Well, well, hard drive management and recovery are topics in my mind these days. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I recently had to reformat THREE computers in the past THREE MONTHS. Ugh, what a chore! In one reformat, I lost some data. *bangs head* I’ve been working on redoing the documents that I lost… I thought I had saved it on an external hard drive for safe-keeping, but it must have slipped through the cracks. Ugh ugh! That’s the tough part about using external hard drives– I’m never 100% sure that I have included everything when I copy stuff over. I tried using a sync software program, but that crashed, so I ditched it. I’m just grateful I didn’t have a dead hard drive on my hands. And in another chain of events, quite a few of my friends have had a flurry of hard drive problems and deaths. Always so sad. 
Especially when you don’t backup your data!!
One thing you can do if you have important data on your dead hard drive is to remove the drive from your computer and place it in a Ziploc bag. Then, place the drive in the freezer. I have actually heard that this works! You can send the hard drive to a Hard Drive Recovery company, where there’s a slightly better chance of recovering your data. Although, hard drive repair is getting more sophisticated, so there’s a chance you don’t have to put your hard drive in deep freeze. 
There are some good hard drive recovery companies out there, certainly– one thing to look for is good reviews, and if the company is an manufacturer authorized data recovery company. Some companies, like DTI Data (dtidata.com) offer a data recovery guarantee– in other words, they will not charge you unless some data is recovered on all single hard drive recoveries (unless you have previously sent the drive to be opened elsewhere, of course). That is a nice guarantee, as it ensures that something will be recovered. It’s an attractive guarantee. You want to be sure that your hard drive will be in good hands!
Plus, DTI Data offer free upfront flate-rate price quotes on all HD data recovery- very nice! They are also one of the very few companies in the United States that maintain a “class 100″ clean room; it’s a biometrically-secure clean room where they do all the recovery work. This ensures that any possible data can be recovered without corruption.
Of course, nothing beats BACKING UP your data on a regular basis. You DO back up your data, don’t you? You can either use an external hard drive or use an online service. Some services are free, some charge monthly or yearly. I like free. 
DTI Data Recovery has a very nice backup solution, a Remote Restore Point MFT Save– and it’s FREE! You basically upload your NTFS Master File Table Record to DTI Data’s servers. It’s a full-version free program (freeware) and you can read more about it by clicking the link to their website.
It is very important to back up your data regularly and to have a plan in case something happens to your hard drive. More and more of us are digitizing our lives– records, documents, photos, videos, emails…. don’t be careless with this stuff! Hard drives fail. Be sure you back up and that you have a contingency plan. Check out DTI Data for their free quotes and more information.
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