Citizens of Alpha....hear me out! This could happen to you!.....
They were ready to upgrade their computer hardware, and in preparation for this, they started moving all their documents to one location and deleting duplicates. Best guess, is that an employee found the A5 data directory, and not knowing what the file extensions were (or possibly just the folder), deleted the database and emptied the recycle bin.
As it turns out, they had no reports, one simple form, and just a flat table. No operations. Not a big deal, if we could just get back the dbf.
So, while at the site, I tried to recover the deleted file, but with limited tools there, and little time that day, they had me take it to a local data recovery firm (I've used other recovery firms s in the past when a drive had physically failed, but was unfamiliar with this firm). The drive was physically OK, just looking for 1 deleted database. That firm had it for a week, but could only find some really old data on the hard drive. I had given them a structure, and old and new unique name data that should have allowed them to find the data, but they did not.
So I got the drive back, and went at it myself. I went through the drive, looking for the database structure, which I found. I then searched for data record structures that matched the dbf structure using regex and other specially coded xbasic routines to find the data and create records. When I was done, I recovered the approximately 4000 records, of which 5 looked as if it they were messed up a bit.
So what do we learn from this?
I have since upgraded their Alpha 5, added proper backup and they hopefully will be back in business.
Well, let me tell you of the story of a man named Charley
(name might have been changed to protect the person)
on a tragic and fateful day.
He put dollars in his pocket, never listened to his consultant,
and never backed up at all!!!
This is the story of a small office, that occasionally called me to provide IT services. They were using Alpha 5 v 4, set up by a part time employee a long time ago (circa 1998). But I was never called to look at the computer that housed the database or about Alpha 5, but was there to help with anti-virus, networking and email problems they've had. (name might have been changed to protect the person)
on a tragic and fateful day.
He put dollars in his pocket, never listened to his consultant,
and never backed up at all!!!
They were ready to upgrade their computer hardware, and in preparation for this, they started moving all their documents to one location and deleting duplicates. Best guess, is that an employee found the A5 data directory, and not knowing what the file extensions were (or possibly just the folder), deleted the database and emptied the recycle bin.
As it turns out, they had no reports, one simple form, and just a flat table. No operations. Not a big deal, if we could just get back the dbf.
So, while at the site, I tried to recover the deleted file, but with limited tools there, and little time that day, they had me take it to a local data recovery firm (I've used other recovery firms s in the past when a drive had physically failed, but was unfamiliar with this firm). The drive was physically OK, just looking for 1 deleted database. That firm had it for a week, but could only find some really old data on the hard drive. I had given them a structure, and old and new unique name data that should have allowed them to find the data, but they did not.
So I got the drive back, and went at it myself. I went through the drive, looking for the database structure, which I found. I then searched for data record structures that matched the dbf structure using regex and other specially coded xbasic routines to find the data and create records. When I was done, I recovered the approximately 4000 records, of which 5 looked as if it they were messed up a bit.
So what do we learn from this?
- Backup, Backup, Backup. Make sure your client backs-up, at least some times. Force the issue... (easier said than done)
- Not all recovery firms are qualified.
- If one or more fields create an easy pattern that would only be in a record at a fixed position, it would allow easier recovery of lost drive data. E.g. you could have a field with data like qqq1234, it would be easy to locate records in the drive sectors.
I have since upgraded their Alpha 5, added proper backup and they hopefully will be back in business.
Comment