

Secondly, reading from a disk image is much faster than attempting to read from a faulty hard disk drive. Cloning a disk performs damage control, putting an end to any further degradation or loss of data. First and foremost, you don't cause any further damage to the original hard disk. Then, you would perform your intensive data recovery operations on the disk image, rather than the original disk. Your first step when attempting to recover data from a damaged disk is to use the Imaging module of R-Studio to clone the disk. Creating a disk image is much less invasive than reading/writing to a disk normally, and you only have to do it once. You'd avoid this situation in the same way that you'd avoid damaging the original Declaration of Independence while studying it: make a duplicate. So, if you open the file to preview its contents and it becomes irrecoverably damaged thereafter, you've missed your opportunity. That means you only get one chance to recover the file. When there is a physical defect in your hard drive, say with the read/write arm, it usually means that each time you read or write to a sector, it destroys it. Instead, it's just as prudent to make a copy of the document and study that. That's because every time you fold or unfold the document, you are degrading its integrity and destroying irrecoverable bits of history. It's important to study the contents of the document, but it doesn't make sense to roll out a 300+ year old piece of historical parchment onto your desk to do so. Think of your hard drive like the original Declaration of Independence. When your hard drive becomes corrupted or physically damaged, every action you perform on it can cause the loss of more data. Likewise, data recovery technicians and antique restoration professionals share a best practice for achieving this objective: handle the delicate object as little as possible. The goal is to recover as much valuable information as possible while keeping the original source material intact. The job of a technician tasked with recovering data from a heavily damaged disk is similar to that of a restoration expert working on an antique or historical document.
