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DPChallenge Forums >> Hardware and Software >> Nooooooooooo not my C: Drive!!!!
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08/24/2005 01:21:50 PM · #1
I am distraught, my damn C drive has had a funny turn and a load of music and images have been damaged.

Its the images I am bothered about, I have a load of portraits I had taken of the board members of the company I work for, not to mention images from a recent holiday. I can't believe it! Some will open in Photoshop but won't display in any other program, it says somthing about the image being damaged or truncated? I just ran a scan disk and have loads of bad/damaged sectors.

Anyone Brits out there know of a UK based company that can retrieve stuff from a dead hard drive PLEASE!!!
08/24/2005 01:25:50 PM · #2
First things first can you backup any important doc's etc.

08/24/2005 01:36:44 PM · #3
First backup all the rest of the data you want to be sabe. Next there are some specific programs to recover lost data in disck. I don't remember the name but you can search. But there are some people that can recover disks that have been scratch, witch is the worst thing that can happen.
08/24/2005 02:00:11 PM · #4
thanks guys.

Luckily I backed stuff up about 3 weeks ago. Its odd, but I seem to be able to open some of the images up in photoshop and I am then saving them to another drive.

If I try viewing the images in other programs they just freeze and if I try to copy them to another drive or disk they are currupted on the other end.

When I ran the scan disk thingy it did suggest that the disk might be scratched - gulp!

So far the rest of the computer seems usable, but I guess its a matter of time before if goes completely.
08/24/2005 02:19:57 PM · #5
LoveSpuds - Whatever you do do NOT give the drive to someone else before you test out my stuff first. The first thing you NEED to do IS switch the drive from master to slave. This SHOULD axcess the drive and allow you to retrieve the info. If it does not then try leaving it as a master and putting in a 98SE boot disk. I can transmit one if needed. This should allow you also to see the files but please do these options in order. If that fails then put the drive into the freezer for a couple of hours and then try it again. One of these SHOULD alow you to retrieve your info onto another dive but it will NOT be a perminately solution. I have yet to be able to recover a drive under ANY circumstances.
08/24/2005 02:23:36 PM · #6
Originally posted by notonline:

LoveSpuds - Whatever you do do NOT give the drive to someone else before you test out my stuff first. The first thing you NEED to do IS switch the drive from master to slave. This SHOULD axcess the drive and allow you to retrieve the info. If it does not then try leaving it as a master and putting in a 98SE boot disk. I can transmit one if needed. This should allow you also to see the files but please do these options in order. If that fails then put the drive into the freezer for a couple of hours and then try it again. One of these SHOULD alow you to retrieve your info onto another dive but it will NOT be a perminately solution. I have yet to be able to recover a drive under ANY circumstances.


notonline...question...the rest makes sense to me but I'm confused about the putting it in the freezer? Was this a joke or does it do something special? I would think it could cause moisture? Interesting would love to know more.

Message edited by author 2005-08-24 14:23:49.
08/24/2005 02:24:34 PM · #7
As I understand it:

Freezing your drive dictates that you be ready to retrieve your files immediately after re-installing the drive. This is a one-time operation, and your drive will be unusable after it thaws, therefore, you might want to save this for a last ditch option.

Message edited by author 2005-08-24 14:25:39.
08/24/2005 02:34:57 PM · #8
I would get an external Drive. I have a 250gig firewire drive and it is great. doesent not take up your operating system memory space so the computer will still run super fast. you can get them USB a little slower when working with RAW files but still good peace-of-mind.
I have a Maxtor drive.
CompUSA.
08/24/2005 02:51:00 PM · #9
Will try some of these suggestions thanks. Will try the freezer trick as a last resort tho - it might end up in the pan with my sausage and bacon in the morning tho as I dont tend to open my eyes until I arrive in work! :)

thanks guys

D
08/24/2005 03:05:20 PM · #10
Originally posted by sabphoto:

Originally posted by notonline:

LoveSpuds - Whatever you do do NOT give the drive to someone else before you test out my stuff first. The first thing you NEED to do IS switch the drive from master to slave. This SHOULD axcess the drive and allow you to retrieve the info. If it does not then try leaving it as a master and putting in a 98SE boot disk. I can transmit one if needed. This should allow you also to see the files but please do these options in order. If that fails then put the drive into the freezer for a couple of hours and then try it again. One of these SHOULD alow you to retrieve your info onto another dive but it will NOT be a perminately solution. I have yet to be able to recover a drive under ANY circumstances.


notonline...question...the rest makes sense to me but I'm confused about the putting it in the freezer? Was this a joke or does it do something special? I would think it could cause moisture? Interesting would love to know more.


I think the question was answered but I'm not sure. No it wasn't meant as a joke but should be done at the last possible step to retrieve a drive. Personally I've never had to do it so I really don't know if it works BUT I did read it does.
08/24/2005 05:37:53 PM · #11
Originally posted by aronya1:

As I understand it:

Freezing your drive dictates that you be ready to retrieve your files immediately after re-installing the drive. This is a one-time operation, and your drive will be unusable after it thaws, therefore, you might want to save this for a last ditch option.


Interesting, I will have to research that. Thanks.
08/24/2005 10:24:59 PM · #12
The freezing of the drive you'll find does work.. but at a risk..

the warmer the drives get, the harder it is to read the data, freezing them can work, but condensation becomes a HUGE risk, make sure the humidity is low in the room you do it in.
when freezing, seal it inside a plastic zip bag first, and keep it inside that bag till your ready to plug it in.

but I would not reccomend it, its doubtful its necessary, specially if your still booting off the drive.

first thing I'd do is put it in another computer and try to rescue the files.. or get a second hdd to install the OS onto and try to rescue it that way..

if that fails.. download knoppix and try again..

if that fails come back with what the resulkts were like.

Using an external drive is just as likely to fail and cause issues as using the same drive as your OS is on, and is a false sense of peice of mind.. you should ALWAYS have 2 copys of your files, on seperate drives, and a hard backup aswell.

an external drive is just as likely to flake or fail as an internal one, and maxtor's reliability has been nothing special.
I keep all my files on one HDD (dedicated to images), on my notebook, and on dvd (after burn, do verify.. dvd-r/+r do NOT last forever, don't rely on them any more than you do any other storage)
08/24/2005 10:57:52 PM · #13
Hey,
tho i don't know how to fix your problem, i can definately relate.
a while back a nasty computer virus erased aaaaaall of my files, including music, photos, and over 100 paintings/drawings/fashion designs from all of my programs :-(
So, either way, I hope ya get the problem fixed, and don't loose hope!

Message edited by author 2005-08-24 22:58:08.
08/24/2005 11:35:11 PM · #14
I had a similar problem two weeks ago. A lighning strike fried my computer. I ordered a new computer that came with SATA HD's and my old ones are ATA. So I spend $30 for an external USB case that the old drive plugged right into. So far I have been able to retrieve everything from the first drive ... now two more drives to go. In this case the drive seems to be ok the motherboard and CPU were out of commission. Lucky I guess .... now the new computer is WOW Fast and pretty.
08/25/2005 03:05:48 AM · #15
Never, EVER, try to fix data loss with scandisk!

Scandisk will check all the files and allocation tables on your hard drive for problems. But, anywhere it finds an error it will simply truncate the file at the damaged point and update the directory structure to match.

A damaged byte in an image would probably make a single pixels colour value change slightly. An unreadable byte after scandisk does it work will leave half an image file, which you will probably never manage to load again...

What Scandisk is good at, is rebuilding the directory structure, something which windows XP seems to break all too often =(. However, if the data on the drive is valuable I'd always advise plugging it into a different (working) machine to copy everything you can first. If actual data has been lost, (you're unable to copy it off without errors) try to recover the data first before worrying about getting windows running on that disk again.

Try Spinrite from www.grc.com, it does a non-destructive data recovery and generally gets back more of the damaged data than anything else avaliable to us "normal" users.

PS: Hi, this is my first day here, first post. Sorry about the slightly techy nature of the above, computers are my vocation and I'm no longer qualified to tell the differece between English and Techno-Babble. =)
08/25/2005 08:11:54 AM · #16
Things seem to be buggered here. Should have posted this topic before I tried scandisk - if scandisk is as pants as you guys suggest.

Looks like I have lost about 200 photo's and maybe 3-4 albums. Luckily I have managed to retrieve enough of my empoyers board portraits to get me off the hook, so I aint going to get in the shit at work.

However, I am having trouble with a couple of images that I MUST have so I am not out of the woods just yet. Some images from a portrait shoot I did of a colleagues kids and most of what I shot over last weekend.

The big dilemma I have is that I am unable to retrieve the originals from my dairy entry and am worried that if I do well I might have to supply the original for inspection. I have a pal who works in IT coming over tomorrow night to see what he can do - fingers crossed - otherwise I may have to pull my entry from the dairy challenge (my score so far is Votes: 199 Views: 316 Avg Vote: 6.6784)


Message edited by author 2005-08-25 08:15:47.
08/25/2005 08:17:01 AM · #17
//www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1028112728
08/25/2005 09:05:18 AM · #18
BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP ... thats the only safe way! I know people that have lost all their files just because of a single virus that ate them all.

I do it the safe way ... I always have two copys of all the images.
1. I put my files on my portable hard-drive (X-drive II)
2. Copy from my X-drive to my laptop but do not delete from X-drive.
3. After having looked trough the files on my laptop then I copy that to my server and delete the photos from my X-drive
4. After four days then I delete the files from my laptop because then has my server made a copy of my folders (happens two times a week) so always I will have the photos on two places at the same time.

I know it cost a litle but I think it is worth it ... I have two servers, one main server that has 800 GB space and then another that is a backup server that has 1,2 TB (1200 GB) of space ...

If you want your picture to be safe then think about this. Of course if you don't take that many photos then you can of course just make a backup on a DVD disc and then I would tell you to make two copys of each disc and keep it separated :)

This information does not help you with your problem now but it will keep you from this happening again.
08/25/2005 09:58:15 AM · #19
I do back up my stuff every couple of weeks, depending on how much I have photographed, I was due to backup my stuff this week but disaster struck before I got a chance.

This sucks big time, just hope my mate can get my Dairy challenge original off the drive!
08/25/2005 10:56:15 AM · #20
When my hard drive crashed I used Stellar Phoenix FAT and it worked like a charm!

Stellar Phoenix - FAT Recovery Software helps in easy recovery of your all-important data lost after an accidental format, virus attack, software malfunction, file/directory deletion or even sabotage! This data recovery utility examines your inaccessible hard drive and shows you the data that is present in the hard disk. Simple FAT disk recovery process requires you to only select listed files & directories and copy to a working drive. Phoenix is a quick, simple and easy to use FAT recovery solution that helps you in file recovery in moments of disaster of a disk crash.This Award winning file recovery utility is a must for SME's having mission critical data.

They have US and UK support.
08/27/2005 01:09:15 AM · #21
Christ, some frightening advice going about in this thread.

First, notonline, what difference exactly do you think switching the drive from master to slave would make to the readability of the data? If this changes ANYTHING, there is something seriously wrong with your motherboard.

Also, putting a drive in the freezer is a very serious last resort and should not be suggested casually. As has been mentioned, it will likely be a one-time operation, but is by no means guaranteed to work. The whole idea behind cooling down the drive is different components cool at different rates, and shrink separately - supposedly dislodging any jammed parts. If the drive already works, this will NOT solve anything - this may get a totally inoperative drive working again temporarily though.

Also, the usual recommendation for this technique is to put it in the fridge for half an hour or so, in ziploc bags with lots of silica gel. Freezing it for "a couple of hours" will completely destroy the drive. Also, when the drive comes out of the fridge/freezer below room temperature, you'll have to take it out of the ziploc bag to plug it in, and condensation WILL form. If you're lucky it won't short anything on the control board before you manage to magically copy all your data off, but this is a slim hope - this is why you should put it in the fridge, not the freezer.

Moreover if you're serious about getting professional data recovery, this process will have a very good chance of damaging the drive past any professional recoverability, especially if the heads crash into the platter because of uneven thermal compression.
08/29/2005 07:05:17 AM · #22
Well I recovered a few more things but still lost quite a bit of music and around 180 of my most recent images. The Drive failed on me completely last night and I have just finished reinstalling windows and my Anti Virus stuff onto a new drive.

Word of advice folks, don't put off backing stuff up, I kept on thinking 'ah, Ill do it tomorrow' and have just been burned. Won't be making that mistake again.

Message edited by author 2005-08-29 07:06:33.
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