Crash and noise

if it sounds kinda like "clunk...whir, clunk whir" or maybe "clunka clunka clunka" your hard drive is toast. There are some utilities that say they can realign the platen and heads but my experience is that if they do fix it...its just long enough for you to lose more data in two weeks.

usually your data is lost...there are clean rooms like Cherry Systems that can clean room recover your data...but get your checkbook out..

Good luck