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Crashed a hard disk on the weekend. Don't have a proper systematic back up in place. 
Have been able to get a lot of stuff back from various source, but it's been an absolute PITA.
Just a warning to those who have been procrastinating like me. Do it now!! 
There are a number of companies offering online backup services of nominated locations on computers.
Im a bit cheap so I just back up stuff to an external drive.
Dropbox rates are cheap as chips these days for 1TB plus. $10 a month. Made my Nas redundant
Flash drives, no clouds involved, can't be hacked, and always in your possession, just remember where you put them.
There are a few companies that can recover "unrecoverable" data from crashed hard disks, flash drives etc. A friend of mine had all of her files recovered 100% perfect from a buggered flash drive a few years ago. Cost around $600, but she got everything back.
Backing up is better, and this is good reminder Harrow........ but if you are crying about lost files, data recovery is an option.
Clarence
Yeah, I had a look at some of those backup solutions but none seemed to be flexible enough to specify a set of folders from all over the place to be backed up, so I built my own. Plus it was a good learning experience.
I would have to agree, the "freebies" are quite simple but probably OK for the average person.
Harrow, did you give your disk to the ABS. they seem to be suffering the same thing 
When you said your hard disk crashed, Harrow, do you mean you can't reboot your computer?
I have experienced a few of those nasty cases when my computer simply won't reboot. I did manage to get it back to run. After that, I did a couple of things to fix the troubles that caused the failures in the first place. So may be I can butt in and offer a little help?
Here is a question, please...
Can you reboot your computer at all ?
^^^^
I dropped my laptop from a height while it was running, it hit the ground very hard, and managed to bounce a few times as well. (I always like to do a job properly. ) After that, it has refused to boot giving a "main disk media error" . I got almost everything I needed from other sources. Not worth spending any money on a 4 year old laptop.
But if you have any ideas, I'm open to them. I figure I could put the drive into an external hard case, and try to read data from it using another computer. Just haven't had a moment to try. Can't find a spare minute since I retired in June!
That sounded like what had happened to the ABS's computer systems. Someone must have pushed the bloody thing out of the 10th floor !
Anyway, back to the real world...
When my computer failed to reboot, I did the following to get it fired up back on "Safe Mode". Once in "Safe Mode", I was able to run a hard disk repair utility within the Microsoft OS itself.
So here are the step...
(1). Turn the power off.
(2). Hold down the "F8" keys.
(3). Turn on the power while the "F8" key is held down. You will hear the computer "beeps" a few times.
(4). Release the "F8" key. With luck, the computer will get into "Safe Mode". If so, you may be in luck.
(5). When in "Safe Mode", choose any option with the least baggage, eg. Without Internet connection.
(6). Get into "Explorer". I am referring to the File Explorer.
(7). If you have reached this far, you are doing well. Now click on the "Boot Drive" which is the "C:" drive.
(8). "Right Click" on it, then "Left Click" to select "Properties" which is the last option on the selection box.
(9). Select the 2nd "Tab" titled "Tools" on the pop-up menu.
(10). Select the 1st option titled "Check Now" on the "Tools" panel.
(11). Click to select both options listed on the "Check Disk" box. This "Check Disk" or CHKDSK" utility will scan your disk for problems and fix them as it goes. Most time it will repair and clean out problematic areas. It did to mine.
Please note that it will take a bloody long time to run. Sometimes it may take up to 5-6 hours. It will go through 5 routines. You must NEVER turn off your computer while the utility is doing its dirty work. It does give you the impression that it got stuck as it could just sit there as if nothing is happening.
If you are lucky, the computer will complete the ChkDsk and it will reboot itself.
No, its a total failure to read the disk at all. No safemode boot, nothing. Although a lot of interesting sounds come out of the hard disk as it attempts to read, like nothing I've ever heard from a computer disk before.
Sorry to hear that, Harrow.
The fact that it got dropped may have caused failures of mechanical nature. The disk head may be out of alignment, or twisted. A major repair to its mechanism may be in order. Luckily that you can still recover some essential data via other means.
