Defragmenting (or defragging) your hard drive can improve performance by reorganizing data. Here’s how it works: As your hard drive operates, it constantly writes and deletes files. A single file might be written to two completely different areas of the...

The Microsoft Surface is a popular series of touchscreen-based devices. Some models boast a terabyte of data storage — however, if you open up your Surface Pro (we do not recommend doing so), you won’t see anything that looks like...

With help from Datarecovery.com, an award-winning filmmaker and television producer has digitized some of his earliest work — including a rare 1979 interview with Chris Frantz, then-drummer for the Talking Heads. Greg Crutcher has had a storied career, serving as...

ESXiArgs is ransomware that encrypts VMware ESXi virtual machines and demands payments via cryptocurrency. The attackers reveal the infection with a ransom message demanding payment. Here’s a typical example of a ransom: Security Alert!!!We hacked your company successfully All...

The Windows Management Instrumentation Command-Line Utility (WMIC) is a simple tool that allows users to manage their Windows operating system.It runs through the Command Prompt and can access information from Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART), a monitoring system...

Hard drive crashes remain a leading cause of data loss, and while solid-state drives (SSDs) offer better performance and (arguably) better reliability, they’re still a single point of failure.  If an HDD or SSD fails, you lose data — unless...

If you’ve got a large number of U-Matic cassettes, digitization is essential. Like all analog formats, Sony U-Matic tapes degrade over time. Oxidation, which reduces the quality of recorded images and audio, can set in within a few years, though...

Hard drives contain actuator heads that float just above the surface of the platters (discs coated in magnetic material that stores data).  When the actuator heads fail, data is inaccessible — and in many cases, the heads need to be...

If you’re investing in cryptocurrencies, you actually need to be able to access your assets in order to trade them. To that end, you can either store your crypto on your computer in a wallet or use a cryptocurrency exchange....

Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other major cryptocurrencies seem to be bouncing back from the “crypto winter” bear market.  At the time of writing, 1 bitcoin (BTC) was valued at around $21,290, a dramatic increase from its recent low of $15,760 on...