Data Recovery: What to Do After a Hard Drive Crash

Computer hard drive crashes can be catastrophic. They can range in scope from a few corrupted files to the whole enchilada; often the most costly casualty being lost, and often irreplaceable, data. Fortunately, if you find yourself in this disastrous dilemma, there's hope, here are some steps that can help get your data back:

Data Recovery Step #1: Buy a New Hard Drive

When you lose data during a hard drive crash, it typically means your hard drive—at least in part—is trashed. Moreover, although it's often possible to get some hard drives working again, it's best to start fresh with a new, more reliable hard drive, rather than continue risking more data loss.

Data Recovery Step #2: Create "Master" and "Slave" Drives

Once you've purchased and installed your new hard drive, you'll want to reload your operating system onto it. The next step is to install your new drive as your master (or primary) hard drive and reassign your original hard drive as a slave (or secondary) drive-this allows you to run your computer from your new hard drive, but still gives you access to your original.

Data Recovery Step #3: Attempt to Recover Lost Data

After you have your computer up and running, you can attempt to recover the data off your slave drive by using data recovery software. This software is designed to recover data that's been deleted during a crash or was stored in sectors of a hard drive that have become damaged.

Although the computer novice may require help performing some of the aforementioned steps, doing so can help you turn a moment of total, data-loss devastation into pure, data-recovery delight.