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Data recovery at home using software are the cheapest and easiest way around, but does it really work? You may be tempted to DIY instead of paying hundreds and even thousands of dollars for professional data recovery service, but let's not forget that these professionals remained in demand despite their exorbitant fee and the various related software available in the market.

Two problems can arise from doing doing a DIY data recovery. One, you could have selected a poor software and the data recovery is not successful, greatly lowering the chances of the salvaging the data in subsequent effort. Two, you may have a powerful tool in hand, but it is so powerful and complex, it is most probably meant for professionals.

So as you can see, attempting to recover data on your own is no easy feat, even when you are knowledgeable with computers. Even the pros need sophisticated machines and special room and spending a lot of time and effort to delicately extract information from a corrupted hard disk. While software are created with good intention, many things could go wrong.

You should probably go ahead with software when you meet these all these three criteria:

Make sure you are excellent and well-versed with computers (and familiar with your type and year of your computer). Say for example you are an expert in today's latest computer parts but your model was phased out last year, you could be looking at a totally different thing altogether.

Ensure that your software company is helpful, preferably with live chat so you don't have to submit trouble ticket and wait hours upon hours for reply. Also, you should be following instructions that come with the software carefully and ask questions when in doubt. If the product website offer step-by-step video instruction, even better. This ensure that the product work as claimed and you get a look at how complicated it is to use before buying.

Thirdly, you must be prepared or be able to afford not seeing those data ever again. This seem ironic since the goal is to get them back. Even with professional intervention, the odds of recovery in 80-85%, although a part of this is because they sometimes work on data that failed to be recovered the first time. If loss of data means financial loss, or not getting that multi billion dollar project or contain sentimental value contents, your best bet is to NOT do it yourself.

It is crucial that if you are able to complete a scan of the failing hard drive, the recovered files are not saved back to the hard drive you are trying to recover. If you do that, the saved recovered files on the source drive could overwrite other files you are trying to recover.

Before you proceed to paying for the software, do a background search on search engine to read unsolicited feedbacks (those listed on the software site don't count). Type name of product + scam to read the bad things written about it, and whether ot not the problem gets rectified in the end. If so, how long does it get rectified? Was the software company helpful and offered help? You get the picture.

Also, if you intend to go ahead with a software, make sure they offer money back guarantee in case they don't work. You don't want to be paying for nothing. If the site does not mention anything about a return, then forget about it.