Most data recovery software shares one common and fatal flaw. The flaw in most file recovery software is that it must be downloaded and installed to a separate working PC if you are to safely open a crashed hard drive and from it copy out stored files. Obviously, if your computer is still working and by that we mean loading Windows and starting up, you should have access to hard drive files. But when you have recently deleted files or emptied your Windows recycle bin resulting in files being lost, downloading directly onto your hard drive a data recovery tool can be a big mistake. The reason for this is that the very download of the file recovery software may land on the space that had been allocated to your deleted files. Once you do this you overwrite the original file information and basically render it impossible to recover. An even worse scenario is faced when dealing with a crashed hard drive. If your computer will not load its operating system, it will not allow you to download a program on to it. Conventional data recovery software requires you to install the program to a second computer and then connect your crashed hard drive to that computer by using serial cables. In order to do this you will need to dismantle both computers. Newer more effective data recovery software solves both of these problems by installing the file recovery utility only to your computer’s short term memory and never to its hard drive. In fact these programs will allow you to start up a crashed Windows based PC directly from your computer’s disk drive and RAM.