Data Loss Due to Disk Defragmenter

Disk Defragmenter is the application in Windows operating system which permits rearranging files on contiguous storage locations, thus decreasing the effect of fragmentation which can cause file system to corrupt and create Data Recovery needs. The disk defragmentation technique helps increasing overall system performance.

In Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003, the process can be made to run early at boot process by scheduling. But the process can cause serious damages to the system software and data. Data may get lost or corrupt and thus require Data Recovery. The process runs early in the boot process before Autochk.exe may get complete and manipulate the volume blocks as one of the step. It may thus make the drive volume unmountable as a result. The manipulation is either done directly or using FSCTL_MOVE_FILE control code, which is an operation that relocates file virtual clusters from one logical cluster to another, though in the same volume.

Cause

The issue lies in the way Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) deals with saving the snapshot information in Windows Vista and Server 2003. VSS offers the backup infrastructure and mechanism so that point-in-time data copies can be made as shadow copies. In Windows Vista and Server 2003, the VolumeName\System Volume Information folder is used to store snapshot information, where files’ names have {3808876B-C176-4e48-B7AE-04046E6CC752}as GUID (Globally Unique Identifier). Data loss is encountered if defragmentation process changes the volume blocks which are used by these files.

Solution

In order to resolve this issue, we need to format the whole disk and reinstall Windows and recover the lost information using backup or Data Recovery Software. Formatting erases all the data entries from the file system and hence makes it inaccessible. Data Recovery procedures are based on the fact that data lies on the hard drive until it gets overwritten, so the data can be recovered by scanning the whole hard drive or partition using Data Recovery Software. It can extract all the lost data in a hierarchical format. We should group such files as per their type and importance.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery software is the finest Data Recovery application which uses the most powerful scanning algorithms to extract lost data. This Data Recovery Software is compatible with FAT16, FAT32, VFAT, NTFS and NTFS5 file systems. Equipped with interactive user interface, this Data Recovery utility can be used with Windows Vista, Server 2003, XP and 2000.