After a hard drive crash, a lot of users try to restore their own data. This can be risky, as the general computer owner has neither the skill nor the experience to properly and thoroughly recover their own hard drives. Sometimes faulty recovery procedures can cause more problems than they solve, causing your data to become completely unrecoverable. This can result in more lost time and money.

A data recovery specialist can be of great assistance in any type of data loss. Even the smallest problem can be aggravated by trying the "do-it-yourself" fix by misdiagnosing the problem or making errors during the actual recovery process. Trying to recover data from a physically malfunctioning drive can be a mistake and can permanently cause the loss of your important files due to additional damage to the equipment.

When you turn on your computer do you get an error stating that there was no hard drive found? Does the computer recognize the drive but it still won't boot? A data recovery specialist can correctly determine if the problem is physical or logical, and determine the appropriate treatment. A skilled specialist can even reassemble the binary code and restore your files piece by piece. Depending on the type of damage and the specific symptoms, actual physical inspection might be required. It's even possible that an online diagnosis is possible, there are now a variety of virtual solutions available so that you can stay in control of your data at all times. These fixes, when they work, are very quick and convenient.

The main thing to remember though is that using inexperienced or untrained personnel can cause irreparable damage to your computer or files. At the first sign of trouble, stop using your computer, don't try to reformat your drive, and don't install any new software. Contract a data recovery technician and get some advice as to what the proper steps to save your data and recover your system should be. As with all equipment repairs, be sure to ask the technician for a full evaluation of the damage before deciding on a course of action. You should also ask for a written quote showing exactly what services will be performed, how much the estimated repair cost will be, an approximate time frame for how long the repair will take, and if needed a confidentiality agreement safeguarding the contents of your files. Any reputable data recovery specialist will be willing to provide you with these documents with no trouble.

If sometime in the past you have suffered from a crash or corruption of your hard drive, you probably still have feelings of frustration about it. You had someone reinstall Windows for you, or you did it yourself, and you found that most of the programs that you were using every day were missing. You expected your data files to be gone, and you are still angry with yourself for not backing them up. You had to use another computer and go to several websites to download drivers to a cd-rw to reinstall all the devices windows didn't find. It sure seems like there should be a better way.

Well, if you own a computer manufactured by Hewlett-Packard, you can find all the "stuff" that came with your computer in one place, the Recovery Disc that shipped with your system. Contained on this disc is a complete reinstallation image of your machine that will restore it to the configuration it was in when you first received it. This disc obviously won't contain any of your data, but it makes recovery of everything else on your system very easy. Using this disc will reinstall the Windows OS, all of your device drivers, and all program files that originally shipped with your system from the factory.

It is very important to understand that your recovery disk is just for reinstallation of the operating system. It doesn't recover data in the traditional sense. You still need to regularly backup your files to prevent their loss. As I mentioned above, this restores your machine to just how it was when you first received it.

Recently, HP abandoned the use of recovery discs in favor of a partition on the hard drive that can be used to recover the machine. This was probably a cost cutting measure. Under increasing criticism from angry customers, HP has begun sending out recovery discs to customers that request it. A recovery partition is a good idea until you have to replace the hard drive, since the partition won't be on the new drive, you won't be able to recover the system without a recovery disc.

Your HP Recovery Disc should be kept in a safe place; it should be implemented in your disaster recovery program. It will give you a good jump start in restoring your machine quickly and correctly.