My harddrive died...

[Jan Lund Thomsen]

On monday morning as Makke and I were getting ready to record another podcast, distaster struck. And not just the Windows partition, but the entire thing. And no - there was no recent backup.

Been trying GetDataBack and various other recovery tools with no success, as the drive just sits there and takes forever to do nothing at all. Did manage to use RecoverMyPhotos to pull a chunk off the SLAYRadio Gathering images off a deleted SD card, though.

About 60% done on grabbing the RKO collection from the server now. Had copies of the past rougly 2500 e-mails on my mailserver, some earlier photos on a CDR, my BITLive 2004 photos on the web, and photo highlights from the past year on the missus laptop, so that helped ease the pain of the other photos lost. Plus with EphPod I was able to pull in podcast jingles and album preview (like Makke and FTCs cds) from the iPod.

It's a real eye-opener to loose something you take for granted. Especially when there's photos involved. Makes one realise exactly how much of ones identity that sits on a harddrive.

And how backups shouldn't merely be something you talk about getting round done one of these days...

[trace]

Ah crap, many ppl is having this problem now, my friends also ;/

I need to take more backups and buy a new hd just incase

Maybe it's a new virus that craches the hd somehow, wouldn't be supprised

[Waz]

as the drive just sits there and takes forever to do nothing at all.

Did you try what I suggested in terms of putting the drive in the freezer? I often managed to get data back using this method, particularly with useless 20GB Fushitsu disks. For those of you unfamiliar with the procedure:

* set your drive jumpers so the drive is slave
* Put hard drive in antistatic bag, wrap well and place in freezer for 2-3 hours
* Remove drive, and attach it to a working PC. If all is well drive should be seen and accessible
* Snag what you can - quick! Normal working time is about 20-30 mins before it falls again

At least you had most of the stuff though Jan, imagine if it was much more personal stuff you didn't have archived anywhere?

[Vosla]

Aww, shite, man!
Hopefully, wazzaw's trick will get you some data back!

Are all 20GB Fushitsu drives defective by default?
This is at least the 12th time or so I heard of somebody losing data because of that shitty little datakillers...

[xo]

Sorry to hear it, but GetDataBack isn't going to increase your chances that much. That's not to say that alternatives will necessarily be more successful.

[dan gillgrass]

It's a real eye-opener to loose something you take for granted. Especially when there's photos involved.

Yea, mine went pop last month, I can get most of it back except the photos, it really sucks

[sumppi]

Seems like a summer trend or something, my 500 gig Lacie Firewire drive just broke down last week and ordered another one to see if I can recover stuff from it.

Although it's just a data drive with mostly crappy TV shows and samples, there were also all my Logic projects pre-Calm. Grrh. And all freelance projects pre-2000, photos etc. One would think I'd learn after previous crashes in 1996 and 2001

Luckily it's still covered by warranty, so when I get the drive back I'll be able to backup the entire drive to another identical every night...

Sumppi

[Mayhem]

Bloody hell, sorry to hear that...

Am I the only one to seems to avoid HD problems then?

[Steve B]

try a program called "Easy Recovery Professional" from ONTRACK Data International, Inc.
i had a hard drive failure (the FAT decided to bugger off up its own arse) and this program got all my files back, plus all the deleted files on the drive too.

[tony.rc]

Personally I think that just buying another hard drive and putting it inside the same box to copy over data too is NOT a good system of backup.

I'm worried about power supply one day blowing up or a power serge that will possibly destroy both physical hard drives. I prefer to have my 2nd hard drive in a USB 2.0 caddy, having to also buy a USB2.0 PCI card too because USB 1.0 is far too slow. The idea of a external hard drive (for backup) is far from perfect but better than the 2 hard drives in the same case.

As for hard drives dying, I've been luckly and I'm not gonna push my luck either!

[sumppi]

I prefer to have my 2nd hard drive in a USB 2.0 caddy, having to also buy a USB2.0 PCI card too because USB 1.0 is far too slow. The idea of a external hard drive (for backup) is far from perfect but better than the 2 hard drives in the same case.

Yep, I use two Lacie Firewire 800 drives for that - fast enough for serious use. For more power hungry tasks I use the main drives, two striped WD 10krpm Raptors with crucial data backed to another Firewire drive.

Actually, I've started to think about building a dedicated archive of 4 TB with 8 SATA drives when they get the 500 gig drives out. That should be enough to store the DVD collection for a while.

Sumppi

[Steve B]

sods law isnt it !
my E:\ drive just turned its toes up.
luckly i had a spare 40 gig to hand to transfer 90% of the files to.
(no, i dont back up. how do you back up 3 drives totaling 240 gig ?)

[sumppi]

(no, i dont back up. how do you back up 3 drives totaling 240 gig ?)

On an external (or internal) hard drive with 250 gigs of space?

Sumppi

[Matrix]

For future info of anyone looking up this thread...... if the drive just its there clicking away, the drive cant initialise and the logic board underneath has failed - just find the identical drive (make & size) with the same PCBA number on the sticker - sure you lose a perfectly good new HD, but you get to retrieve all your data.

I did this 2 years ago.... its still kicking strong as my FTP drive.

Good luck Jan.

[Steve B]

On an external (or internal) hard drive with 250 gigs of space?

Sumppi

see, i call that extra storage space. not a backup device (you can never have too much storage space!)