If you find yourself looking at a corrupt or seemingly dead hard drive and you’re very afraid that you could potentially lose all of your data, rest easy: this happens to hundreds of people everyday. You are also quite aware of hard drive recovery cost ranges, and it’s looking a little frightening if you have to go down the physical recovery path. The good news: for many of them it is not such a big deal.

Hard drive failure recovery can be tricky.
Hard drive failure recovery can involve messages like this.

Yes, you may have a lot of very important files: that sales presentation that is due in two days, maybe your year-end tax accounting files that will keep you from a messy IRS audit, or maybe just those special vacation photos that you just forgot to back up. Not to mention the important e-mails, your work calendar, and all the other critical stuff that is stored on your hard drive. But don’t worry, because it is always possible to get hard drive failure recovery.

But there are those people that decide to take the rescue of their failed hard drive into their own hands. And although it may not have been such a huge problem at the start, suddenly hard drive failure recovery becomes impossible. Here are three common user mistakes that you should avoid if you truly value what is on your currently damaged hard disk.

1. Using Bad Data Recovery Software For Hard Drive Failure Recovery

It only makes sense: whenever we have some kind of a hard drive problem our first inclination is to go to Google and attempt to solve the problem with a search. The unfortunate problem with this when you have a hard drive failure is that frequently a lot of the searches will bring up data recovery software companies. Now, certainly there are good data recovery software products out there, but unfortunately, there are a lot more that products out there that can actually damage the files on your drive.

What’s more, even the best data recovery software products out there typically cannot do very much if you have a physically broken hard disk. In fact, many people end up damaging the data left on the drive because they attempt to install software products on the drive.

And as a final note on this, remember that if your operating system cannot access your failed hard drive, how is it going to be possible that a software product that you installed on top of the operating system is going to access it?

Our advice is to always to save yourself a lot of time and money and simply avoid these products. At least, until you get the opinion of a professional data recovery technician.

 2. Calling For Computer Repair

We certainly have no issue with people calling for help when they find themselves in a situation in which they need hard drive failure recovery. In fact, we always recommend that people with hard drive repair needs contact us immediately.

The problem here is that many people do not actually contact a professional hard drive recovery company, and instead contact a computer repair company. These are obviously very different kinds of services, and the degree of success recovering data from hard drives is like night and day.

In fact, taking a failed hard drive to a computer repair technician is like taking an airplane engine to a quickie lube shop: you are simply not going to get the kind of help you are looking for, although you may find yourself with a pretty big bill afterwards.

Basically, when you have a damaged hard drive that requires hard drive recovery, you need to be dealing with somebody who is an expert in the field. This means a company that has a data recovery clean room, has expertise in not only Windows, but Mac data recovery, and deals with companies and individuals with data specific problems on a daily basis.

Look familiar? We hope not!

As a final note, this is not to say that many computer repair shops will not offer you data recovery services. In fact, some of them may sound very professional and give you a very good idea of how the recovery process works. To those shops, we suggest you ask this question:

“€œWhat class is your data recovery clean room?”

If there is any hesitation at all, you need to understand that this company does not actually provide the data recovery service, but instead probably outsourcing the service to a company just like Hard Drive Recovery Group. What this means to you is that you are probably going to be spending anywhere from 10 to 25% more than if you would’ve just dealt with a data recovery company directly, and it may take up to a week or two longer because of the fact that the service has been outsourced.

Remember that it’s always better to deal directly, especially when it comes to data recovery services.

3. Going The YouTube Route

Hey. We all understand the power of video. When somebody demonstrate how to do something using a video on YouTube, it can seem like it is a lot easier than you originally thought. And in many cases, such as with a hobby like origami, or model building or replacing your graphics card, YouTube is a fantastic thing. The reason for this of course is that if you are doing any of these activities, you are not actually putting anything at risk. Yes, you may not be as great at performing these activities as you thought you might be, but that’s really a pride thing that we all have to deal with. No harm, no foul.

The difference here is that when it comes to hard drive failure recovery, there is a lot at risk. So even though there seems to be a lot of videos available showing you specifically how to repair your hard drive, you should always look at every one of these as a potentially dangerous piece of education. If you want good education about hard drive failure, why not just check Wikipedia?

Yes, it is important to be always learning. We are in an information-based economy, and the more you know, the better off you will do. But when it comes to data recovery, you have to recognize that there is a lot of professional expertise and equipment involved. What’s more, the people who create these ‘how to fix your hard drive’€ videos typically have some kind of agenda, such as to sell you a data recovery software product, or perhaps a hard drive circuit board. The hilarity of a hard drive circuit board replacement in the hands of an amateur is unmistakable. It’s almost a guaranteed fail.

But most importantly, if you follow their advice and damage your hard drive badly enough that a professional hard drive recovery company simply cannot recover your files, what do you do then? Sure, you could complain to the video creator that what he put on YouTube was crappy advice and that you ended up losing all of your business files, but what does he care?

In the end, there is a lot of bad advice on the Internet, and you have to remember that when it comes to very precise devices like hard drives, it is always a good idea to get help from a company that knows what they are doing.

Each day, we talked to at least five people who have attempted to recover their own hard drives and have failed. Like, miserably.

Basically, you are taking a huge risk if you bank on do-it-yourself hard drive recovery. The risk is that you could potentially lose ALL of your data, the reward only that you may save a bit of scratch.

Something important to remember is that data recovery companies like Hard Drive Recovery Group typically offer free technical support for pretty much anyone with a hard drive issue. Any hard drive recovery company worth its salt is going to want to give you some advice so that your data is kept safe. All you have to do is reach out and contact a professional. It really is as easy as picking up the phone.

But most importantly, it is a virtual guarantee that your data will be safe. And isn’t that what we all want?