Get the equipment to recover deleted data

No matter what path you choose, certain investments in equipment are wise for disaster data recovery.

I recommend: The best course, especially if your data is your business - pictures, videos, documents - is to buy sufficient convenient storage. A USB (universal serial bus) external hard drive is sufficient to back up important data files. Find them for under $80 at CompUSA, Staples, or another computer equipment store. If your data is a record of your business - accounting records, Quicken files, spreadsheets - get at least a USB 2.0 flash drive from Staples, CompUSA, or even your local Wal-Mart. Download Knoppix from Knopper.net to enable you to recover data from the hard drive if the operating system is disabled.

Avoid loss by backing up data, which can assist in data recovery

For the most insurance (best data recovery), back up the hard drive frequently, even every night.

I recommend: Install the backup utility that comes with Windows XP. You can schedule backups of designated files to your external hard drive at any intervals you choose – but if you schedule it at the end of the day, you will never be missing more than a couple of hours of data input. Recovery will consist of re-installing your applications to the new hard disk and restoring your data. Make the backup at least weekly, and make sure you leave the computer on at the scheduled time! If you don't have XP or would prefer another external backup option, consider an online backup service like Xdrive or Carbonite. Carbonite is attractive because it backs up your system automatically.

For less robust disaster recovery systems, look into your options

For a little less insurance, try these suggestions.

I recommend: Backing up less often, but still at regular intervals. If you don't have some external storage but have a second hard drive, you might store a backup of your data files on the drive other than the one you regularly store them. Create a new folder on the second drive especially for them. If you have only one hard drive, you might partition your hard drive using Partition Magic from Norton or Gparted (on your Knoppix CD) to shrink the existing partition and create a new partition for backup storage. Defragment your disk first (using the Windows utility), and back up at least your data files using your CD burner before doing so. For a less intrusive but perfectly acceptable option, burn your data to CDs at regular intervals, manually selecting files using your CD burner program.

How to recover deleted data when you are unprepared

Living dangerously is absolutely free - until the disk drive dies from an electrical surge, a motherboard issue, a disk crash or a corrupted boot record. Then, it gets expensive paying for repairs the insurance would have covered.

I recommend: Let the computer and hard drive cool down for a few minutes before attempting to recover data from the hard drive. Start the computer, open the CD drive, insert the Knoppix CD, and allow the system to boot; if it is already into its normal boot process, hit the reset button to restart the system. If you can bring Knoppix up, and if you can bring up the drive where your data is located: 1. Attach the external hard drive or flash drive to a USB port on the system. 2. After responding to a prompt that pops up when the drive is recognized (likely as sda1), right click on the drive icon and click "Mount." 3. Wait a few seconds, then right-click again and change the folder access to read/write. 4. Drag and drop your data to your external hard or flash drive. 5. Right click on the icon again and "Unmount."  6. Shut down the system. If this is not successful, you must go into a mode of disaster data recovery using reliable data recovery companies, disaster recovery systems and disaster recovery experts. Weigh the extent of the damage. If it is vital that you have current data, contact trustworthy disaster recovery companies like DriveSavers and OnTrack Data Recovery. The cost will depend on the amount of damage, amount of data recovered and difficulty of the recovery.