about the only time they are truly lost is when the HDD completely dies....

if the OS dies, then you have various options as how to retrieve data from the drive..

I use a dual boot system with the OS's on separate HDDs and if one goes south, I just need boot into the other OS and retrieve the data from the drive before I reformat it and install a new copy of the OS...

one can also buy another HDD, install the OS on it and then view the other drive and get files off of it, remove all traces of the old OS and then use the drive as a data drive...

there are of course also data recovery tools

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So Long and Thanks for All the Files
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