Dead HD What to Do? And What to do Next Time?

Update

I have since managed to solve the problem described on this past post. I describe it further here,

How to Recover from a Dead Hard Drive

End of Update :-)

I had a terrible experience this past week. My hard drive crashed. I lost my operating system and the files on this drive. To make matters worse, my secondary drive, the one I use to back up my data, also crashed. I don't know what happened, the Tech I brought it to suggested a power surge…. I do have a surge protector but I am told they don't work well unless you step up and buy the 'real' power protector, battery backup box. I intend to do a bit more research on this, to find the best and most affordable power protection option, I will repost here when I find a few options. Two hard drives dead at the same time!!!!

I left the house in the morning and left my music playing on my computer for my girlfriend. My girlfriend is currently scare of the computer (I am trying to introduce here to it:)). So she didn't want to touch it, she just left it going. Sometime that afternoon, something happened and when I returned home I saw the Dreaded "Blue Screen" and an error message. "Strange I think to myself", but I am running windows so…unexplained shut downs don't seem all that uncommon. I proceeded to boot it back up to discover it went back to that same "blue Screen" A bit more fiddling and a few calls to a computer tech and I come to the determination that my HD is dead!

To make matters worse, I brought it into the local computer shop and asked them to try and restore the data. They seem to figure its not going to be a problem so I feel much relieved. Upon returning to pick it up I learn it is shot, they can't access it. Darn, turns out the only chance I have of getting the lost data back is to send it away to a specialty shop where a team of engineers will take it apart and assess the feasibility of retrieving my data. This service seems to start around $500 per drive, but is the only last resort that I have found (please let me know of any alternate solutions if you know of any). I have compiled a list of companies that offer this Data Recovery Service. I have contacted each company and get the same basic reply, that they need the drive in hand to do a proper estimate. A few offer free inspection and no data no pay policies. The expected cost had very little variation. These are the companies I research, in no particular order;

http://www.restoringdata.ca

http://www.datarecoverycorp.ca

http://www.salvagedata.ca/

http://www.ace-data-recovery.com/

http://www.1stdatarecovery.com/index

How to Protect Your Data From Loss In hindsight and for the future, one should have their data backed up in at least three places, one being separate from your computer. I have an external HD and will back up and protect my data with Spotmau PowerSuite . Research I have done shows this to be the Hands Down best of the best for data backup and protection. It is used by most corporate and government offices to protect their data and set up new computers for employees (Ghosting). If its powerful enough to keep them protected, I know it'll manage the home business PC protection.