If you have a computer that simply will not turn one, one of the most common causes is a failed hard-drive. Since hard-drives are moving parts, they fail much more often than their solid state counterparts. Many people simply accept that their data is gone forever and have their system repaired, but a hard-drive that won’t boot isn’t necessarily mean that your data is non-recoverable.

There are a number of harddrive repair services, but the first thing that you should go is give Spinrite a try. This is a special disk developed by Gibson Research Corporation (GRC) that will work with your hard-drive on a very low level and attempt to recover the lost data. Often Spinrite will repair bad-sectors and other problems on the disk and allow you to boot back into your operating system to recover your files before replacing the drive. This will avoid the need to use any data recovery services.

If you can’t boot into the drive after using Spinrite or reading the drive from another computer, you can then consider professional Hard Drive Recovery services or RAID Data Recovery services if you have a raid setup. You should only consider this if you have business or personal data that has a value of several thousands of dollars to you. The price of these services will vary dramatically from company to company, so you should contact a number of companies to get quotes. Most of these companies offer no guarantees as to whether or not they can get the data off the drive, primarily because some hard-drives are simply dead.

Once you get yourself back up and running, get yourself setup with an online backup service such as Carbonite or Mozy to prevent yourself from ever having to deal with the situation of losing data on a hard-drive again. These services are very inexpensive and sometimes free for personal use. These solutions are much better than using backup disks or saving to another drive, because your information is secure even if your home burns down or there’s a local natural disaster that destroys your home. They are also automated, so that you don’t have to remember to manually backup your data.

At the end of the day, you have a good chance of getting your data back if you use the right tools and services, but the best way to keep your data safe is an ounce of protection using good automated backup services.