Tiedostopalautuksen

Tiedostopalautus, known in English as file recovery or data recovery, is the process of salvaging deleted or inaccessible data from corrupted, damaged, or formatted storage media. This media can include hard disk drives, solid-state drives, USB flash drives, memory cards, and other digital storage devices. The goal of file recovery is to restore lost files to a usable state.

File loss can occur due to various reasons. Accidental deletion by the user is a common cause. Other factors include hardware failure, such as a hard drive crash, software corruption, operating system errors, viruses or malware infections, and physical damage to the storage device. In some cases, data may become inaccessible due to logical errors in the file system structure of the storage media.

The process of file recovery typically involves specialized software or hardware tools. File recovery software works by scanning the storage media for remnants of deleted files. When a file is deleted, the operating system usually marks the space it occupied as available for new data, but the actual data often remains on the drive until it is overwritten. Recovery software can identify these fragments and reconstruct the files. For more severe cases, such as physical damage to a drive, professional data recovery services may be required, involving specialized cleanroom environments and advanced techniques to repair or extract data from the damaged hardware.

The success rate of file recovery depends on several factors, including the cause of data loss, the type of storage media, and how quickly recovery efforts are initiated. Prompt action is crucial, as continued use of a storage device after data loss can lead to the overwritten of deleted files, making them permanently unrecoverable.