And the hard drive dies!!

[RdEoSg]

:bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang:


So I've lost about 300gb of images including all of my scavenged pr0n.

I guess it was bound to happen. Now I have to contact Seagate about getting the data recovered. Lovely


😡 😡 😡

I have a feeling the money it is going to cost me to get this repaired/recovered is going to be the same price as buying the second external hard drive so I would have had a backup but never did because of cost.....

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

:bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang:


So I've lost about 300gb of images including all of my scavenged pr0n.

I guess it was bound to happen. Now I have to contact Seagate about getting the data recovered. Lovely


😡 😡 😡

I have a feeling the money it is going to cost me to get this repaired/recovered is going to be the same price as buying the second external hard drive so I would have had a backup but never did because of cost.....

Yes a second copy is worth the cost. I have six 500GB externals next to my computer. 5 of them are full, the 6th has only 150GB free space. All of them have a copy stored offsite in case the house burns down or gets burglarized. I also have DVD backups of EVERYTHING on those drives. I have too much work to risk losing just to save a few hundred buck.

 

[infrequent]

yes backups are a must.

 

[BillBingham2]

There are lots of different ways to put together some reasonably priced near-line storage that can allow you a fast backup. Apple just came out with a 1TB time-capsule thingy that is great for us Mac users.

I've picked up some very low cost 200GB drives on black friday fire sale a couple of years back. I put them into USB housings from EvilBay (NAS ones too) and have low cost storage that works with Mac, Windows or Linux. I back up to these and put them over at my father-in-law's house. When he sells the house, they go to my Brother-In-Law.

There are some interesting online (internet based) backup solutions out there that might work well. The cost of TBs-O-DASD is coming down all the time for big disk farms so do some checking. Much better than flying without a parachute!

Get it fixed and get a low cost backup solution.

B2 (;->

 

[Tuolumne]

I'm sure this will bring the "film is archival" posters out of the wood work.

/T

 

[Morca007]

Data retrieval is expensive, and doesn't always work, backup is cheap, but annoying.

I'm gambling with my storage at the moment, I harp on everyone in my family to backup, but I'm too cheap to do it myself. 🙁

 

[RdEoSg]

Film can burn just like a hard drive 😛

Yea. I am going to get a good backup system going once this is sorted out. One copy at home, one copy at work I think.

 

[John Noble]

I'm sure this will bring the "film is archival" posters out of the wood work.

/T

Here I am!

Seriously, I'm a semi-retired programmer/network admin/etc., so I know just how hard it is to keep data safe and sound. Planning for the long haul is tough since even if you preserve the files, how are you going to read them if the software is long gone (not to mention the whole platform the software ran on)?

NASA is losing tons of data simply because it's deteriorating faster than they can transfer it to new media. I figure I'm not going to do any better than they are, so I'd just as soon have family memories in the proverbial shoebox. It seems the movie studios are starting to feel the same way: NYT article

 

[infrequent]

I harp on everyone in my family to backup, but I'm too cheap to do it myself. 🙁

sounds just like me until a few months back. when i upgraded to os x leopard, i decided to buy an external drive as well. time machine works well enough for me at the moment. as somebody mentioned, the apple one works even beautifully as its over wireless!

 

[teo]

I have a feeling the money it is going to cost me to get this repaired/recovered is going to be the same price as buying the second external hard drive

no, I guess it's going to be more... 🙁

 

[majid]

I have a feeling the money it is going to cost me to get this repaired/recovered is going to be the same price as buying the second external hard drive so I would have had a backup but never did because of cost.....

Far more. By an order of magnitude at the very least.
The problem is that people don't want backup, they want restore...

 

[Larky]

Coming from feature film, I know the headache of storing work. All my personal data is stored on a backup machine at home, and then also on two servers at work. It's about as safe as I could get it. I don't bother with DVD's now, they fail, scratch, get lost, break, only store 4 gig.

The issue with data not being readable later on is probably not an issue for us lot. As new devices come out, we transfer our work - it gradually gets updated keeping it in a new file format. I for one never use GIF for web anymore, it's all been altered to PNG, when that dies it will be upgraded again. Certain file formats, like TIFF however, they will be around forever and are so easy to work with you could code your own reader.

It's less of an issue for Apple users than Windows users, mainly because Microsoft is wishing to ditch support for external file formats which they have to license, in favour of an in-house brand. The problem with that is it's Microsoft, which means it wont work. Apple fully supports third party file formats.

Is the HDD a total failure, or is it data corruption? If it hardware, buy a second version of the same drive and transfer the platters. 🙂

 

[ChrisN]

RdEoSg - I'm terribly sorry to hear about your loss.

On the other hand, I appreciate hearing your story, as it reinforces my resolve to keep up my ridiculous backup routine.

First copy on the main data drive (separate from the system drive).

That's backed up after each session (new pics, scans or edits) to a third internal hard disk (second copy).

Another backup to an external hard disk, which is then unplugged to keep it safe from voltage surges (third copy).

Yet another backup to a portable 120GB (2.5 inch) drive that I carry with me at all times, in case the house burns down or we are burgled.

And my Lightroom catalog is also backed up to 4GB Sandisk Cruzer (USB drive) that lives on my keyring.

This is all copied with SyncBack, a free package that makes copies, not encoded backup files, and checks and only copies the new or changed files. I just plug in the necessary external drives and execute the batch job, which takes about 10 minutes to run.

Oh, and finally I copy the newest files over to DVD, once a month.

Paranoid? Who, me?

 

[RML]

I had this happen to me some years back with an external HDD in a plastic case. The heat built up inside and eventually killed the HDD. It turned out the controller had fried. This meant that with a replaced controller the HDD could be accessed again. Of course, I didn't take any chances. I bought a new HDD in an aluminium case, a Maxtor One Touch. And I've been buying new and bigger ones ever since.

http://shardsofphotography.blogspot.com/search?q=hard+disk

So, before you commit to a lot of money spent on data retrieval, it might be worth checking if the controller is at fault. That way you could get your data back at a much lower price and much quicker than with pro platter research.

 

[newsgrunt]

A good recovery specialist would probably check controllers as part of the estimate. When my iMac went south, they checked everything but the dirt under my nails 😉 Ended up forking over close to a G in the end. Back up more often now but also don't shoot as much digital as I used to so that eases the pressure. But RML is right, they should check the controller first, a swap could be all you need.

Also, if I were to buy more drives, I'd try to avoid sequentially numbered boxes, would hate to have them all cack it at the same time.

fwiw, I used CBL Data Recovery Technologies in Toronto.

 

[spyder2000]

You'll find data recovery 'outrageous' in price. It's the way it is; the providers know the data is valuable otherwise you wouldn't be asking. In the future, you could consider installing a storage controller that supports RAID (sorry, not the user!) on some level. That would provide not with a backup but an on-line, local copy of your data. Frankly I don't do this anymore. I write my data to a second internal disk on a second controller and then copy it to a second home computer via the network.

Yes, a single catastrophe will get all those copies, but trading out the second rive periodically for the one in the safe deposit box provides a little more security.

My experience has been that as long as I keep all this up, I will have no failures but as soon as I skip it for a bit, my main drive suffers a failure.

 

[NickTrop]

Sorry to hear it. I'm not going to rub it in by talking about the archivability of prints and negatives but every computer I ever had, except the first two I bought that didn't even have drives (Comadore 64, and later an Epson XP), went because the drives went. You can talk back-up, and who can argue that? But - really, let's add "back up" to the list of chores nobody has time to do in our busy lives.

Perhaps get a gmail account - forget how many gigs they're up to now. Then with the invitations, give yourself multiple accounts. Use one or two for a free off-line storage solution. Just a thought.

 

[kuzano]

As much bashing as Microsoft gets......

As much bashing as Microsoft gets......

But - really, let's add "back up" to the list of chores nobody has time to do in our busy lives.

I have clients who have Windows XP, which has a backup system that can be scheduled to run backups to external drives as often as you like. One example is an agency in town where I set up a network. On Thursday night, every week, at 11:45 the Windows Backup system kicks off a backup to an external drive. Both the server and external drive run all the time. I drop by periodically to check the system. It's been two years, and the system has run the backup flawlessly every Thursday night. Once every two months, I burn a copy to DVD for off-site storage (The manager takes the disk home). That disk goes in a jewell case, and I doubt than any of the off-site disks have been opened since burned. So much for scratches and damage. So much for busy lives. One half hour setup to put it in place.

No plan is flawless. There is always a weak point in every system.

I also love it when the Apple groupies get on their box and talk about the superiority of their systems. Well, since Apple occupies less than 10% of the market, everybody seems to overlook how many older systems Apple made their dime on and then left the owners stranded by the roadside when they moved on, as in the introduction of the MAC abandoning all previous OS, and the huge campaign and losses with the failed intro of the LISA. Even considering the huge difference in market share, Microsoft has left fewer broken hearts by the roadside by abandoning Operating Systems than Apple. In fact, it has often been said that one of Microsofts biggest mistakes (costly) is in the commitment to backward compatibility of its products.

Don't get me wrong here. The current Apple products are good. Almost good enough to replace the PC, but only in imaging. Their superiority in the virus/spyware market is only a by product of their tiny market share.

Getting back to the issue, does the hard drive still run and is it still recognized by the system. If so, there are some recovery software programs in the market that are end user operable and perform some fairly miraculous recoveries.

 

[ampguy]

For storage, and archiving, I use a combination of DVDs (UDF data), drive arrays, and on-line storage. All of my media can be attached to my workstations or servers and be made available to any system capable of supporting Ethernet and TCP/IP.

I would agree that it's not a great idea to archive data onto proprietary media formats or systems.

 

[dpetrzelka]

For anyone looking for a more secure, RAID backup of digital media, I would very highly recommedn the Infrant ReadyNAS NV+.

I am not associated with the company- but my self, and many of my friends in design/web/architecture have found this an invaulable "vault" for our files.

RAID arrays and hard drives are very cheap compared to billable time wasted on recovering/recreating files, or paying for data recovery.