Knowing how to revive a failed hard drive is a critical skill—and having a guide to the troubleshooting process can mean the difference between total loss and full recovery. This checklist, from TechRepublic Premium, offers a systematic approach to zeroing in on the cause of a hard drive failure.

From the checklist:

Given the ever-increasing importance of data, it’s no wonder that hard drive problems can produce fear and panic—especially if you haven’t conducted a recent backup. Hard drive recovery is a much more pleasant undertaking if you have steady and consistent backups to rely on during the process.

New advances such as solid-state drives have improved reliability, albeit with the drawback of making it more difficult to recover data in a problem scenario. Yet despite the innovations, drive failures remain a fact of life—and every hard drive has a finite lifespan.

Luckily, disk problems don’t necessarily mean the bell has rung for any given drive. When trouble strikes, this checklist can help you methodically track down the problem. It walks you through the steps for troubleshooting hard drive issues, whether you’re dealing with internal or externally attached disks. The goal in these scenarios is to start with the obvious and work toward the not-so-obvious.