Imagine this: Hard drive is failing , you’re busy working on your computer and need to access documents saved on your external hard drive. You connect it, get ready to find your data, and…nothing happens. Your hard drive isn’t working. Uh oh. Before you panic, there are several things you can try on your own before calling in the pros.

Data loss can be due to a number of factors, but two are the most common. The first (and easiest to resolve) is software related. You’ve accidentally deleted an important folder and emptied the recycle bin, or gone and formatted the wrong drive by mistake. The second—and probably most common—cause of data loss is a fault with the hard drive itself. Given the complexity of modern drives it’s no wonder that somewhere along the line something will go wrong. When the drive suffers from some form of failure there’s often little that you can do yourself to get the data back—professional data recovery services are usually required. However, there are certain failures that you can attempt to resolve yourself.