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Every week we pose a simple, focused question to the Lifehacker readership about a specific topic: Which is best? From netbooks and malware removal to home servers and wallpaper, here's a look back at the most popular Hive Five topics of 2009.

Our Hive Five asks readers to identify five of the best tools for any job, then vote for the absolute best. Here's a look back at the winners—the best of the best—from each week.

When it comes to creating a perfect copy of a system disk for future restoration, Lifehacker readers love the open source and versatile Clonezilla.

The year is flying by, and so are our readers' picks for software, hardware, and other tools. Come on in to see the winners of our Hive Five polls for the second quarter of 2009.

Backing up data is a great way to minimize losses after a computing catastrophe. But what about restoring your actual system right away? Here are the five most popular options for our readers. Photo by Robert Scoble.

Sure, Windows has a tool for restoring your system back to a previous state, but it isn't a comprehensive solution. This week we want to hear how you restore your computers back from the brink. Photo by kennymatic.

The best way to recover from unexpected data loss is to be properly prepared. With one of the following tools on hand, you'll always be ready to save your data from the Reaper. Photo by Matalyn.

Data loss can be absolutely heart wrenching. Fortunately, assuming your disk wasn't eaten by a wood chipper or struck by a wayward bolt of lightning, software tools are available to help you recover your files. Photo by teclasorg.

Windows only: Disk Investigator takes a different approach than many data retrieval tools by examining the raw data on the disk.

Windows only: Recover deleted files with freeware program UndeleteMyFiles. More than just a basic file recovery tool, UndeleteMyFiles includes a secure file eraser, a set of file recovery tools, a database recovery tool for popular desktop email clients such as Outlook and Eudora, and an emergency disk image maker.