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Originally Posted by Lil bastard
If you can afford to lose the data, try DIY fixes. If your data is irreplaceable, then spend a buck and take it to a pro.
I run a mirror backup on an external hard drive, updated every few days or so. If my comp fails, I fix it and reload everything from the EHD.
Replacing the hard drive, partitioning it and so on is not very difficult, there are numerous sources on the net giving you 'computers for dummies' instructions.
If you're like most, your data is more valuable than the comp, so I'd suggest taking it to a pro. May cost a couple bucks, but worth it in the end.
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Good points. I will add to that by saying a pro does not equal best buy. There are companies which specialize in data / hard drive recovery and they are the ones you want working on the data.
Before going down that path I'd at least suggest chkdsk as it can often rebuild a boot sector enough to get the machine running and backup your data. If that does not work, the next trick is to get your Linux-savy friend (you have one of those, right) to use a bootable Linux recovery CD or mount the drive as a path in their machine and copy the data that way. I've done this several times with great success.