When a computer stops working, there are several steps that a person might go through. The first step is panic. The person will try rebooting the computer several times. When that does not work, many people will become frustrated and turn to professional services to help them resolve their problems. The reasons that a computer stops working are varied, but by far one of the most lethal tends to be issues with the hard disk drive. If a person has a problem with their hard drive, that does not mean that it is time to buy a new computer. A good hard drive recovery engineer will be able to recover hard drive information quite easily as long as you are prepared to pay the cost for the service. There is the possibility that although the computer will be fixed, some data will be lost. To prevent this problem a person must be proactive. Keeping data backed up on an external hard drive is a very good way for a person to save their information. The external hard drives are large enough to store the data from multiple computers. It is an investment that could pay off well for many people who depend on their computers.