Is There a Way to Recover FAT/MFT Files?

Computers have become an inseparable part of our lives today. Every aspect of our day-to-day activities on the personal and professional front are linked with technology. We deal with enormous amount of data each day in some way or the other. This data is stored in digital format and is prone to damage and loss due to a variety of reasons. Accidental deletion on our part, virus attack, or FAT/MFT corruption are few of the prominent reasons of data loss today. However, data recovery in a majority of circumstances is possible, if the actual cause is known and suitable tools are used.

NTFS is a widely used file system in Windows operating system. It has a database or table, MFT (Master File Table), which stores important file entries such as- name, contents, permissions, and directory information of the NTFS. It is actually an index to the file system, which is vital to the better performance of computer. Any problem with this index can lead to severe consequences, such as data loss.

A virus attack, issues with operating system, or any other damage to file system might lead to the corruption of data in MFT. Due to this, it becomes difficult for the OS to locate data on the NTFS partition, which can further affect data security.

But nowadays, many third party data recovery utilities are available, which can successfully repair the corrupted FAT/MFT files and revive the damaged data. However, the effectiveness of post-loss data recovery tools is doubtful, as they can never ensure 100% data revival in many cases. Moreover, a user must know the actual cause of data loss to be able to use them to their advantage, which is not possible at all times. Therefore, prevention is always believed to be better than cure.

Data loss prevention applications are better off in handling permanent data loss as compared to many post loss recovery software. They equip you to face an unfortunate event, much before you actually face it. Pre-installing a prevention software will make your system take auto-backups at regular intervals, thereby arming you to avoid data loss.