[zombieman]

So my hard drive crashed. It basically had all my work from school (which sucks because finals are in just under 2 weeks), and all of my electronic dance music production work, sample packs, and mixes.

I'm trying to recover the data. What DIY methods have worked for you guys in the past?

[pixel 106]

When you say it crashed can you further elaborate? If you have access to the hard drive still, for example if it was formatted I have played around with a free software called Recuva before, this will try and look for deleted items from your hard drive and try and recover them for you.

[Aura]

OP, you have to understand that data recovery is a very sensible subject. There's no guarantee that you will ever be able to recover the files you deleted. You should always be ready to accept that when you delete something. It's too late to think about "I want to recover these files ..." when they are already deleted, you should have tought of it before. If the files/folders you recovered are corrupted, you won't be able to fix them in my opinion. Also, if the standard free data recovery tools like Recuva, GetDataBackNTFS, EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard, etc. doesn't work, well you're out of luck. If you REALLY need these files back, you can always go to a data forensic company like DriveSavers and bring your drive in, then ask them to attempt to recover data from it. However be aware that these services are really, really expansive so except if that data was a question of life or death, I would just give up on them. Next time, take secure back up of your stuff, just an advice.