Burmeister: With the EasyRecovery software that we sell, we go to great lengths to make sure we don't provide something that will potentially make matters worse. We see problems coming into the labs every day where if the customer hadn't taken that last step, we could have gotten their data back. We don't change what's on the media. We try to extract the data onto new media.

Johnson: If the data is really critical and if the user isn't technically savvy enough to use the software, they should contact a recovery service. If a drive is physically failing and you run a lot of diagnostic utilities, you can do damage.

What is the most difficult type of failure to recover?

Johnson: Hard drives that were in a hurricane or flood oftentimes are the most challenging, time- consuming and costly. The drives are generally sealed, but they definitely get wet inside. Just as bad is when they get out the water [and] they get dry again. We're still getting drives from people recovering from the hurricane. These are drives that have had buildings fall on top of them, have been submerged in mud. Users say, "I'll dry it out and fire it up." When that happens, the heads get affixed to the platters.

What advice can you give an IT manager who is facing potential data loss?