as fsck or CHKDSK – file repair tools attempt to repair broken links in the file system through very specific knowledge of how that file system is supposed to look) in read-only mode first, since running the actual repair on a system with many errors could overwrite data and make the problem worse. Depending on the results of the read-only diagnosis, the administrator can make an informed decision to repair or recover. If they find a limited amount of errors, it is probably fine to go ahead and fix them as the repair tool will yield good results.

Note: if your hard drive makes strange noises at any point, immediately skip to the recovery option.

When to Restore
The first question an admin should ask is how fresh their last backup is and will a restore get them to the point where they can effectively continue with normal operations. There is a significant difference between data from the last backup and data from the point of failure, so it is important to make that distinction right away. Only a recovery can help if critical data has never been backed up. Another important question is how long it will take to complete the restore – if the necessary time is too long they might need to look at other options. A final consideration is how much data are they trying to restore. Restoring several terabytes of data, for example, will take a long time from tape backups.

When to Recover
The decision to recover comes down to whether or not a company’s data loss situation is critical and how much downtime they can afford. If they don’t have enough time to schedule the restore process, it is probably best to move forward with recovery. Recovery is also the best method if backups turn out to be too old or there is some type of corruption. The bottom line is, if other options are attempted and those options fail, it is best to contact a recovery company immediately. Some administrators will try multiple restores or repairs before trying recovery and will actually cause more damage to the data.

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Why you Should Have a Disaster Recovery Plan in Place

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There is something that is inevitable. You never know when an entire system is going to crash or another disaster may come about. You have to be prepared for these things. If you’re not, then everything will be chaotic. No one will know what to do. In other words, everyone will be running around asking each other, “What do we do now?” And no one is going to have an answer.

What is a disaster recovery plan?
A disaster recovery plan is that protocol in which your employees follow when a certain disaster comes about. You have to evaluate everything that could go wrong within your business and have a recovery plan for each one of those situations. Since not one situation is the same, there has to be a protocol for each. From there, your employees have to study it and know what to do immediately. This means they need to memorize. There are many disasters that do not allow time for someone to pull out a manual and read what needs to happen. They have to act immediately.

But why have a disaster recovery plan in place?
You should have one in place because you need to conduct business in the best manner possible for your customers. Your customers expect seamless service no matter what, so you have to try to make things as convenient for them as possible. If you don’t, then you risk losing their business.

Your disaster recovery plan will include dealing with data loss during a natural disaster, dealing with a system meltdown, power surges, and so much more. It depends on what sort of business you are in as to what kind of plans you use. Just make sure that you cover all of your bases and that you also have a master plan so that you can take care of something that may not have a plan. You just never know what could happen.

Statistics
Statistics have shown that businesses with a disaster recovery plan are amongst those that recover better. Those who have experienced some sort of disaster that lasts for more than 10 days will never recover financially. 50% of those companies without a disaster recovery plan will spend so much time making up for lost cash that they will most likely be out of business in 5 years. That is not something you want to have to deal with. The cost of an outage that lasts only a few days is already bad enough. Contracts can be broken, credibility can be lost, and even future customers will never be acquired. These are extreme losses.

So take these statistics to heart so that you know why it is you need a disaster recovery plan. Not one more business needs to go out of business due to an outage, so you need to be on top of things. You need to realize that anything that prohibits you from carrying out your business practices can do irreparable damages. Your customers expect for you to be there for them whenever they need you. There is nothing more frustrating to them than trying to resolve an issue that you can’t resolve because of an outage. If their request is not fulfilled, then they may suddenly become your competitor’s newest customer.

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Data Protection Schemes to Storage System

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Storage System manufacturers are pursuing unique ways of processing large amounts of data while still being able to provide redundancy in case of disaster. Some large SAN units incorporate intricate device block-level organization, essentially creating a low-level file system from the RAID perspective. Other SAN units have an internal block-level transaction log in place so that the Control Processor of the SAN is tracking all of the block-level writes to the individual disks. Using this transaction log, the SAN unit can recover from unexpected power failures or shutdowns.

Some computer scientists specializing in the storage system field are proposing adding more intelligence to the RAID array controller card so that it is ‘file system aware.’ This technology would provide more recoverability in case disaster struck, the goal being the storage array would become more self-healing.

Other ideas along these lines are to have a heterogeneous storage pool where multiple computers can access information without being dependant on a specific system’s file system. In organizations where there are multiple hardware and system platforms, a transparent file system will provide access to data regardless of what system wrote the data.

Other computer scientists are approaching the redundancy of the storage array quite differently. The RAID concept is in use on a vast number of systems, yet computer scientists and engineers are looking for new ways to provide better data protection in case of failure. The goals that drive this type of RAID development are data protection and redundancy without sacrificing performance.

Reviewing the University of California, Berkeley report about the amount of digital information that was produced 2003 is staggering. You or your client’s site may not have terabytes or pet bytes of information, yet during a data disaster, every file is critically important.

Avoiding Storage System Failures
There are many ways to reduce or eliminate the impact of storage system failures. You may not be able to prevent a disaster from happening, but you may be able to minimize the disruption of service to your clients.

There are many ways to add redundancy to primary storage systems. Some of the options can be quite costly and only large business organizations can afford the investment. These options include duplicate storage systems or identical servers, known as ‘mirror sites’. Additionally, elaborate backup processes or file-system ‘snapshots’ that always have a checkpoint to restore to, provide another level of data protection.

Experience has shown there are usually multiple or rolling failures that happen when an organization has a data disaster. Therefore, to rely on just one restoration protocol is shortsighted. A successful storage organization will have multiple layers of restoration pathways.

Here are several risk mitigation policies that storage administrators can adopt that will help minimize data loss when a disaster happens:

Offline storage system — Avoid forcing an array or drive back on-line. There is usually a valid reason for a controller card to disable a drive or array, forcing an array back on-line may expose the volume to file system corruption.

Rebuilding a failed drive — When rebuilding a single failed drive, it is import to allow the controller card to finish the process. If a second drive fails or go off-line during this process, stop and get professional data recovery services involved. During a rebuild, replacing a second failed drive will change the data on the other drives.

Storage system architecture — Plan the storage system’s configuration carefully. We have seen many cases with multiple configurations used on a single storage array. For example, three RAID 5 arrays (each holding six drives) are striped in a RAID 0 configuration and then spanned. Keep a simple storage configuration and document each aspect of it.

During an outage — If the problem escalates up to the OEM technical support, always ask “Is the data integrity at risk?” or, “Will this damage my data in any way?” If the technician says that there may be a risk to the data, stop and get professional data recovery services involved.

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Avoiding Storage System Failure?

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Reduce or Eliminate the Impact of Storage System Failures
Storage systems have become their own unique and complex computer field and can mean different things to different people. So what is the definition of these systems? Storage systems are the hardware that store data.

For example, this may be a small business server supporting an office of ten users or less—the storage system would be the hard drives that are inside of that server where user information is located. In large business environments, the storage systems can be the large SAN cabinet that is full of hard drives and the space has been sliced-and-diced in different ways to provide redundancy and performance.

The Ever-Changing Storage System Technology
Today’s storage technology encompasses all sorts of storage media. These could include WORM systems, tape library systems and virtual tape library systems. Over the past few years, SAN and NAS systems have provided excellent reliability. What is the difference between the two?

  • SAN (Storage Area Network) units can be massive cabinets—some with 240 hard drives in them! These large 50+ Terabyte storage systems are doing more than just powering up hundreds of drives. These systems are incredibly powerful data warehouses that have versatile software utilities behind them to manage multiple arrays, various storage architecture configurations, and provide constant system monitoring.

  • NAS (Network Attached Storage) units are self-contained units that have their own operating system, file system, and manage their attached hard drives. These units come in all sorts of different sizes to fit most needs and operate as file servers.

    • For some time, large-scale storage has been out reach of the small business. Serial ATA (SATA) hard disk drive-based SAN systems are becoming a cost-effective way of providing large amounts of storage space. These array units are also becoming mainstream for virtual tape backup systems—literally RAID arrays that are presented as tape machines; thereby removing the tape media element completely.

    Other storage technologies such as SCSI, DAS (Direct Attached Storage), Near-Line Storage (data that is attached to removable media), and CAS (Content Attached Storage) are all methods for providing data availability. Storage Architects know that just having a ‘backup’ is not enough. In today’s high information environments, a normal nightly incremental or weekly full backup is obsolete in hours or even minutes after creation. In large data warehouse environments, backing up data that constantly changes is not even an option. The only method for those massive systems is to have storage system mirrors—literally identical servers with the exact same storage space.

    How does one decide which system is best? Careful analysis of the operation environment is required. Most would say that having no failures at all is the best environment—that is true for users and administrators alike! The harsh truth is that data disasters happen every day despite the implementation of risk mitigation policies and plans.

    When reviewing your own or your client’s storage needs, consider these questions:

  • What is the recovery turn-time? What is your client’s maximum time period allowed to be back to the data? In other words, how long can you or your client survive without the data? This will help to establish performance requirements for equipment.

  • Quality of data restoredIs original restored data required or will older, backed up data suffice? This relates to the backup scheme that is used. If the data on your, or your client’s storage system changes rapidly, then the original data is what is most valuable.

  • How much data are you or your client archiving?Restoring large amounts of data will take time to move through a network. On DAS (Direct Attached Storage) configurations, time of restoration will depend on equipment and I/O performance of the hardware.

    • Avoiding Storage System Failure? Read More »

    Data Recovery Vendor Considerations

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    When looking for a data recovery provider, it’s important to ensure that the one selected can handle not only the various types of media, but also understands the data security regulations of today’s organizations. For example, encrypted data requires special data handling processes — from the clean room to the technically-advanced recovery lab. This isolation ensures no one person has complete access to the media throughout the recovery process, thereby providing security while maintaining recovery continuity and quality.

    Additionally, it is important to note that some data recovery companies have been cleared for security projects and services for U.S. government agencies. As a result, these companies implement data privacy controls that are based on the U.S. government’s Electronic Defense Security Services requirements for civilian companies that are under contract for security clearance projects or services.

    Unfortunately, most data loss victims only consider data recovery right after they have experienced a data loss and are scrambling for a solution. Emotions run high at this point. The fallout from a data disaster and corresponding data loss is sometimes crippling, with the IT staff working around the clock to get the computer systems back to normal. These distressed circumstances are not the time to think about what makes a good data recovery vendor. Incorporating this important decision into your business continuity planning is best done in advance. Some key questions to ask as part of this proactive exercise include:

    • Do you have a relationship with a preferred data recovery vendor?
    • What should you look for when reviewing data recovery companies?
    • Do you include data recovery in your disaster and business continuity planning?
    • Do you have a plan for how to handle data loss of encrypted data?
    • Do appropriate people have access to the encryption keys to speed up the recovery process?

    Sometimes planning for these procedures can become involved and tedious, especially if you are planning for something you have never experienced. Do some investigating by calling data recovery service companies and presenting data loss situations such as email server recoveries, or RAID storage recoveries or physically damaged hard disk drives from mobile users. Ask about data protection and the policies in place to protect your company’s files.

    Additionally, find out the techniques and recovery tools the providers use. Ask the companies how large their software development staff is. Inquire about how they handle custom development for unique data files. For example, will they be able to repair or rebuild your user’s unique files? Does the data recovery service company have any patents or special OEM certifications?

    While these details may not seem important at first, they can be the decisive factors that determine whether your data recovery experience is a positive and successful endeavor.

    Following is a checklist of factors to consider when searching for a data recovery vendor for encrypted data or ensuring your data recovery partner is able to comply with your data security policies:

    • Solid Reputation – Experienced data Recovery Company with a strong background.
    • Customer Service – Dedicated and knowledgeable staff.
    • Secure Protocols – Expert knowledge of encryption products with privacy protocols in place.
    • Technical Expertise – Capable of recovering from virtually all operating systems and types of storage devices.
    • Scalable Volume Operations – Equipped with full-service labs and personnel that can handle all size jobs on any media type.
    • Research & Development – Invested in technology for superior recoveries; not just purchasing solutions.

    It is important to understand that data loss can occur at any time on any scale. It’s especially crucial to be prepared with a plan that adheres to your company’s security policy. The more prepared one is, the better the chance for a quick and successful recovery when a problem arises.

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    Data Recovery Equipment

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    Today computer is being an integral and indispensable part in IT world. No matter what is your line, finance, education, business consulting and investigation, IT information security, or else. In fact, most people always take it for granted. You should never brag your computer can be failure-free.

    The foremost use of computer is data storage. All the data is stored on a physical disk named hard disk drive which is a magnetic layer. And it is more likely to be stricken of any time by a wide variety of reasons, such as a partition lost, system can not access, human mistake (accidental reformatting, delete), file corruption, power surge, and virus attack, to the worst, these physical level failures typically are head crash, platter scratch, and motor failures caused by overwriting, physical damages, natural disasters, etc.

    Sometimes a hard drive has been stricken dead or not working at all without any warning signs, but some other times there may be some clues that something is going bad or amiss. Such changes in performance or sudden blue screens are telltale signs that the hard drive may be on its way to collapse. The most obvious and common sign are clicking, squealing, scraping or grinding noises.

    The computer become more involved in our daily life, so the danger of data loss also surfaces.

    As most of us have already experienced data loss, it could be frustrated and traumatic, when you finally find your critical data are not able to recover. As a matter of fact, logical failures as I previously mentioned, a data recovery software program can simply work them out, but if more, No! Those drives with minor physical failures will need special equipment to repair hard drive or recover data.

    Why data recovery software programs will stop there? The ordinary user-level repeated-read access method that used by imaging software bring a risk of damaging the disk and head, making data lost irretrievable. Also the software skips bad sectors directly in order not to get hang. Even so it gets hang most of the time in case the drive has lost of bad sectors. Still there is no guarantee that all the data will be extracted as much as possible, although days or weeks of time wasted on imaging bad drives. That’s why you should avoid it at all cost.

    With a unique data recovery equipment known as Data Compass which is mostly used among experts and practitioners worldwide where traditional tools can not reach the height. DC reads data of each sector physically byte-to-byte, including good and bad, and copied to a good disk using its data extraction software and hardware. A ShadowDisk technology allows DC to maximally avoid second damaging drives.

    However, we hardly figure out how much data normally can be recovered. It all depends. In most cases, data will be able to recover as long as the parts of hard drive are not severely damaged. Otherwise you should swap its components then are platters, heads, and a spindle motor.

    A current tool HD HPE PRO used to open hard drive will be replaced by HPE SP. The new product is the offspring of the old one; what’s more, a brand new designed platter exchanger allows users to work on hard drives with spacers between platters. HPE SP is made of metal alloy and has had both quality and stability improved. If you have already known about data recovery, you can be an expert with the very option. Of course, you can go and find an expert elsewhere to fix your drives, if the extra expenditure is not a problem anyway.

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    Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 Command Queuing

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    Seagate has a proven track record of consistently delivering reliable products in volume, and the new Barracuda 7200.11 family is no exception. Designed with up to four platters and the only second-generation perpendicular recording technology in the industry, the Barracuda 7200.11 drive offers the ideal balance of world-class technology and value, providing customers with an optimal overall solution. The capacity, reliability and performance of this drive, along with its 5-year limited warranty, ensure the longevity of digital content for years to come.

    Key Features and Benefits

    • Delivers the industry’s highest capacity—up to 1.5 TB of storage (also 1 TB and 750, 640, 500, 320 and 160 GB)
    • Ships with the industry’s most reliable and proven perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology
    • Delivers high performance
      • Up to 120 MB/s sustained data rate
      • 32-MB and 16-MB cache buffer (8 MB on 160 GB)
    • Environmentally friendly
      • Consumes up to 43 percent less power during idle than previous products, enabling customers to build low-power systems
      • Meets strict RoHS environmental requirements
    • Leverages best combination of technology (areal density, PMR) and proven components for volume availability
    • Ships with an industry-best 5-year limited warranty

    Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 Drive—the Eco-Friendly Choice
    The Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 drive delivers up to 43 percent power savings over the previous desktop generation without sacrificing drive and system performance levels, giving customers the ability to manufacture eco-friendly PC systems and external storage systems that meet energy-savings requirements.

    Seagate hard drives have long been produced with the environment in mind, and not just with low power consumption. Like all other Seagate drives, the Barracuda 7200.11 product family complies with the Restriction of Hazardous Substance (RoHS) Directive—a regulation that limits the use of hazardous materials in electronic goods. Seagate also takes great pride in implementing numerous voluntary material restrictions for the good of the environment.

    Seagate is committed to minimizing the impact of our products and operations on the environment, and producing energy-efficient, RoHS-compliant hard drives is just one element of that commitment. Our facilities are operated to be energy efficient and minimize our carbon footprint. For example, Seagate has implemented production efficiency measures, such as replacing or renovating less-efficient equipment, resulting in a 20 percent increase in production efficiency on a per-hard-drive basis. In just six months this delivered a savings of 158.93 million kWh, or enough energy to power nearly 15,000 U.S. homes for one year. Seagate also has deployed aggressive waste minimization and recycling programs in facilities worldwide.

    Seagate employees are fully engaged in this environmental commitment and participate in many ways, from innovating eco-friendly hard drives, planting trees at company facilities and identifying eco-friendly manufacturing improvements to car-pooling and telecommuting.

    With Seagate and the Barracuda 7200.11 drive, our customers can have the best of both worlds—top hard drive performance and the satisfaction of knowing they are using a high-capacity drive with a very small eco-footprint.

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    Recovery Process for Encrypt HDD

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    Recovering from hard disk drives that are encrypted follows the same handling procedures as all other magnetic media. A strict process of handling and documentation starts right at the shipping door upon drive receipt and ends when the drive is shipped back to the customer. In most cases, when working with a top data recovery provider, all recovery processes are logged. This results in an audit trail of the recovery history and serves as verification that the recovery was conducted in a secure, compliant manner. Specifically, you want to ensure the process consists of the following high-level steps:

    1. Triage drive; determine faults without opening drive
    2. Clean room escalation for physical or electronic damage
    3. Secure original media
    4. Sector-by-sector copy of drive data
    5. User Key used to decrypt data
    6. Produce file listing of user file names
    7. Repair file system
    8. Prepare data for delivery
    9. Encryption options for data delivery

    After the first four stages listed above, the recovery engineer will begin to map all key file system structures that point to the user files. However, if the hard disk drive is encrypted, then the drive needs to be decrypted in order to proceed.

    Decryption
    If this is the case, a user key or decryption password is required. Fortunately, encryption software has come a long way over the years. Instead of using a master password for decryption, most professional encryption software provides a technician level pass-phrase that changes on a daily basis. This protects the user’s password and the organization’s master password.

    Many organizations are comfortable providing these one-time use pass-phrases so that the recovery work can continue. However, this is not always the case. For some organizations, providing this information to an outside vendor, such as a data recovery provider, is against their security policy.  In these situations, a successful recovery is still possible. There are data recovery vendors that can perform recoveries while leaving the data in its encrypted form throughout the entire process. In this case, the data will be recovered and sent back to the client in its encrypted form; however, the specific results will be unknown until the files are opened by someone with access to the encryption key. Ultimately, this limits the ability for a data recovery provider to communicate the success of the recovery until the recovered data is delivered and opened, thereby placing some burden back on the customer.

    As a result, it is clear that significant time and cost savings are associated with allowing your data recovery vendor to access your one-time use pass-phrase codes while attempting to recover your encrypted data. At the same time, it’s critical to ensure that your selected vendor also understands security protocols, is knowledgeable about encryption products and has privacy policies in place.

    Resuming Recovery
    Following the recovery, preparation for delivering the data begins. Since the original hard disk drive was encrypted, safely securing the recovered data is highly important. The recovered data is backed up to the media choice of the user and is re-encrypted. The new decryption key is communicated verbally to the user; email should not be used, as this could be a security risk. Some leading edge data recovery companies are able to deliver recovered data back to the customer in an encrypted format on external USB/Firewire hard disk drives. From the start of the recovery to the final delivery, data should be secure throughout the entire process.

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