Everyone knows that we are supposed to backup our data but too many of us ignore that because we don’t think it will happen to us.

Truth is, hard drives are going to fail.  They will, they will they will.  I’m telling you that the hard drive on the computer you are on right now is going to die.  If you have important data on it that is not backed up stop reading this and back it up right now.  I’m not kidding.  Do it now.  Not later, now.  It may save you and you might just be thanking me in your head down the road.

I have hard drives that are now probably 14 or 15 years old that I plug in a couple of times a year just to keep them running and they still work fine.  But you see the problem there?  If you build a drive that lasts that long your not going to sell very many.  They make them cheaper now because it is more cost effective and it builds in certain death.  And that is why there is a whole industry dedicated to data backup and recovery.

Your drive is going to die and you have to be prepared for it but if you didn’t and now you are in a jamb I can help you with some data recovery as long as the drive is still spinning.  If the motor is dead that needs to go to a higher level technician where they physically take the drive apart and I have contacts with the best in the business.  But if your windows is acting up or your dive is throwing errors STOP trying to mess with it!  It is dying and the more you beat it up the less chance there is I can get your data off of it inexpensively.  As soon as you have a problem call me and I’ll get you taken care of.

HARD DRIVE 101

WHAT TO DO IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY!

1. STOP – stop doing whatever you are doing.  If your hard drive is failing it only has so much life left in it and if you keep rebooting your computer and trying to fix it yourself you are most likely going to kill it for good.  When a drive is dying the fix is REPLACE THE DRIVE.  There is no other fix.

2. If you can, back up your data immediately and either replace the drive or call a professional to do so.  The drive replacement isn’t all that hard it is putting the operating system back on and getting all the proper drivers and such that requires a professional.

3. If you can’t get the machine to boot anymore just listen to hear if the hard drive spinning.  Rest your ear on the case if you have to but it is the only physically spinning part in a computer other than the fans.  If it is running you’ll hear it.  If it isn’t you either have to count that data as lost or your are in for one heck of a recovery bill.  They physically have to take the drive apart in a clean environment.  Meaning like no dust at all.  That usually starts at $600 or so and depending on how much data it goes up from there.

4. If the drive is spinning but won’t boot I can frequently get the data off the drive for you using some of the tools I have.  I won’t promise anything but I won’t charge you an arm and a leg either.  I charge $100 to hook the drive up and tell you what I can recover.  If the stuff you want is assessable I’ll get it back for you and I charge $300.  Half of going to a large corporate organization to just look at it.  I’ll then help you put together a good backup plan.

But the best solution is to just back up your data.