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Backup Computers

Is It Possible to Recover Deleted Files From an External Hard Drive?

By Leo Eigenberg

The use of an external hard drive for storing data is popular for a variety of reasons. It makes it possible to save a large volume of business or personal information (documents, songs, movies, pictures, etc.) without taking up the standard space on the PC or laptop. Plus, the external hard drive is portable which makes it possible to travel with and use with virtually any laptop with the right connection port.

But, even though the external hard drive is great for storing the extra data, there is the risk of data loss similar to any other storage device.

What happens to lost files?

Most of the external drives have no recycle bin like the desktop so once the files are lost or deleted in error they will disappear. However, even if the delete key is used, this does not mean the file or folder is lost forever. To improve the chance of avoiding permanent data loss, the first thing to do is to stop using the external hard drive. If new data is saved to this device, there is a real risk of suffering from a permanent loss of data. By taking the quick action there is a greater probability of being able to retrieve the important files. The use of free or premium file recovery software is the best course of action to help recover the deleted data.

What are the major causes of file deletion?

Human error – one of the main causes relates to human error and mistakenly deleting a file or folder that is important instead of something that is no longer needed.

Malware attack – any sort of virus like a trojan horse, worm, or other infection can lead to the unwanted removal of files without the user’s knowledge.

Mishandling – using poor operating practices can result in the lost of data. For instance, not ejecting the external hard drive in the proper manner can leave files corrupted or unable to open.

Other Reasons – there are several other reasons that can lead to file deletion, such as a sudden power failure, hardware malfunction, application error, or dropping the storage device.

Using the right file recovery program

In a situation like this, it is essential to put in the time and effort to source a file recovery program that is reliable and gets a lot of praise from users. There are plenty of freeware options that can complete the recovery, as well as numerous premium software programs. It benefits to go online and search for the preferred type of software that gets the most positive reviews and recommendations.

Learn more about the best free data recovery software for safeguarding your important data.

Article Source: Is It Possible to Recover Deleted Files From an External Hard Drive?

Categories
Computers

How to Keep Disk Space Free on Your Windows System

By Ankit Pareek

Windows computer systems are impressive machines when it comes to disposing day to day work but the fly in the ointment turns up to be the situation when your system run out of disk space memory. This disk space shortage can happen due to various reasons which include cluttered and unorganized data on your system. Your disk space can cause many troubles to your system when it is over occupied. You can follow certain steps to deal with this situation. Let’s discuss a few steps to keep your system’s disk space free from cluttered and unorganized data.

Use a Disk Cleanup tool: This is an effective tool to clean your hard drive effortlessly. Use this tool to free up enough space on your system to make it run smoother. To do so:

  • Open the Start button and Run “Disk Cleanup” and select it from the list.
  • When prompted select the drive you want to clean and press OK.
  • Select the check boxes to pick the file types you want to delete and press OK.
  • Select Previous Windows Installation(s) check box to remove data from any previous installation of Windows.
  • Now go back to the Computer in File Explorer and select the drive which you have cleaned and Refresh.

Uninstall desktop programs you don’t use: Use this feature to uninstall all those apps and programs you no longer need or use. To uninstall desktop apps, go to Start > Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features > Uninstall a Program. When prompted select the programs or apps you don’t want any more.

Certain programs include an option to change or repair the program itself in addition to uninstalling it. To change a program, click Change or Repair option.

Archive or delete unnecessary files: Your system stores lot of unnecessary and unused files and programs which get piled up over time. This accumulated data includes temporary files, old data files, unused files and programs, duplicate files and lot other unnecessary data. This data not only occupies precious disk space but it affects system speed and performance. Try to delete unnecessary data from your system or take backup on external drives.

Backup data on the Cloud: Cloud services offer a wide range of options to take backup of your important data on Cloud servers. This way you can store your important data on these servers and can access and restore it anytime anywhere. Using this option, you can spare some disk space for other important data.

Add more storage: This comes as a longer-term solution for your disk space worries. Try to expand your system’s disk storage capacity by using removable drives like SD Cards, USB, DVDs, CDs etc. or try SSD or larger hard disks. Hence it can prove bit costlier to apply.

Following these simple steps, you can find a solution for a lot of your disk space worries. This way you can not only recover a lot of disk space but it will improve your system speed and performance.

There are certain ways available to free up disk space on your Windows system. One effective way is to use duplicate file finder tools to recover precious storage space.

Article Source: How to Keep Disk Space Free on Your Windows System

Categories
Mobile Phones

6 Tips to Boost the Speed of Your Mobile Phone

By Reymart Jan Sarigumba

Smartphones are no different from computers when it comes to maintenance and long-term performance. Just like a desktop computer, a smartphone especially Android and iOS phones also goes through a diminished performance after being used for a long time. Mobile operating systems also get clunky the longer you use them, just like a computer’s. On that note, it also means mobile phones need regular software maintenance in order to get it working at its 100% all the time. Also, the storage space of a mobile phone is no different from a computer’s, the files you store in it, the more effort it requires to index all of them and run the phone smoothly. The more files, the heavier your hard drive gets, the more weight your phone’s hardware will be bearing, the slower it will get. With that being said, here are 5 tips on how to boost the speed of your mobile phone.

Software Updates

One of the reasons why smartphone makers provide updates for their phone every now and then is to ensure that their performance is optimized to the best that they could and fix bugs if there are any. Every release is expected to work best towards the phone’s performance boost, of course. Aside from that, these updates are meant to fix all other issues that users experience with the phone according to their feedbacks. These issues are mostly about app performance (or nonperformance – crashing) and the phone’s speed. So, if ever your phone notifies you of a firmware or system update, make sure that you don’t miss out on that no matter how big of a size it is. In fact, the bigger the update the better.

Clear Cache Data

Cache data can be considered as the leftover files from your previous browsing session, app usage, or residue of apps you’ve once installed. These files usually hide inside the system folders of the phone and are not easily detectable through the phone’s native file scanning capability. In order to get to these sneaky junk files lingering within your phone is to install a performance optimizer or file cleaning app, the most common in the Android market is the Clean Master and Dr. Cleaner for iOS. Apps like these two will make a thorough system scan of your phone and will determine files and folders which are no longer in use and have been that way for a period of time already. Once done, it will give the users a run-down of these files and option to remove them entirely. On the average, releasing a month’s worth of cached files will give your phone more or less 1GB worth of storage memory. Not only will it give you more room for your files, it will also make your phone’ software lighter does boost its performance.

Deleting Unnecessary Apps

As mentioned earlier, the more storage space in your phone is consumed, the clunkier it will get. One of the ways to optimize storage space which will lead to a performance boost is to delete unnecessary apps especially bloat wares. Bloat wares are preinstalled apps that phone makers decided to throw into their phones in order to achieve the actual features that they want to emphasize on their phone. Some of these bloat wares are useful but most often than not they’re useless. Also, many of these bloat wares cannot be uninstalled but there’s still a good sum of them that can be removed from your phone.

On the other hand, uninstalling apps that you no longer use will also be beneficial in optimizing your phone’s performance. They will free up more space and will allow the phone to have a much lighter storage system to process.

Force Close All Background Apps

Most of the time, smartphone users press the home button once they’re done with an app. By doing so, the app is not entirely shut down, instead, they’re just paused until they’re launched again. These apps become background app and will continue to consume your phone’s RAM until they are entirely shut.

In case you are not aware of what the RAM is for here’s a what it is about in a nutshell: Random Access Memory better known as RAM is basically the virtual memory that accommodates the phone’s real-time activities. The more RAM your phone has, the more files or applications it can accommodate at the same time. Compared to a storage space, the RAM is a temporary memory allocated to a device in order to process real-time activities. Once these activities are done, they also free up the RAM that they consumed. Think of this way: The RAM is a bowl and the apps are your cereal. The bigger your bowl (RAM) is the more cereal (Apps or files) you can pour into it without spilling. Once you’ve finished eating your cereal (or doing your activity), the bowl will be free again for more cereal.

With that being said, in order for you to fully end an app session here’s how to do it:

iOS

  • Double click the home button. It will zoom out from the home screen and showcase all the running apps side by side.
  • Flick the app that you want to end upwards.

Android (KitKat, Lollipop, and Marshmallow)

  • Press the multitasking (overview) button or long press the function key for phones with buttons like the Samsung Galaxy S series. It will open all the running apps in the phone which you can’t see.
  • Flick the apps sideways in order to force close them.

Clean Up You RAM

Apparently, cleaning up your RAM by closing your recent apps is not enough sometimes. The most efficient way of making sure that there are no more sneaky files or apps that are eating it up is by using a RAM cleaner app. These apps will not only make sure that your phone is no longer slowed down by background apps, but it also optimizes your battery. The fewer apps and files making your phone move a muscle, the lesser battery it will burn.

Apps such as Clean Master for Android and Dr. Cleaner for iOS comes with this feature. For Android phones, its widget really comes in handy, you can instantly free up your RAM with just a click of that widget.

Do Not Use Animated Wallpapers

Animated wallpapers look attractive, but they also eat up a lot of RAM. The Same principle applies to animated wallpapers as with the apps because they usually take as much RAM as an actual app. Unless you have a phone with high-caliber specs, animated wallpapers are a no-no if you want to optimize your phone’s performance.

Article Source: 6 Tips to Boost the Speed of Your Mobile Phone

Categories
Computers

Three Simple Steps You Can Do Today to Enhance Your Information Security

By Ann Korobkina

There are two types of users. Those who say they have nothing to hide and conceal, and those who use all possible methods of data protection to keep their personal information secure.

This article is for the first type of people or for those who are somewhere in between. People of the second type are aware of these techniques and apply them in practice almost every day.

So what should you do today to ensure information security?

  1. Make a backup copy of important data.
  2. Replace simple passwords by stronger ones.
  3. Make a copy of information stored in the cloud.

Why should you make a backup copy of important data?

Let’s start with a question whether there is a need to save a copy of your hard disk on other media. The improvement of software goes side by side with the improvement of malware. Ransomware viruses became especially active. Getting on your computer, ransomware virus blocks the access to your data and requires a payment for decoding them. But often even the transfer of the required sum of money does not solve the issue with the encrypted data. In such a case these data may be considered as lost forever.

Unfortunately, such cases are common. You can get a malicious code even via a simple JavaScript in your browser. Thus, if you copy important personal data to removable data carriers at least sometimes, you will have a chance to recover at least a part of the lost information and protect it against fraud.

Why should you change your passwords?

In the fall of 2015 was published a list of the most popular passwords of Ashley Madison website. And at the end of 2015 year, we got an opportunity to see a list of the worst passwords used in 2015. According to these lists, which coincide in the majority of points, people do not like to complicate their lives and choose simple passwords. They keep using such easy combinations as 123456, password, password1, qwerty, etc. Coming up with a new password, try to make it very complicated for it not to be brute forced.

But still, even this is not enough. Unfortunately, online fraudsters are constantly improving their skills, and soon there will be not a single password they would be unable to get. Then how to protect your personal data? In fact, you cannot rely only on passwords, thus the best way to protect your data is to use at least two-factor authentication where it is possible.

2-factor authentication presupposes the use of two different factors of authentication when logging in the account. The first factor is something you know (usually it is login and password), and the second factor is something you have (usually it is one-time password generated with the help of OTP token or application on the smartphone, also it can be delivered via SMS or the voice call).

Thus, even if a fraudster hacks your main password, he won’t manage to go through the next authentication step. And vice versa, even having the one-time password generator (token) or your phone, the fraudster will not be able to log in without knowing a static password. Two-factor authentication is especially important for bank accounts or corporate e-mails.

But even using 2FA you shouldn’t forget that static passwords play an important role in two-factor authentication as they are one of two factors – a knowledge factor.

Why should you make a copy of the information from the cloud?

How many times we have already seen the faces of users who suddenly couldn’t find important documents, which they stored in cloud services. And this may happen to anyone. So next time when you think of leaving the important information in your account in Gmail, Dropbox, or any other service, think twice and make a copy on your hard disk.

Read how to choose and use strong passwords in Protectimus blog: http://bit.ly/2bsRpTY

Article Source: Three Simple Steps You Can Do Today to Enhance Your Information Security