What I had to do last time my system crashed bad, major, no boot up either..

I reinstalled windows and got that recovery program and it could find & read my old files even though the new install had formatted over it all.
I was very surprised.

TIP-
Never just delete your old hard drive and give it away, donate it, or sell the computer without at least doing a complete secure shred of the hard drive.
Someone could use a program like that to get any info on the drive..
Get a program that will totally & securely wipe the drive, before you dispose of it.
Some people take the drive apart and destroy the disks inside.


we just keep our old drives.. we have about 10 stacked in my computer parts storage area.
not sure whats on them still but just in case LOL
one of these days I'll hook em up and check em out then zap em.