If you’ve accidentally deleted photos from your memory card, chances are all is not lost. We put three leading image rescue programs to the test. By Zach Honig July 2007 Have you ever been at a party and had someone pick up your camera and unintentionally delete your priceless party…

June 29, 2007 By Michael Goldstein No, I’m not pumping a scare book about the collapse of Western Civilization. Rather, I’m warning about a much more likely event—the crash of your computer’s hard drive. A hard drive (also called a hard disk, hard disk drive, or HDD) is the rotating disk-based…

Can’t get your PC to boot? Or just sent your boss a really embarrassing e-mail? Here’s how to recover from these and ten other potential catastrophes. Christopher Null Thursday, May 24, 2007 1:00 AM PDT Problem: Your trusty hard drive has crashed. Likely Cause: Whether it was dropped, became overheated,…

Technicians Make House Calls to Fix Stubborn Equipment By Ariana Eunjung Cha Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, May 1, 2005; NOVATO, Calif. — The young woman at the other end of the phone wept to Kelly Chessen that the world was against her. She had been in a minor car…

Losing a hard drive is like losing a part of yourself. When it happens, reasonable people can become blubbering fools. That’s why DriveSavers, a 19-year old data recovery company, hired Kelly Chessen. She used to work at a Northern California suicide-prevention hotline. Now she’s DriveSavers’ official data crisis counselor, comforting…

Originally published by The New York Times. July 14, 2005 NOVATO, Calif. – He knew it was important, but backing up his hard drive was the last thing on Ryan Risdal’s mind. Mr. Risdal, 35, was too busy rearing four children and caring for his ill wife. One day after…

Fixing computers is not normally considered the most glamorous of jobs. But try telling that to employees of two top-tier tech-support firms — Geek Squad, a house-call service based in Minneapolis, Minn., and DriveSavers, a Novato, Calif., company that fixes fried hard drives around the country. Geek Squad boasts that…

Or drowned it? Or shot it? One data-recovery firm has seen (and saved) it all. The price is dear, but counseling is included! By CHRIS TAYLOR/NOVATO https://drivesavers.wistia.com/medias/d06brla8uc?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=640   Hard drives are the collective memories of our cleverest machines, the indispensable intellects of the information age. Yet Scott Gaidano, 58, president…

You’ve probably done nothing to deserve a worm, a blackout, or a lightning strike, but here’s how to prepare just the same. Pessimism can seem a virtue after this year’s technology calamities — from the Great Northeastern Blackout to the plague of nasty computer worms. If you convince yourself that…