The simplest means of recovering lost data is restoring your data from a backup set.  You should always perform regular backups. The prevalence of tape drives, CD-RWs, and DVD-RW drives make the process much simpler these days. 

If your drive crashes and you don't have a current backup set (or if it is somehow corrupted), options available to you will depend on the specific situation. If the hard drive can be accessed, you can purchase data recovery software that will scan the drive and transfer all the information that it can read to another medium. Most data recovery software packages work very well and are relatively inexpensive when compared to professional data recovery services. If, however, the drive is inaccessible, your only option is to utilize the services of a company that offers professional data recovery services. You send them your bad hard drive and they will recover all the data they can using special data recovery equipment and software, usually with around a 90% success rate. 

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