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A data centre aisle: perforated black server cabinets on the right, a blue mobile workstation cart with a monitor on the left, wire mesh partition at the back

FeaturedHard Drive2026-08-15

We Measured Which Recovery Tools Ship With Ubuntu, Fedora and Arch (2026 Data)

When a disk is failing, the question is not which tool is best but which one you can install right now. We queried the official APIs of three distributions for 12 recovery tools: Ubuntu 12/12, Fedora 9/12, Arch 8/12. Open data, DOI included.

3 min readRead the article

An open photo album showing two entirely blank pages on a white background

Hard Drive

2026-08-054 min

Repair a corrupted JPEG: what is actually recoverable, and the thumbnail almost nobody tries

Before paying for repair software, check three things: whether the file still starts with the JPEG marker, whether it is truncated rather than destroyed, and whether an embedded EXIF thumbnail survived. That last one saves photos people had given up on.

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A printed report showing a bar chart and a table of figures, with a scientific calculator resting on it beside a laptop keyboard

Hard Drive

2026-08-055 min

Repair a corrupted Excel file: the four free steps before you buy anything

Excel refuses to open your workbook. Before paying for repair software, check the version history, use Excel's own Open and Repair, and remember that an .xlsx is a ZIP archive you can open and inspect yourself.

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Hard Drive

2026-07-316 min

badblocks: The Disk Test Its Own Manual Tells You Not to Run

badblocks scans a device for bad blocks, and one of its options erases every byte on the disk. What the manual actually recommends, which mode is safe, and when testing is the wrong move entirely.

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Hard Drive

2026-07-307 min

smartctl and Bad Sectors: What It Really Tells You, and the 23% It Misses

smartctl reports bad sectors, it never repairs them. Which SMART attributes actually predict failure, how to read them, and why Backblaze found 23.3% of failed drives gave no warning at all.

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A Samsung Portable SSD external drive box held in two hands

Hard Drive

2026-07-035 min

Windows 11's Disk-Eating Bug (CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal): What It Is and How to Fix It

A Windows 11 bug let the CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal file balloon and never flush, eating tens of gigabytes of disk space. Here is what it is, how to tell if you are affected, and how to fix it with the official KB5095093 update.

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An opened hard disk drive showing its mirrored platter, central spindle hub, and actuator arm

Hard Drive

2026-06-297 min

GNU ddrescue: Clone a Failing Drive Before You Lose the Data (2026 Guide)

How to use GNU ddrescue to clone a dying hard drive to a healthy disk or image, why it beats dd, the exact commands with the mapfile, and how to recover files from the clone with testdisk and photorec.

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Hard Drive

2026-06-287 min

How to Recover a Deleted or Lost Partition (2026 Guide)

A partition that vanished - deleted, showing as unallocated or RAW - usually still holds your data. Learn why, the one rule that protects it, and how to recover a lost partition with recovery software, TestDisk, or a lab.

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Hard Drive

2026-06-264 min

Drive shows as RAW? Recover a RAW drive without formatting (2026)

Your drive shows as RAW and Windows asks to format it? The data is usually still there. How to recover a RAW drive without formatting - TestDisk, PhotoRec and recovery software, step by step, recovery first.

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A USB flash drive on a desk next to a computer

Hard Drive

2026-06-223 min

How to Fix a Corrupted USB Drive (and Recover the Files) 2026

A corrupted USB drive that won't open, shows as RAW or asks to be formatted is often fixable - and the files recoverable. Step-by-step: safe checks, chkdsk, drive letter and format fixes, and recovery software before you reformat.

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Hard Drive

2026-06-155 min

External Hard Drive Not Showing Up? Fix It Step by Step (2026)

Your external hard drive doesn't appear when you plug it in. Before assuming the worst, work through these checks - cable and port, power, drive letter, Disk Management on Windows and Disk Utility on Mac - and know when it's a hardware failure that needs recovery.

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Hard Drive

2026-06-145 min

What Is a NAS? Network-Attached Storage Explained (2026)

A NAS is a small storage server on your own network - several disks, often in RAID, that every device can reach for backups, files and media. What a NAS is, how it works, what it's for, and the honest truth: RAID is not a backup.

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A stack of hard disk drives, one showing its circuit board

Hard Drive

2026-06-144 min

What Is a Hard Drive? How HDDs Store Your Data (2026)

A hard drive (HDD) stores data magnetically on spinning platters read by a moving head. What a hard drive is, how it works, its parts, how it differs from an SSD, why it fails - and what that means for recovering your data.

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