Problems with hard disks genuinely scare me. Any other hardware failure is an annoyance but doesn't directly pose a risk to my files. A graphics card can be easily replaced and even if the CPU goes I should be able to find a computer in our labs I can get the files from.

But a problem with a hard disk threatens my work directly (and my personal well being were I to have to explain to my wife why we no longer have any photos of the last two years).

It didn't happen to me but it did happen to someone in the office last week. They dropped their notebook while it was still running. It seemed to be ok but then Windows would not load when it was restarted.

We were fairly certain that this meant the head had hit the disk but this had happened on a crucial point so that we could neither boot nor access the hard disk.

We went through various options and programs trying to access files but without success. Eventually we found R-Studio. This found every file on the hard disk bar one and copied them onto another hard disk. Very impressive.