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01/06/2003 02:24:24 AM · #1 |
I'm sure you've all heard it before, but back up your images! I have a new Dell and haven't burned any CD's for three months. Well, the hard drive went out and I lost all of those images. Dell is replacing the hard drive, but nothing can replace the photos I've lost! I have since bought a 60 GB portable hard drive for $170. It seemed expensive about 6 weeks ago when I first looked at it. Now the $170 spent seems like a bargain compared to losing data again!
With all that said, here is my real question...
Does anyone know of a decent place to get data recovery off a failed hard drive? I took it to a local shop and they said the controller on the hard drive is bad. They could send it to another company for me, but it was going to cost $1500-2000. Seems kind of high to me (actually a lot high), but my wife wants me to recover all those pictures of the kids! Any suggestions would be appreciated!
Thanks,
JD Anderson
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01/06/2003 03:05:07 AM · #2 |
JD
If you can find the exact same hard drive model that works, you could pull the controller off of the good drive and put it on yours to get your data off. Then put the good controller back on the other drive and you have you data and a working hard drive.
This might seem daunting but it's really not that hard if your familiar with electronics/PC components. This will void any warranty on the new drive, but I think it's worth it to save your non-replacable data.
The other catch:
Some of the newer hard drives are completely sealed or have the controllers hard soldered to keep people from removing them to fix other drives.
Best of luck to you.
DLTruex
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01/06/2003 07:48:05 AM · #3 |
JD, problem happened to me 6 months ago, drive was not visible by anything and I purvchased a software that recovered almost all of it.
I would need some reseach to find it.
PM me if yo u're interesed and then I look for it and post in the forum here.
Lionel |
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01/06/2003 08:09:13 AM · #4 |
JD - DO NOT RELY ON THE EXTERNAL DRIVE!!!
I had my external hooked up to my laptop. The laptop fell to the floor and took the external with it. Both drive lost. I lost 6 months worth of images in 2 seconds.
Back up to CD or DVD along with your hardrive. Do not rely on a device (external hard) that can be so easily damaged.
Food for thought.... |
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01/06/2003 08:20:40 AM · #5 |
My simple solution for problems like this is to install a second hard disk drive in your PC. I have two in mine. I store my photos to my C drive and run a scheduled backup of the MY DOCUMENTS foler where I store my photos to my D drive.
With a setup like this, you can backup ALL important stuff and not lose anything unless you lose BOTH drives at the same time for some strange reason.
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01/06/2003 08:57:28 AM · #6 |
Product is R- STUDIO,
web site is //www.r-tt.com
Price is 80$ (was at that time)
I used it 1 year ago at work for a harddrive that was not recognize at all by anything. And it worked very well, I recovered folder structures with data. I do not remember excactly, my guess is that I did not recoverd 100%, you can never be sure but it was at least 95%.
I installed the software , ran it , I guess it took few hours and then everything was there.
I was personnally very very happy with the result. I considered it really worth it , all other solutions were hundreds ot thousands of dollars
That's all I can remember share although you can ask more question ;-)
Hope this help
Lionel |
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01/06/2003 09:11:55 AM · #7 |
oh and plus ... if I remember well, you can run their demo(download), it does not recover anything but I think it will show part of the data structure it will recover, so then you can see that .. you're going to get something !!!
Lionel |
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01/06/2003 09:24:37 AM · #8 |
Originally posted by jmsetzler:
My simple solution for problems like this is to install a second hard disk drive in your PC. I have two in mine. I store my photos to my C drive and run a scheduled backup of the MY DOCUMENTS foler where I store my photos to my D drive.
With a setup like this, you can backup ALL important stuff and not lose anything unless you lose BOTH drives at the same time for some strange reason. |
Only problem with this is if you get a fire, or if something like a virus wanders through and trashes all your original files, which then get backed up without realising you are actually trashing the old versions...
Duplicate, off-site backups are probably the best way to go, and don't forget those CDs only last if they are stored properly - and then again if you use some weird propritary format (like Canon RAW) you need to remember in future to convert everything to a format that you can retrive from in 5-10 years when RAW has dissappeared. |
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01/06/2003 09:26:17 AM · #9 |
I still do archive to CD ROM and store them offsite... Worst case is that I would lose 4-6 weeks worth of photos in the event of some real disaster...
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01/06/2003 10:08:56 AM · #10 |
There's a program out there --free demo download--called Directory Snoop 4.02. I forgot where I found it,but it works great!!! Lets you get in and find whats still intact and you can retrieve it.
Message edited by author 2003-01-06 10:10:35. |
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01/06/2003 11:29:14 AM · #11 |
As soon as I have 600 to 700mb of photo's I make two backup's on Kodak CD-R80 Ultima's. One stays near the pc, the other goes into a vault. :-)
My 'normal' data goes on Imation CD-R's (tayo yuden), normally just one. At the company I always make two.
I don't trust harddrives. I have had two that went KRRRGGGRRRRG KRG KRG KRGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRR till now. :-) Later I found out that they had put some cheap stuff in there, noisy as hell too.
Why do I use a Microdrive? :-)
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01/06/2003 12:15:48 PM · #12 |
This may sound crazy, but if your controller is 'stuck', meaning when you power you PC up all you hear is a clicking noise coming from the drive... Then you might try a couple of things that have worked for me in the past.
The first is the simplest, and will often free a stuck controller--just smack the crap out of it. Seriously, just give it a good whack with the palm of your hand and try it again.
Failing that, you could always try placing it in freezer for a few hours (in a plastic bag, of course) and then see if that helps. It's my understanding that this works due the expansion and contraction of the metals in the drive. Freezing will contract the metal, often allowing the controller to free itself.
Of course, if you do get it up again just be prepared to back up your critical files asap.
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01/06/2003 12:18:50 PM · #13 |
| So, which is your best brand of CDRs for backing up data? |
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01/06/2003 12:38:09 PM · #14 |
| I use Memorex. Only CDR's, not CDRW. The life of CDRW's is not supposed to be as long. |
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01/06/2003 12:57:08 PM · #15 |
| consider also what specific hard drive you buy. I've had 2 home PCs that I've used during the past 15 years and never had a drive problem. When I bought my last PC, I read up on all the components available at the time at www.tomshardware.com and other web sites before having a PC built for me locally. The people building the PC were competent and advised me on which hard drive was best. Certain well known brands were crashing after a relatively short time and they were able to steer me to reliable ones. |
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01/06/2003 01:02:00 PM · #16 |
I've been using CD-R's (Memorex) as well, though it is getting to the point where I cant any more. If I go and shoot for an afternoon, I produce over 1Gb of pictures - pretty soon run out of space to back it all up on a 600Mb CD-R!
Anyone got any recommendations for which of the various DVD standards to plump for ? :) |
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01/06/2003 01:05:50 PM · #17 |
Wow Gorden, you wildman. A Gigs worth in an afternoon? What format are you shooting in? Ooops, nevermind. I see you have a D60. I was still thinking you had the G2.
Are you shooting in RAW? If so, what kind of file size do you get? |
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01/06/2003 01:16:08 PM · #18 |
External harddrives rock! I'll be getting one soon for my home. I'll put mine on my network so I can backup both of my PCs.
As for harddrive recovery, the companies that do this charge serious premiums. Rarely under $1000. They charge like $100/hour. But most people have no other choice... they kinda have you by the short and curlies.
I'd try the software solutions before taking it to a shop.
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01/06/2003 01:25:31 PM · #19 |
Originally posted by cykhansen:
consider also what specific hard drive you buy. I've had 2 home PCs that I've used during the past 15 years and never had a drive problem. When I bought my last PC, I read up on all the components available at the time at www.tomshardware.com and other web sites before having a PC built for me locally. The people building the PC were competent and advised me on which hard drive was best. Certain well known brands were crashing after a relatively short time and they were able to steer me to reliable ones. |
you can't trust a review on a new product... case in point : IBM Desktar 75GXP and 60GXP (late 2000)...
These were the Fastest, Quietest Hard drives available...look at TomsHardware... Now they are trash, MANY RMAs and even lawsuits pending...
Thousands of people had these drives and they Failed out of no where.
The moral of the story is to always use offsite storage...
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01/06/2003 01:35:28 PM · #20 |
Originally posted by jenarom:
So, which is your best brand of CDRs for backing up data? |
For just data, every brand that has its cd-r's made by Tayo Yuden. That are all Imations, some Sony's, some Philip's and some Fuji's and some other brands as well. Kodak Ultima's for photo's.
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01/06/2003 02:03:01 PM · #21 |
Originally posted by mcmurma:
Wow Gorden, you wildman. A Gigs worth in an afternoon? What format are you shooting in? Ooops, nevermind. I see you have a D60. I was still thinking you had the G2.
Are you shooting in RAW? If so, what kind of file size do you get? |
About 7-8Mb per shot |
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01/06/2003 06:31:40 PM · #22 |
And .. do not necessarily rely on all your burned cd's you use as back up.. Nothing is definate. You can only try :-)
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01/06/2003 06:41:39 PM · #23 |
Originally posted by Gordon:
... and don't forget those CDs only last if they are stored properly ... |
What exactly is proper storage?? Are you talking about fireproof and such or something like humidity
Message edited by author 2003-01-06 18:42:33.
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01/07/2003 08:16:23 AM · #24 |
Smellyfish... this is really good advice. . . and i need to do it. I have prolly about 20 G of stuff that hasn't been backed up, waiting to be destroyed.
And the longer I put it off the harder it will be to do.
The problem is that I like to have easy access to the files and CDR's really just arent that convenient to sort, store, catalog, and access.
Anyone have any better ideas?
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01/07/2003 12:15:23 PM · #25 |
magnetic9999,
A common thing I've been hearing are CDR's for backups (not daily use) that are kept at a different site or location. A second hard drive, whether internal or external, provides for on-site back up and easy access to files. The CDR's are for the worst case scenario and you don't have to deal with them for daily purposes.
Thanks for everyone's replies. I'm going to try some of the suggestions and see what happens.
JD Anderson
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