Do you lose everything if your computer crashes?

I've been learning and attempting to back up everything.  Prior to doing so...I had a computer crash on me years ago.  My thoughts back then were eventually I'd learn what I needed to do but "didn't have time".  I saved the hard drive hoping just maybe there is a glimmer of a chance to retrieve pictures I've saved to it.  Is it possible?

BouncySue--- 

My DD strongly suggested I get the "My Book" to back up the things that are more sentimental to me and that being pics.  I also backed-up my recipe & music files. It's my understanding that just files can be saved to MB...not programs.

I'm glad I did as my computer did indeed end up crashing.  It's a chore to have to reinstall programs, and printers & other various equipment....but I just took it one step at a time.  It seemed everyday I'd groan and remember there was yet something else I had to try and retrieve or reinstall. 

I do have a restore capability on this computer, but that took it back to what the computer was like the first time I plugged it in, as a previous back up setup for some reason wasn't working either.

There is a possibility your pictures could be saved by someone who knows what they are doing and who has the right equipment to do it. You have to decide if the pictures are worth the price of the service! Or maybe you have a computer techie in the family who would love to mess with that drive and see what could be saved.

A "computer crash" is a generic term for a number of events, each with a different level of destruction attached. Not every crash wipes out the hard drive.

I never keep anything of value on my computers, so a crash doesn't concern me. When my first computer died about 10 years ago, the geek I took it to said he could try and retrieve anything of importance (but no guarantees), and I realized there wasn't a thing on it I needed anyway.

It depends how and why the computer crashed (and how many years ago you're talking about).

If, for instance, it was the motherboard on your old computer which failed, the drive may be perfectly fine--plug it in to your current machine, and everything would be there.  That, however, assumes that it was of a recent enough format that your current machine would recognize it.

If the old computer failed due to a problem with the drive itself, or data got corrupted by something like overheating or a dying power supply, then the FAT (file allocation table--what tells the computer each file starts and stops) may be damaged.  In that case, you might be able to get some of the files back by using data recovery software.

Or if these files are really important to you, you could pay a data recovery service to do it, and they'd probably be able to reconstruct most of what you had there.  They are not cheap.

I have had two different computers crash, and both times I lost every single thing. All my pictures and alot of documents. My DD had to literally from scratch install every single software that I had on it. A real real pain in the you know what. Boy I now download everything I do not want lost on a cd.

Did I ever learn about this the hard way.   About a month ago, my hard drive died.   My laptop had been giving me enough warning that something was wrong, but I ignored the signals.  So one day, I couldn't get rid of one screen that made absolutely no sense to me.  I took it to a computer repair place and found out it was the hard drive.  The guy replaced it to the tune of $99.99, and the rest was labor for a total of $226.99.

I lost everything but my emails for both of the addresses I have and the address books for both.   But all of my pictures are gone.   Fortunately, I do still have some on two memory cards, so I can put some back on at some point.  But it will be a pain to figure out just when they were taken.   I lost all of my recipes, everything in My Documents,  some family information, and a story about my son's life, who died 16 years ago.  

The place gave me the name  of a place that may be able to recover the information.  I just haven't taken the time to call them.   I know it will be expensive.  

Back up the things you do not want to lose.   The place where I took my laptop, tried to recover at least some of the things, but they were unable to do it.   :(

I bought a device from QVC called 'Clickfree Automatic backup'. It only takes seconds to backup up all your files, music,pics., etc. If your computer crashes, just hook 'Clickfree' up & click on restore & you are up & running in minutes!!! I wouldn't be without it. Saves a lot of CD work. It cost about $120 or so.

Thank you all for giving me a glimmer of hope.  The pictures are the only thing I was hoping would be there.  When I got a digital camera about 11 years ago it all got dumped into the computer.  Any documents or files I had were usually work related so got transferred to a disc.  Everything I had I can replace minus the photos and convenience of knowing where everything was and what I had to do to get there.  I'm a bit computer challenged.  I had it in storage for about 3 years in a safe(?) environement.  We used it for six months and it just wouldn't start one day.  Maybe I can get it in the right hands and if not, life will move forward and I will just have to let go.   I have plenty of photos from family and friends during that time period.