Six months ago my computer crashed. When I turned my computer on it would not load Windows XP and so I could not get into my two hard drive files. As an author and writer of ebooks, I had all my files in two hard drives without any other backup. At first, I panic. The thought of losing all my data files and writings was unthinkable. Then I got angry with myself for letting myself get into this situation.

Have you ever felt the terror, fear, and then anger connected with losing data that you value so much? I started to think about the different ways I could try to get my data. After trying different things, I knew I could not recover my data by myself. I finally gave in and knew that I need help.

I thought about pulling the hard drives out or taking my computer to a data recovery service. As I looked in the yellow pages and through goggle search for local data recovery computer services, I was able to find a few. I knew it was going to cost me a few dollars, but I needed my data and I needed my computer to do my work.

Finally, I decided to call a computer friend of mine that had done some work for me in the past. After he tried what he could with his knowledge, he could not get windows to open. So here is what we decided was the best course of action:

* Buy a new 120-megabyte hard drive

* Format and install Windows XP on the new hard drive on another computer.

* Remove one hard drive C from old computer and install new hard drive on old computer

* Copy files from drive D that was left on old computer onto new hard drive

* Remove drive D old computer and install drive C

Job complete. With the new hard drive now call drive G, I now had drive C with all my old data and drive D with my old data.

There would have been many other ways to configure and transfer old hard drive data but this one worked for me and I was happy because I could access my files.

Cost was $150 for my friend and $100 for 120 MB hard drive and about a week of lost productivity.

I don't know what cause my computer to fail but I could have been a virus. If your computer crashes, can you afford to be a week without your data? As an individual, maybe you can fix it yourself or with the help of a computer expert. For a company computer you will need the help of a data recovery service if you don't have a resident IT person.

Rudy Silva has a degree in Physics from the University of San Jose. He is author of ebooks and has a variety of sites on various subjects. For more information on data recovery methods and techniques check out his site at: http://www.datalostandfound.info