I have had many HDDs die in the past, although I managed to avoid losing data somehow. These days, I always make sure to burn off everything I want to keep on DVD-R in case of an emergency crash.
Although in the last few years, my newer and larger HDDs don't seem to having any major problems at all. Not that I'm complaining, but I wish I could say the same for CD-ROMs - they seem to die at a rate of one per year.
