It happens. Files can get corrupted or erased. Disks go bad. Someone may have accidentally erased or formatted the wrong disk or memory card.

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What makes this worse is the importance of the loss. It could be the only copies of digital photos or videos, financial records, legal documents, school work, reports, projects, or you may not even know what is gone until one day you need it and can't find it.

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When this happens, it can be a gut-wrenching experience. Hind sight being 20/20 doesn't help when it's too late to do that backup you've been meaning to do.

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When data loss occurs, the best thing you can do is: nothing. Stop. Immediately. The more changes you make, any files you create, software you may install to perform a recovery — all of these actions can result in over-writing the areas of the disk drive or memory card where your data may still reside. Once it is overwritten, there is no chance of getting it back. The best way to do a recovery is to boot to a CD, DVD, USB stick, or an external hard disk with an operating system and recovery utilities. These programs can scan the failed, erased, or formatted device and look for file fragments that can then be written to another device. Only then can those fragments be examined for content.

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It is tricky to do, but often it can be done, and usually getting something back is better than nothing.