Hard Drive Crash Recovery
Get Your Data Back
All kinds of things can happen to a hard drive, but the most common is the simple crash. Why? Because you have disks spinning at thousands of revolutions per minute just a few microns of an inch above a metal arm. Any mechanical failure is going to be similar to scraping the surface with a knife. Not to mention, hard drives don't just fail because of moving parts. As a former worker in a factory where disk drive circuit boards were made, I can attest to the fact that the QC process was not only lacking, but at one point actively discoraged. Not only did we have people telling us not to bother soldering circuits that were 25% attached, we also were encouraged to spend less time auditing the work because the shipment was expected at the factory where the circuit board was attached to the disks. We actually had a guy standing there asking us when the circuit boards would be done, and encouraging us to pack them up without close inspection. This is not what you want to hear when you buy a hard drive, but it is a fact.
A common expression in the IT crowd is that it "it isn't a question of whether a drive will crash, but when." All systems wear out eventually, so you are wise to backup your hard drive as often as possible. Naturally, the drive will fail in between backups, which is why you are looking for crash recovery. You can get everything from forensic recovery which is done at the magnetic level, to simple drive repair, and sometimes it is as simple as saying a few magic words and getting your data before the drive totally fails. There are a lot of hard drive and file recovery tools out there, but you need to go with one that works, which is where the professional services come in. Naturally, these services can be expensive, but the value of your data can be priceless. Professional hard drive data recovery practicioners can get data from drives that were damaged in fires, floods, and falls. (If you don't know what constitutes a fall, leave your laptop alone in a room with a kid under the age of 10, and he will tell you that it "fell.") In the case of a drive crash, these professionals should have an easier time because they can usually fix the drive or transplant the disks into another drive body, copy the data, and then send you a new drive. Sometimes they can even get accidentally deleted data back as well.
Notes and Special Information
Special note: As Mr. Scott would say, "I can't work miracles." Sometimes your hard drive is destroyed beyond today's technology. If so, save the drive in the hopes that someday it will be fixable.