Developing a method for recovering data on storage media

Abstract

Aim. The development of digital technology brings about the need to digitize data with their subsequent storage on digital media. Regardless of how information is stored, it is of value and its loss may cause harm. There are a number of preventive measures (hardware and logical redundancy of various types) to prevent such loss. Should the preventive measures – due to certain reasons and circumstances – fail to protect the data and access to the latter was lost, it must be recovered in a complete and timely manner. In this context, a need arises for a data recovery algorithm that would take into account the hardware features of today’s storage media, their logical structure, as well as the specificity of the stored data. Methods. There are two approaches to information recovery, i.e., all-purpose and personal. The all-purpose approach involves using a minimal number of programs and tools that work with all items. The personal approach implies a large number of programs and tools that address specific issues associated with the loss of access to information. That enables a faster, higher-quality recovery as compared to the all-purpose approach. Additionally, personal programs are normally cheaper than all-purpose software. All-purpose information recovery tools do not provide quality results when applied to large numbers of failure scenarios. A single utility may not be enough for resolving all issues caused by an incident. A readily available template for obtaining an acceptable result does not exist either. Aside from personal software, there are other alternatives to the all-purpose approach, i.e., the manual data recovery programs and hardware and software systems. In cases of minor logical faults (master boot record corruption) manual data recovery software is used. If a drive is affected by critical hardware issues, hardware and software systems are used. Results. A method of recovering data on storage media of various types was created. It includes an all-purpose and a personal approaches to information recovery, use of software for manual data recovery, as well as hardware and software systems. The method allows recovering data of popular extensions from common file systems and storage media. Compatibility with RAID arrays of all levels is provided. Programs were selected out of eight sets using the analytic hierarchy process with the priority given to the performance criterion. The method was submitted to a number of tests. Testing involved emulation of incidents associated with the loss of access to data. The cost of eliminating various incidents using the developed methodology is estimated. Conclusions. Based on the obtained test results, conclusions are set forth regarding the efficiency of the personal approach to information recovery.