spaling1

Regards to recovering the data, one of the easiest procedures for recovering the files and folders, is to remove the failed hard drive from the computer and use an USB 2.0 adaptor similar to THIS, then attach the hard drive to the USB port on the working computer and see if you can transfer the files and folders to it.

Note: Only data files and folders can be transfered, any applications, utilities and programs, need to be reinstalled from their CD's, or downloaded from the publisher's website.

Bev.

If the system still recognizes the drive, remove it, mount it in an external case (example below) and attach it to a working system by USB.  Make a copy of your files to the working system's hard drive.

If the system doesn't recognize the drive, and/or you can't read your data, you'll need to consider whether data recovery is worth the not inconsiderable cost.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182276

I have a Dell Inspiron laptop and get the error code 2000-0146, looking through the forum posts it seems as my HDD has broke. If this is the case, are there any methods to recover the data from the HDD?

If the HDD is functional, it may be possible to "image" the drive using pen-drive Linux and the 'dd' or 'ddrescue' utilities. I used ddrescue earlier this year to salvage the Windows installs from a relative's failing hard drive and in the end, they only lost a few files, while both the Windows 7 and XP installs were fully recovered.

If the hard drive can be reconginzed by Disk Management, you can try this data recovery software to see if it can find your data from hard drive: http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizardpro/