These tips come courtesy of Gnomie John Christopher, Data Recovery Engineer for DriveSavers.

1. If your hard drive emits any unusual noises (clicking, grinding or metal scraping), turn it off immediately! Shut down the computer to avoid further damage to the drive and its data. This symptom typically indicates a head crash that can destroy your data. Hard drives spin with extreme speed - from 7,200 to 15,000 revolutions per minute - therefore extensive damage can occur in a short period of time. Contact [someone like] DriveSavers immediately, as this situation demands professional recovery in a Cleanroom environment.

2. If your drive has crashed and you cannot startup, you might be able to salvage data on your own using a disk utility program. While most disk utilities provide excellent preventative maintenance by fixing minor problems, they can render data unrecoverable in the event of extreme corruption.

3. If your drive boots up in safe mode or DOS, you might be able to copy just the critical data to another storage device (USB, FireWire, etc.) so try to have one available.

4. It a good idea to make an image copy of the crashed drive BEFORE using utility software. There are a number of programs to to do this (Symantec Norton Ghost, Paragon Drive Backup, etc.). Once a drive has been “cloned” you may safely run utility software and resurrect your drive.

5. Some disk utility programs allow to save an “undo” file, a record of the changes the utility has made to your drive, in the event it does not correct your problem. This is also beneficial if you have to send the drive in for data recovery you can include the UnDo file along with your drive to help improve the odds for a successful recovery. DriveSavers suggests that you do NOT use a utility program if it does not allow you to save an “undo” file of the repairs it makes.

6. If data is absolutely critical, and you have no other option or backup available, do NOT attempt recovery on your own. Your best bet is to send it to a professional data recovery company that is qualified and highly experienced in getting back your data. DriveSavers has twenty years experience as a pioneer in the field of data recovery. We use our own proprietary hardware and software to achieve an average success rate of 90%.