With the increasing dependency on the computer, we have moved to a new world where we store almost anything from everything which can be either personal or official on our system. Since computer stores our data we often sit back and relax. But when any kind of data corruption occurs on our system we lose our data. Here in this blog we are going to discuss everything about data corruption and how to prevent our system from getting prevented.
What is Data Corruption?
Data corruption is a kind of error or bug generated due to improper written code which ultimately results in damaging or losing our data. This loss of data can be attributed to anyone human, hardware or software.
How to know that data is corrupted?
There are many symptoms of data corruption out of which some are given here to give a brief look of what kind of errors generated by systems if the data gets corrupted:
- ‘Invalid file format’ error generates when you open the file.
- File names are changed automatically and it includes some gibberish characters.
- Files and Folders are misplaced or lost.
- Changes in the attributes of the concerned file.
- System works slow and often hangs or crashes.
- Performance of system gets slowed even there is no such work done on it.
Causes of Data Corruption:
There are many reasons due to which such kind of errors occurs. Here we are explaining the some reasons in brief:
- Improper shut down which happens due to user’s actions or sometimes because of power failure results in losing file if it was not saved. It also hampers the rebooting of your system when you start it the next time which ultimately results in corruption of data.
- Malwares and viruses are programs which are designed to damage a particular system. Hence when such things enter into your computer through internet or other externally connected devices slows down your system as they execute their individual processes during the time.
- At times you are tempted to download particular software which may be looking helpful to you but such poorly written softwares when downloaded may result in causing significant data corruption. The problem turns severe when the program has made changes to your system which in turn prohibits you from removing it.
- Any kind of hardware related problem like physical damage to your hard disk could ultimately affect the data which is stored in it. Bad sector problem in one such physical damage to hard disk because of which you are not allowed to access the data of your drive.
- It has been found that users disconnect external storage devices from the system without properly disconnecting it from the system. When any device is removed in this way, the process which was running on back disrupts suddenly and hence there arises the probability of data corruption or loss.
Measures to prevent data corruption:
System when handled properly and used with care could decrease such cases of data corruption. There are some other manual and self-help methods which can be followed to prevent the data corruption. Some of them are described here:
- Keep Regular Backup: The most important method is keeping regular backup strategies as this is the only way which will help you to fight against data corruption. Make it a habit to always backup your work which you have done so that even if any data disastrous situation occurs, you have backup on which you can totally rely.
- Regular troubleshoot: Whenever you face any error which shows symptoms of data corruption then perform a basic troubleshoot on your system. This troubleshooting will not only give you more complete detail of the error, if in case it is minor one then it resolves it completely. So troubleshooting at regular intervals will make you aware about the current status of your system.
- Upgrade your anti-virus program regularly: As viruses often causes damage to your system so it is always advised to use a reliable anti-virus program. Such program scans and keeps a record of your all kind of activities which have been performed while downloading software, add-in or transferring files. There are various updates available to such programs at regular interval so to have a proper functioning of them keep then updated.
- Keep your data safe: It is also advised to use passwords and other security measures while saving your file. This will protect your file from being attacked by viruses. You can add passwords to your files, folders, or to the whole system.
- Use professional tool to recover your data: If any kind of data corruption happens to your system, use professional Windows data recovery tool which is available in plenty on internet in order to recover your data back. Search for the best tool and employ it to get back your data as these tools are designed specifically for such jobs only.
