It was a dreary night, and there was a plut, plut, plut, plut ... wait, it was not coming from outside, but instead from the computer at the writer's desk, making repetitive clicking noises.  Unfortunately, the blue screen was reporting that Windows had experienced a system error, and the document that the writer was working on was unfortunately not saved.  What to do.

Well, first, don't panic Alabama.  There's help on the way for any type of hard drive failure, thanks to millions of dollars of research into data recovery... and NO thanks to the manufacturers of the drives, which do not generally provide the information needed, and which do not generally provide their own in-house data recovery services, for legal reasons, of course.

So, now there's a repetitive clicking noise emanating from the computer, and ionized air is wafting up towards the window, and speaking of broken Windows, it's time to turn that computer off and take it apart.

Hopefully the burnt electronics smell does not get too strong once the screws are off the machine and the sides slide away to reveal the hard drive, which will generally be made by Seagate (if you're lucky), Western Digital, Fujitsu, Maxtor, Quantum, or some other obscure large manufacturer of hard drives.

Unscrew the drive from the machine, detach any cables, and put it on a desk.

Now, take a deep breath, because we're about to tell you what to do.

Here's what to do.

Realize that years and years of your information may have disappeared, and may be permanently lost.  Oh - make sure you sit down before you realize that - and have some water or juice nearby.  Breath slowly, and try to relax, and if it's working, then maybe the situation is not too serious. 

But if it's not working - then try to think of the most recent time that the data was copied to another place.... were emails CCd to another person?  Was there a recent backup?

If four letter words keep coming to mind and you are hoping that the Almighty will spare you and  if you are vaguely wondering if you should not have looked in a certain way at a certain person the other day and whether this is some sort of punishment or lesson - realize that some things are meant to be mysterious, and hard drive recovery is one of those things.

Okay - stop crying. Hard drive crash situations tend to be pretty overwhelming, and we apologize if we made it slightly worse, but we'd like to help make it better.  As the only company in the area offering a free evaluation of the drive, we might be able to get your data back, using the best and most technologically advanced techniques known... Or at least we like to think so.