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06/30/2006 04:13:11 PM · #1 |
Last Sunday I was trying to work on editing photos when I got fed up with how bogged down my computer was getting, so I decided that I was just going to give up and go out monday and get a new hard drive and some more memory (my drive was extremely cluttered with junk and fragmented so I was just going to do a clean wipe and reinstall windows).
In preperation for my upgrades I started to back up files but after the software I was using to do the backup crashed while burning the last disc of an eight disc set I decided that the DVDs were taking too long and I was just going to wait till I got the new drive in and then sort the files and archive them without all the junk files mixed in.
To get to the point, I got my drive the next day, unpluged the old one and started to get the new one ready for windows to be installed. At this point I realized that I needed the drivers for the new hard drive so I hooked back the old one to boot into windows. The drive booted into Windows and imediately froze and crashed. After that the drive refused to ever go into Windows again.
I probably could have saved my data If I knew then what I know now. The drive was still recognized and if I had done the correct thing and cloned the drive then before messing with it I wouldn't have had a problem. But I didn't do that. I started by going ahead and installing windows on the other drive and acessing the old one as a secondary drive. This did not work. I then tried booting to knoppix to pull the files over. With this I was able to see one of the two partitions on the old drive and could have copied it but the program refused to copy the NTFS files system without using the captive NTFS program which was not located where the prompt said it was supposed to be (and I still have been unable to find it).
The next day I went to the store that I got my components from so I could talk to the technician before I went any further with trying to recover the drive. Unfortunatly the guy never showed up that day and I lost patience and started trying to get the drive back.
To cut a long story short I messed with that drive all week and even bought software that could have saved it if I had used it properly and imeediately cloned the drive while it was working. My final mistake came thursday when I let the computer try to run a disk scan on the drive all day. by the time I got home the program had stalled and after restarting the drive was never recognized by the BIOS again.
I lost nearly 11 months worth of photos from that drive along with the flash file for my website that I probably had put about a 100 hours of work in. Now there is very little chance of getting that drive back short of thousands of dollars in data recovery.
The only silver lining I have yet to find is that flash decompiler programs have gotten better over the past couple years andit look like I will be able to recover the majority of my work on the website. Also a portion of my photos are copied on my wife's computer (at least the sets that have her in them).
Unfortunately I have lost almost all photos I have done for any of the challenges here along with a variety of others. I guess I can at least take comfort in knowing i didn't have any completely irreplacable photos like of a European trip or anything.
So my very hard learned lesson from all this: BACK UP MY FILES ON A REGULAR BASIS! Let this by a lesson to the rest of you too, if you have not backed up in awhile do it now, you never know when those drives are going to go bad on you.
Does anyone know if there is a way you can download the files you have uploaded to DPCPrints? i would like to grab some of the high res version of the shots I lost...
Message edited by author 2006-06-30 16:49:31. |
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06/30/2006 04:16:28 PM · #2 |
The disk platters might still contain your data.
Check in your local area for hard disk recovery experts. It will NOT be cheap, but if the files are worth something to do, it is the best thing to do. |
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06/30/2006 04:18:45 PM · #3 |
Originally posted by fadedbeauty:
Does anyone know if there is a way you can download the files you have uploaded to DPCPrints? i would like to grab some of the high res version of the shots I lost... |
if you ask an SC member, I think they will be able to send you any original files that you may have sent to DPC.
I know they sent me one when I had lost my original.
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06/30/2006 04:24:09 PM · #4 |
| What program were you using to back up? I just tried to use Acronis - the lastest home edition - to back up some files to DVDs and the last DVD crashed it. I was using the trial version. |
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06/30/2006 04:28:08 PM · #5 |
you can try opening up the hard drive using a different operating system, such as lynux.
-Dan |
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06/30/2006 04:32:08 PM · #6 |
Originally posted by I Enjoy Ham:
you can try opening up the hard drive using a different operating system, such as lynux.
-Dan |
He already tried that - I then tried booting to knoppix to pull the files over. |
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06/30/2006 04:36:00 PM · #7 |
| Paragraphs, like disk backups, are essential to sentient lifeforms. |
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06/30/2006 04:37:17 PM · #8 |
I use this software all the time to recover files from blasted HD's. It might work for you. Get Data Back
Good Luck!
Message edited by author 2006-06-30 16:40:46. |
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06/30/2006 04:37:56 PM · #9 |
woops... missed that :)
would deffinitely try and find a company near you that extracts information from drives.
-Dan |
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06/30/2006 04:40:19 PM · #10 |
| For actual recovery service I have used these folks. They are very very good and professional. OnTrack Data Recovery |
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06/30/2006 04:58:00 PM · #11 |
Originally posted by tmhalling:
Originally posted by I Enjoy Ham:
you can try opening up the hard drive using a different operating system, such as lynux.
-Dan |
He already tried that - I then tried booting to knoppix to pull the files over. |
Yes, it would have worked if I could have found the utility for the NTFS...
Originally posted by I Enjoy Ham:
would deffinitely try and find a company near you that extracts information from drives. |
I should have left it with the local store i bought the components from. One of their services is disaster recovery. I was just being cheap and thought I could do it myself without any issues...just didn't educate myself enough before i dived in...
Originally posted by pineapple:
Paragraphs, like disk backups, are essential to sentient lifeforms. |
I was in a hurry typing...fixed now..
As for data recovery at this point...i think the drive is too far gone since it is no longer recognized by the BIOS. I am still going to mess with to try to get it to spin back up long enough to clone but I doubt it will happen. i just have to move on to and accept the loss and make sure it never happens again. I guess this is one downside to digital photography: if you don't back-up you have no physical copy to go back to...
I am just really glad that none of the data I lost was client files ( I nearly lost 6 months of website flash files one time before but was able to recover the data). I have also been getting ready to do a bunch of trade time with local models to expand my portfolio and am very happy that I have not started that yet...that would not have been a great thing to have lost...
Message edited by author 2006-06-30 17:03:22. |
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06/30/2006 05:10:30 PM · #12 |
Although I wouldn't necessarily advise this service for hundreds of photos due to amount of storage space used, try mydocumentsbackup if you need a simple, professional, automatic file backup service. It's low cost - £5.00 sterling per month for me and I dont have to worry.
It should work fine from anywhere.
Message edited by author 2006-06-30 17:15:45.
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06/30/2006 05:15:02 PM · #13 |
| Magnificent, Man! Thanks muchly. |
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06/30/2006 05:22:33 PM · #14 |
Originally posted by fadedbeauty:
Originally posted by tmhalling:
Originally posted by I Enjoy Ham:
you can try opening up the hard drive using a different operating system, such as lynux.
-Dan |
He already tried that - I then tried booting to knoppix to pull the files over. |
Yes, it would have worked if I could have found the utility for the NTFS...
Originally posted by I Enjoy Ham:
would deffinitely try and find a company near you that extracts information from drives. |
I should have left it with the local store i bought the components from. One of their services is disaster recovery. I was just being cheap and thought I could do it myself without any issues...just didn't educate myself enough before i dived in...
Originally posted by pineapple:
Paragraphs, like disk backups, are essential to sentient lifeforms. |
I was in a hurry typing...fixed now..
As for data recovery at this point...i think the drive is too far gone since it is no longer recognized by the BIOS. I am still going to mess with to try to get it to spin back up long enough to clone but I doubt it will happen. i just have to move on to and accept the loss and make sure it never happens again. I guess this is one downside to digital photography: if you don't back-up you have no physical copy to go back to...
I am just really glad that none of the data I lost was client files ( I nearly lost 6 months of website flash files one time before but was able to recover the data). I have also been getting ready to do a bunch of trade time with local models to expand my portfolio and am very happy that I have not started that yet...that would not have been a great thing to have lost... |
Actually A good data recovery specilist with a cleen room can remove the platters and put them in a good drive and recover the data off the platters, this is however not cheap, if the files are important then that is the way to go. And for gods sacke get a dl DVD burner for aprx $50 at newegg.com or any other place and make data back ups :) |
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06/30/2006 05:29:25 PM · #15 |
| I find a mirrored RAID array to be the best backup option as it happens automatically as your data is updated. With the low cost of hard drives today it really shouldn't be out of the reach of almost any budget. I'm currently running two mirrored arrays in my system and I can't recommend it too highly. I know if I had to manually backup periodically I'd end up so far behind I'd never have everything caught up. |
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06/30/2006 05:32:34 PM · #16 |
Brought a hd back to life after giving it a hard wack. Try it at your own risk. When something electronically brakes down I hit it hard. 50/50 it will work again (or not), at least I feel better.
It didn't work with the injet printer I smashed on the floor half a year ago. The printer certainly doesn't work no more and the carpet has some nasty stains. :) Should have thrown it out of the window and not on the floor.
Still have a Sony P1 digicam. It has trouble with the aperture blades and the zoom mechanism. Whenever it fails I slam the camera into my other hand and it loosens up again.
Good luck. :)
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06/30/2006 05:46:12 PM · #17 |
Originally posted by Azrifel:
Brought a hd back to life after giving it a hard wack. Try it at your own risk. When something electronically brakes down I hit it hard. 50/50 it will work again (or not), at least I feel better.
It didn't work with the injet printer I smashed on the floor half a year ago. The printer certainly doesn't work no more and the carpet has some nasty stains. :) Should have thrown it out of the window and not on the floor.
Still have a Sony P1 digicam. It has trouble with the aperture blades and the zoom mechanism. Whenever it fails I slam the camera into my other hand and it loosens up again.
Good luck. :) |
ROFLMAO!!!!!
:)
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06/30/2006 06:02:14 PM · #18 |
Originally posted by EricMGB1974:
I find a mirrored RAID array to be the best backup option as it happens automatically as your data is updated. With the low cost of hard drives today it really shouldn't be out of the reach of almost any budget. I'm currently running two mirrored arrays in my system and I can't recommend it too highly. I know if I had to manually backup periodically I'd end up so far behind I'd never have everything caught up. |
RAIDs are great I run a mirrored array also - unless you need to restore or you corrupt a Windows file and can't boot in which case you still need a back up. It happened to me last week. |
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06/30/2006 06:05:10 PM · #19 |
Originally posted by tmhalling:
Originally posted by EricMGB1974:
I find a mirrored RAID array to be the best backup option as it happens automatically as your data is updated. With the low cost of hard drives today it really shouldn't be out of the reach of almost any budget. I'm currently running two mirrored arrays in my system and I can't recommend it too highly. I know if I had to manually backup periodically I'd end up so far behind I'd never have everything caught up. |
RAIDs are great I run a mirrored array also - unless you need to restore or you corrupt a Windows file and can't boot in which case you still need a back up. It happened to me last week. |
Unless your computer gets stolen or there is a fire in your computer or house!!! Back up on a server elsewhere!!!
Message edited by author 2006-06-30 18:06:09.
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06/30/2006 06:28:36 PM · #20 |
| And don't forget that the backup needs to be backedup too. Recently my external Maxtor 5000DV firewire drive bit the dust. I replaced it with an external Western Digital Firewire/USB disk. But make sure that data on your external disk is also somewhere else, say on DVDs. Keep your backup in another location (not just another room). |
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06/30/2006 07:59:59 PM · #21 |
Originally posted by pineapple:
And don't forget that the backup needs to be backedup too. Recently my external Maxtor 5000DV firewire drive bit the dust. I replaced it with an external Western Digital Firewire/USB disk. But make sure that data on your external disk is also somewhere else, say on DVDs. Keep your backup in another location (not just another room). |
Of course now we have the question of, just what is the shelf life of a DVD or CD? Or will it still be readable in 20 years? Anybody still have a 5.25" floppy drive in their computer by any chance, or a punch card reader?
I'm just playing Devil's advocate, but in the end the question of redundancy in backups is all a question of how important your images are to you or your business and how anal or paranoid you are. After all how many of you kept copies of your negatives or prints from film days in a secure off premises location in addition to the photos you had in your albums? Surely, they were just as vulnerable to fires, floods, or other disasters.
For me a RAID backup of my data with my system disk on a seperate drive meets my comfort level, and I'll occasionally go through and back my best or most important shots up on CD or now DVD. If something significantly better or easier comes along I'll migrate to that but for now I know, the easier it is, the more likely it is to be done. The best backup system in the world doesn't do you any good if you don't follow through, and with how many shots get taken with digital cameras, at least for me, it's all too easy to fall hopelessly behind if you rely on a manual system like burning to DVD's. |
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