Take Your Busted Drives to Staples for Data Recovery

Nothing kills productivity like lost data. If your hard drive is experiencing "click of death" throes, your notebook just took a sickening dive to the pavement, or you're suddenly unable to retrieve crucial files from a flash drive, don't panic -- head to Staples instead. The office-supply stores (all 1,400 of them) just started offering data-recovery services in partnership with hard drive-maker Seagate. Just bring in your notebook, hard drive, USB drive, or other digital media to get a free evaluation and recovery estimate.

Store techs may be able to perform the recovery on site. If not, they'll ship your drive to Seagate's labs; expect a turnaround time of 3-5 days, or possibly up to a week if it's a really big drive. You'll receive a replacement Seagate drive containing your recovered data -- but only if the recovery process was successful. If not, you won't get charged. Speaking of charges, the service runs between $200 and $2,000. Yowch! Now are you convinced to start making regular backups? [via eWeek]