What do you do when you start having hard drvie problems or think you are having problems? The first thing you do is back up your data. Don't think you don't need to, or you will try later, just do it! Trust me, as it is a very good posibility that you will loose all your data if your hard drive can not be recovered. Once you have backup your data, you can begin checking your hard drive. If you have Windows operating system, you can run the scan disk tool. This is a simple tool but may be able to fix minor issues you are having with your drive. If your drive comes back clean without errors, then the drive is most likely good. If your computer is running slow, then it may be another issue or you may want to try and defrag your drive to see if that helps. Now if you are still having problems with your drive, and it isn't making any wierd clicking or knocking sounds, then you may want to check out a great program called SpinRite. SpinRite will do some low level checking and fix many issues with your drive. This is an excellent program but does cost about $90. I have it so if you are in the KMC area, I can try to repair your drive. I also have access to some data recovery software so if the drive can be repaired, it is possible that I can recover the data. SpinRite and the other hard drive repair software try and fix logical or software issues with the drive, but are not able to fix physical problems. If you drive has failed due to a physical problem, then the drive would have to be turned into a drive recovery professional that will actually take the drive apart in a clean room, put the platters of the drive in a new exact hard drive, and recover your data. This type of recovery can cost around $1000 or more, so unless your data is that valuable, it is probably better to just toss the drive and buy a new one.