Did I tell you all about the hard drive I killed? It was the laptop I had for work, and it was almost 3 years old, but still worked great, despite me piling tons of crap on it daily. Oh sure, it was a little slower, and it took a while to boot up, but it kept chugging along like the little engine that could. Gosh, I sure loved that laptop.

It all ended one day when I went into the office, and my computer would no longer boot up. Luckily, I wasn’t working remotely that day, so I was able to walk over to our IT department and beg for help. Actually, it was more like a sprint, because I could NOT lose my hard drive. I had 3 years of pictures on it from my digital camera, as well as all sorts of work files that should have been stored on our share drive, but weren’t. It was a big lesson in backing files up for me, and thankfully, my favorite IT guy was able to save my rear. He busted his hump all day doing what he could to get my files and pictures, and he was able to recover a lot of it. Of course, he couldn’t recover it all….so boo hoo, and lesson learned.

Had I had more time to investigate a solution, I could have benefited from the technology of this hard drive data recovery company. They know exactly why I was so worried over losing 3 years of data, and they’ve come up with all sorts of tools to help recover those files. I even learned that if you hear clicking or sounds coming from your drive, you should STOP all recovery attempts, because it can cause more damage. My IT guy didn’t have access to technology like this, but my hard drive repair could have benefited from it! In addition, *I* could have benefited from the upfront, FLAT rate prices quoted. I lost a hard drive on a personal computer once, and I didn’t know how much it would cost until AFTER I handed over my PC. At that point, you’re at the mercy of the guy holding your computer & files hostage. It’s not a good position to negotiate from. If they don’t recover your data, you don’t pay!

If you don’t need their services yet, check out the data recovery resources blog anyway, because you’ll pick up helpful tips for the next time you’ve got a hard drive problem.