im screwed..im about to cry..honest..what now..my hardrive has packed in

[macro junkie]

my freecom hardrive when turned on is making weird sound and its not reponding on my pc..and guees what..u guys are not going to belive this..i havent got any of it backed up to disk..honest if this thing is broke im going to brake down crying.this is 1 years work shooting every day.and i got fealing iv just lost it all..can it be retrived?if u say no im going to brake down.:cry:what a ratard not backing it up.

[cdifoto]

External, I'm assuming. If so, try a new enclosure.

[tommykjensen]

Sorry to hear that.

If you truely have absolutely no backups during the year and you have all your photos on it and you are not a pc expert my advice is to contact a professional recovery service. They can recover a lot but of course are expensive. But you need to decide if your photos are valuable enough to try that or if you are willing to risk loosing everything completely by trying to recover yourself.

[deadpass]

is the drive making a clicking sound? if so then your drive is dying. You can try putting the drive in the freezer overnight and then plugging it back in, it's reported to work typically long enough to get the info you need off of it, but your mileage may vary. Also, if this drive also has your boot parition on it then make sure you have a new drive ready with an OS installed on it so you're not running the bad drive too much. Since it seems to be an external drive I doubt you have your boot partition on it however.

[macro junkie]

yes its worth me spending 100£ min to get these back..its all my work.im going to ring them now

[tommykjensen]

is the drive making a clicking sound? if so then your drive is dying. You can try putting the drive in the freezer overnight and then plugging it back in, it's reported to work typically long enough to get the info you need off of it, but your mileage may vary. Also, if this drive also has your boot parition on it then make sure you have a new drive ready with an OS installed on it so you're not running the bad drive too much. Since it seems to be an external drive I doubt you have your boot partition on it however.

Honestly I hate seeing this kind of advice given in circumstances like this.

[macro junkie]

is the drive making a clicking sound? if so then your drive is dying. You can try putting the drive in the freezer overnight and then plugging it back in, it's reported to work typically long enough to get the info you need off of it, but your mileage may vary. Also, if this drive also has your boot parition on it then make sure you have a new drive ready with an OS installed on it so you're not running the bad drive too much. Since it seems to be an external drive I doubt you have your boot partition on it however.
yes its clicking and making funny noise..so i put it in freezer>?u sure?oh man what a nightmare

[tommykjensen]

yes its clicking and making funny noise..so i put it in freezer>?u sure?in a bag or what?

I would NOT do that. But its entirely up to you.

[macro junkie]

i have rang dadt recovery..i been qwoted 80220£..man life really sucks somtimes//i might have to pay 220£ cause i didnt back my pics up on to disk..*M.J hangs his head in shame*

[gkwood]

My advice is to contact Freecom its not going to cost you to ask the advice they made the drive right , if all else fails do as tommy said contact a sevice to recover the drive , but DONT put it in the freezer

[PBest78]

try OnTrack (http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.co.uk/) they're one of the best in the business (not cheap tho)

Peter

[dpastern]

Honestly I hate seeing this kind of advice given in circumstances like this.

Same, totally agreed Tommy. This will probably screw the drive even more, by allowing moisture to get into the very delicate electronics.

DO NOT DO THIS MJ!!!

220 pounds is a pittance for your images, if need be, do it.

Clicking sounds are generally a sign of the heads dragging against the surface of the disk's platter system. Do not power the disk up anymore, place it in a safe place, where it cannot be dropped etc. Get it to a data recovery expert ASAP.

As to not backing up, this is usually what happens (Murphy's law, Sod's law). This happened to Racketman last year :( :( You'll have learned your lesson the hard way my friend, my sympathies.

Good luck with everything, I hope you can save your images, I really do.

Dave

[TTk]

Had same self thing happen about 4 years ago on a Seagate drive ended up takeing it to a pro to get the info removed, cost abit back then ( more now ) but well worth it. Now i back up all my wedding photos and non replaceable stuff on disc just incase it happens again..

[Attic]

Bl*&*^y hell MJ that's awful news, hope you get it sorted and you put time on your agenda in the future for backing up. :(

[macro junkie]

i sent it to this guy..he said he wil look at it and see what he can do.he wont charge me any thing untill he knows whats wrong with it,he said for 400gb it can be any thing from 80£ - 220£...i dont mind paying that..theres over 1000 of my best editied images iv taken over the past year..i been very busy..and i am praying he can get my work out..i didnt back my work up on cd cause iv nver done it befor..im sure its easy with somthing called nero?

[Collin85]

Good luck with that.

Why haven't you been backing up? Lesson learnt, I suppose.

[tommykjensen]

Yes Nero is easy to use.

My advice moving forward is to buy two identical external harddisks. Use one as primary and the second as backup. Backup to the second disk either every day or when you have enough new stuff or changes you don't want to loose. DVD's or CD's you can burn those maybe once a week or once a month.

I can recommend Buffalo LinkStation Live which are network attached storage. I have two of these for backup. I turn them off when not running a new backup.

[mok86]

i would also recommend the freezer trick....done it myself a couple times on failing hds....its only good for pulling off the data..dont use the drive afterwards

[macro junkie]

its all ready been set off..hes going to ring me tomorow to let me know if it can easiery be done..il let u guys know what happens..im praying he can retrive 365 days of shooting..all my best pics..grrrr

[Attic]

MJ you can even backup using windows, just right click a folder and send it to your dvd drive making sure it is smaller that the space on the drive of course ;)

[TeamSpeed]

With the prices of large external USB 2.0 drives, and this time of year, I would suggest in the meantime shopping on DealNews.com and other places, and pick up a couple of these units. Use one weekly, and use the other monthly, at a minimum. I picked up a DLink NAS enclosure and put 2 350gb drives in it, and have it off my network router as mountable drives. And I only shoot for fun/as a hobby. If I were a professional, I would have this, in addition to nightly jobs going to an offsite 3rd party solution, and probably have a multi-DVD burner burning copies going offsite as well as a last ditch storage.

For example 500gb Maxtor for $100 usd, not sure which of the vendors listed ship to your location though. Maybe a kind member would buy one and ship to you from the US from Frys.com, it has happened in the past here on POTN. $108 from Frys, and about $35-40 usd to ship to the UK.

http://dealnews.com/Maxtor-Basics-Personal-Storage-3200-500-GB-USB-2-0-External-Hard-Drive-for-100/201273.html

[Ultimate CC]

Sorry to hear, hopefully they get all your images back, I try to do the have two external harddrives, one for daily and one for monthly or biweekly backups and then I also load all my high res files to my site and leave them there...best of luck with getting your images back...

[macro junkie]

Same, totally agreed Tommy. This will probably screw the drive even more, by allowing moisture to get into the very delicate electronics.

DO NOT DO THIS MJ!!!

220 pounds is a pittance for your images, if need be, do it.

Clicking sounds are generally a sign of the heads dragging against the surface of the disk's platter system. Do not power the disk up anymore, place it in a safe place, where it cannot be dropped etc. Get it to a data recovery expert ASAP.

As to not backing up, this is usually what happens (Murphy's law, Sod's law). This happened to Racketman last year :( :( You'll have learned your lesson the hard way my friend, my sympathies.

Good luck with everything, I hope you can save your images, I really do.

Dave
remember when i said there safe..lol..and u said there not..and i didnt listen to u..now look what situation im in. :o

[bbulldog]

I would also recommend the freezer, but as you have already sent it on its way. If you ever do freezer a HD, wrap it up good and well. Freezing a HD anly slows it insides down. Sometimes this helps to recover files. But as was said dont bother with the drive afterwards.

Had this happen to me at work on many a Maxtor drive.

[stathunter]

I would also recommend the freezer, but as you have already sent it on its way. If you ever do freezer a HD, wrap it up good and well. Freezing a HD anly slows it insides down. Sometimes this helps to recover files. But as was said dont bother with the drive afterwards.

Had this happen to me at work on many a Maxtor drive.


The freezer.........never really heard this before this thread. I have always used the diswasher.........it seems to clean them pretty good. :rolleyes:

[kuanyu]

I have placed a HD in the freezer many times to help recover data for a client. Be sure to seal the drive from mosture first (Ziplock bags work good). It does not allways work, seems to work most often for a drive that doesn't spin up.

[GilesGuthrie]

i sent it to this guy..he said he wil look at it and see what he can do.he wont charge me any thing untill he knows whats wrong with it,he said for 400gb it can be any thing from 80£ - 220£...i dont mind paying that..theres over 1000 of my best editied images iv taken over the past year..i been very busy..and i am praying he can get my work out..i didnt back my work up on cd cause iv nver done it befor..im sure its easy with somthing called nero?

MJ, the costs may be recoverable through your house insurance. Depends on your provider, but I can claim for up to £2500 in "data recovery costs" through my policy.

[macro junkie]

MJ, the costs may be recoverable through your house insurance. Depends on your provider, but I can claim for up to £2500 in "data recovery costs" through my policy.
dam..i never knew that..il have to check.thanks..:)

[deadpass]

Honestly I hate seeing this kind of advice given in circumstances like this.

I guess it wouldn't help if i mentioned to put the drive in a freezer bag first. On many computer forums this is a suggestion of last resort, which it was meant to be here. I was just giving a lesser known option which may or may not work.

give a read about it here

http://geeksaresexy.blogspot.com/2006/01/freeze-your-hard-drive-to-recover-data.html

[gjl711]

Hope everything comes out ok, but what the heck were you thinking. A year worth of valuable data and not a single backup!!! YIKES!!! Get a data backup plan implemented right away. For those others out there that use the “pray it doesn’t crash” method of backing up, there is lesson to be learned here.

[zacker]

i had a Western Digital go AFTER 1 year and was told that all they would do was gimmie a new HD and they wouldnt recover my files, the file rescue places i called were like $500.00 and up to recover the files.. bummer i just bit the bullet and lost the files as i had just started out and lost only a couple hundred or so junk files..this reminds me, i gotta back up my drive again. Oh i tried the freezer thing, didnt work at all.. every site i went to all said to do it, wrap it in a ziplock bag freeze it 24 Hrs and try it. i guess its supposed to shrink down the metal disc and other parts making it spin again..

[rhys]

I back everything up onto DVD and put the DVDs in a fire safe. The photos I keep on my laptop hard drive although I'm going to take them all off that as they take too much laptop drive space and keep them on a portable hard drive that I carry with my laptop. Actually, that $400 7" laptop is looking juicier all the time now! That, my CF reader and my portable drive and I'd have a wonderful portable system.

[Canuck]

I've had this sorta thing happened in 2 different ways on both PC and Mac. Here's what happened.
PC: I have 2x 120GB RAID 0 to mirror and the windows OS became corrupt (what else is new and leads me to why I went Mac). I found another spare HD and booted off of it, thankfully all wasn't lost the RAID array was ok, just windows bit the dust. I then backed everything to DVD and the rest is history.

Mac: I have a Mac Laptop, a G3 iBook that the known video card issue happened to, and the HD was failing too. It is from 2002, I believe. Just before it really bit the dust I did the transporter thing. That is pressing "T" while it is booting and backed everything up. I sent it back to Apple for repair. They gutted it (new logic (mother) board, HD, keyboard, and touchpad mouse) and sent it back to me, no charge. I can't complain about that. I'm sold on Apple.

I'm going to be going to a RAID 1 mirroring to prevent stuff like this from happening. The chances of 2 drives failing at the same time are fairly slim. I've got pics covering Crete, Greece to Homer, Alaska and plenty of places in between. I can't afford to loose these pics for I have some real keepers in the lot!

Cheers,
Canuck

[Jaime]

The last thing I would do is to put in the freezer, specially if You are going to have a professional try to recover it, if you did you might hamper things rather than enhance their efforts or yours.

[tommykjensen]

I'm going to be going to a RAID 1 mirroring to prevent stuff like this from happening. The chances of 2 drives failing at the same time are fairly slim. I've got pics covering Crete, Greece to Homer, Alaska and plenty of places in between. I can't afford to loose these pics for I have some real keepers in the lot!



Trust me. It happens. I have that happen once. And another time I mirror raid became unstable. So I would advice you not to rely on a mirror raid as backup your only place to store impotant data. Always backup the mirror raid if it isn't already a backup of something else.

Things that can screw up your data on a mirror setup:

- you ;-)
- virus
- controller failure
- power failure

[TeamSpeed]

Trust me. It happens. I have that happen once. And another time I mirror raid became unstable. So I would advice you not to rely on a mirror raid as backup your only place to store impotant data. Always backup the mirror raid if it isn't already a backup of something else.

Things that can screw up your data on a mirror setup:

- you ;-)
- virus
- controller failure
- power failure

And don't forget fire/surges/natural disaster/theft...

I have to go see what I have available as web space on my domain for Invisicord, I assume I have plenty, but if not, is there a list somewhere of reasonably priced and reliable web storage sites? Don't need any kind of presentation layer like what smugmug and others do, just plain ol' harddrive space.

[Canuck]

Trust me. It happens. I have that happen once. And another time I mirror raid became unstable. So I would advice you not to rely on a mirror raid as backup your only place to store impotant data. Always backup the mirror raid if it isn't already a backup of something else.

Things that can screw up your data on a mirror setup:

- you ;-)
- virus
- controller failure
- power failure

I never said that it can't happen, purely the chances. Think of all the good hours you go out of it. Yes, multiple layers of backup are the way to go like the drives themselves, then DVD archive, then another method. I was thinking perhaps CDs, but that's rediculous. However, that said, I would use my array for pic only, and unless I can get a virus off of a completely sterile system (no contact outside the confines of the camera/card reader/HD array/computer not hooked up to the internet) well, ok I guess it is possible, but not probable. I also agree that the human element is more likey to screw things up and power spikes/failures can and do occur. What about a UPS for another layer of protection? I was talking about the first line of prevention of loss of data. I wait till I get enough pics to make it worth archiving to DVD. That's usually 1 trip somewhere.

For example, the most recent pics taken, Fall foliage pics in the North East US are on this laptop, the 120GB RAID array, and burned to DVD. I may have stuck them on an 80GB external HD too. I can't remember for sure.

[ogbyte]

You're best cause of action is to get them all printed onto a good archival paper, these can last over 100yrs or so, no chance of any HD media going for that long ;) :)

Have had DVDs fail, Mirrored arrays fail, RAID5 multiple drives fail, single HDs fail (my 120GB Xbox one being the latest just last week) you just can't beat paper for longtivity.

Hope they manage to rescue everything. One place I worked at had a DVD become unreadable, sent it to a place in manchester (UK) who recovered everything, cost was about £75 IIRC, well worth the cost for what was on it.

regards
Gary

[tommykjensen]

I never said that it can't happen, purely the chances. Think of all the good hours you go out of it. Yes, multiple layers of backup are the way to go like the drives themselves, then DVD archive, then another method. I was thinking perhaps CDs, but that's rediculous. However, that said, I would use my array for pic only, and unless I can get a virus off of a completely sterile system (no contact outside the confines of the camera/card reader/HD array/computer not hooked up to the internet) well, ok I guess it is possible, but not probable. I also agree that the human element is more likey to screw things up and power spikes/failures can and do occur. What about a UPS for another layer of protection? I was talking about the first line of prevention of loss of data. I wait till I get enough pics to make it worth archiving to DVD. That's usually 1 trip somewhere.

For example, the most recent pics taken, Fall foliage pics in the North East US are on this laptop, the 120GB RAID array, and burned to DVD. I may have stuck them on an 80GB external HD too. I can't remember for sure.


Ok. I just wanted to get it out in case someone not doing multiple backup thinks a mirror raid is the ultimate solution.

My process is: First copy photos to internal harddisk. Then copy to external backup disk (a Buffalo LinkStation NAS). Regularly burn DVD's. Copy DVD's to a standalone pc to test the DVD's can be read and data is ok. On my trip to africa in august/september I copied photos to the hd on a laptop. I copied them to an external hd 1 too at the same time. ABout once a week I copied external hd 1 to external hd 2. When I got back home I copied them to my internal disk and to the backup disk. So my africa shots live in 5 copies at the moment. I have not made DVD's of those photos yet but am going to.

[Canuck]

Ok. I just wanted to get it out in case someone not doing multiple backup thinks a mirror raid is the ultimate solution.

My process is: First copy photos to internal harddisk. Then copy to external backup disk (a Buffalo LinkStation NAS). Regularly burn DVD's. Copy DVD's to a standalone pc to test the DVD's can be read and data is ok. On my trip to africa in august/september I copied photos to the hd on a laptop. I copied them to an external hd 1 too at the same time. ABout once a week I copied external hd 1 to external hd 2. When I got back home I copied them to my internal disk and to the backup disk. So my africa shots live in 5 copies at the moment. I have not made DVD's of those photos yet but am going to.

Ok, I misunderstood you, no worries. Nothing in electronics is end all-be all.

[jmik26]

I too have also resorted to the freezer method 2 or 3 times for friends and it works. On all the hard drives it worked on, it sounded like a marble dropping on something hard when it started up...
However, I use this only when people don't want to pay to have it recovered and its about to go in the garbage.
Once you get past this situation look into a external e-sata hard drive, very fast transfer speeds. I have backed up 165gb in around 45 minutes! This is the best way to go IMO. Good luck....Jeff

[ghostman]

I have two internal drives (not RAID) with a script copying my photos from one drive to the other. I then occasionally back up these onto DVD. It's not failsafe, but then again, I don't have any priceless photos. It's just a cheap solution that gives me 3 copies of my photos on different media.

All media go bad. It's just a matter of when. For a reliable backup, you need a copy stored remotely that's regularly backed up. If you're willing to pay for it, there are storage services like:
http://aws.amazon.com/s3

[Jman13]

I sure hope your data is recoverable. Since I have had similar paranoia about that happening to me, I have a fairly reliable backup scheme. I copy all photos to my hard drive. I then sync that drive with an external backup hard drive. Every month or two, I burn DVDs as a third backup, and those are stored off-site (at work).

Good luck!

[Todd Jacobsen]

Go RAID (5 or Matrix), and STILL backup on external HD - who's ONLY purpose is to store your Backup. It's still cheaper than recovery.

[Citizensmith]

I sure hope your data is recoverable. Since I have had similar paranoia about that happening to me, I have a fairly reliable backup scheme. I copy all photos to my hard drive. I then sync that drive with an external backup hard drive. Every month or two, I burn DVDs as a third backup, and those are stored off-site (at work).

Good luck!

Similar set up here. Only change is I added one of the external laptop size hard drives. Partially as an extra backup but also because it makes taking stuff somewhere really easy.

[macro junkie]

the guy cant do it..looks like im screwed! :(:(:(

[Collin85]

I asked before but was seemingly ignored - why didn't you backup regularly? It might be pointless now, but I want to hear the rationale.

As long as you've learnt your lesson, all is good.

This may be harsh, but it's coming from someone who went through the same deal. Although my situation was a little different.. I backed a bunch of data onto an external but didn't backup the external. When the external failed, I lost 500GB of data.

[macro junkie]

i didnt think about it..i didnt think my exstrenal hardrive was going to mess up..oy dont worry i learnt my lesson allright/

right i rang this place..he said he can do it 100% but wait for it..they want 500-600£ http://www.easyrecovery.co.uk/Freecomexternal_Recovery.html (http://www.easyrecovery.co.uk/Freecomexternal_Recovery.html)
its not worth it imo..its 400bd hardrive but i have 1000 pics there..every pic is saved in flickr.The only reson i wanted them back is all my pics are saved in flick at (2048 x 1365) but in my hardrive there saved at (3888 x 2592)
what would u guys do?is it really worth spending all this money on pics i allready have just to get them at 3888x2592..like i said there saved in my flickr acount at 2048x1395..

what im asking really is with a 2048x1395 pic how big can u print it with out loosing any detail?Im gueesing a4 wil be easy but not a3?

[tommykjensen]

the guy cant do it..looks like im screwed! :(:(:(

Sorry to hear that. But before you resort to the freezer it may be worth checking with other bigger and more known services like IBAS http://www.ibas.com/.

[macro junkie]

Sorry to hear that. But before you resort to the freezer it may be worth checking with other bigger and more known services like IBAS http://www.ibas.com/.
read above

[David Saunders II]

Macro Junkie:

The guy saying backup to DVDs is full of crap. 400 GB / 4.7 GB capacity of a standard DVD = 85 DVDs. I'll bet you're going to give up around DVD 47.

The guy(s) telling you to put the drive in the freezer because that will magically fix anything are also full of crap. The clicking noise you're hearing is the read/write heads on the end of a metal arm hitting against either the spindle in the middle of the disk or on one of the magnetic platters (think 3-4 shiny silver discs) themselves. The second one is really bad, physically scoring the surface but the first one is absolutely benign. However, there's a good chance this behavior is being caused by the IDE (drive electronics) themselves, telling the read/write heads to go somewhere that doesn't exist and they're bouncing off the middle. What you can do is replace the electronics of the drive from another one. Remove the hex screws from the bottom of an identical drive to take off the circuit board and swap it to the bad drive and fire it up. The new IDEs won't tell the internal motor to move the arm/heads anywhere they're not supposed to go anymore. I've saved more than one hard drive his way.

Also, when you get that secondary (backup) drive, here's a simple command you can use to copy just the changed/updated data from one drive to another (instead of copying everything every time). I suggest you copy and paste it into a file you call "pic-backup.bat" or something (but it must end with .bat) and run it daily. Replace X and Y with your actual drive letters:

@ECHO OFF
xcopy /e /c /h /r /y /d X:\ Y:\

To automate this at 8:00pm every weeknight, add an "AT" command from a command prompt:

AT 20:00 /every:M,T,W,Th,F c:\pic-backup.bat

-Dave

[macro junkie]

Macro Junkie:





To automate this at 8:00pm every weeknight, add an "AT" command from a command prompt:

AT 20:00 /every:M,T,W,Th,F c:\pic-backup.bat

-Dave

ok..hey can u asnwer my Q on this?

what would u do?is it really worth spending all this money on pics i allready have just to get them at 3888x2592..like i said there saved in my flickr acount at 2048x1395..

what im asking really is with a 2048x1395 pic how big can u print it with out loosing any detail?Im gueesing a4 wil be easy but not a3?

[macro junkie]

i havent got alot of money..80£//which one should i buy fomr here im off now to get one http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0520117975.119745999 1@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccfaddmkgfhhjfcflgceggdhhmdfoh.0&page=ProductList&category_oid=-32889&show_all=true#(any):50:350:PageNo_0:SortOrder_DOWN

[harrydog]

Macro Junkie:

The guy saying backup to DVDs is full of crap. 400 GB / 4.7 GB capacity of a standard DVD = 85 DVDs. I'll bet you're going to give up around DVD 47.

-Dave

I decided a while ago to back up the photos that have the most sentimental value to me as well as my very best photos to archival CDs. CD technology is better for long term storage than DVD. They hold only about 85 or so photos each, but I'm not putting everything on them, only my most precious photos. I haven't done it yet, but I plan to buy a fire safe to keep them in.
All of my photos are backed up to an external HD and then backed up again to another external HD.
But my point is, backing up your most important photos to DVD or CD is a good idea.

[zacker]

MACRO... that sucks!! if its at all possible, you might get some of the more recent files back off your mem cards, when i had a card full of wedding files go bad i bouth one of the on line services to get the files back and it worked great, not only got all the wedding filse back but also got my florida vacation files that were on the card from the winter before.. and i ONLY re-format the cards so there might be alot of old files waiting on all your cards!! hopefully this will work. I forget what company i used.. ill have to go through my early posts to find out... it was some of my very first posts to here at POTN.. good luck, im going to go get another external soon to Back up the one i have now!

[Collin85]

MACRO... that sucks!! if its at all possible, you might get some of the more recent files back off your mem cards, when i had a card full of wedding files go bad i bouth one of the on line services to get the files back and it worked great, not only got all the wedding filse back but also got my florida vacation files that were on the card from the winter before.. and i ONLY re-format the cards so there might be alot of old files waiting on all your cards!! hopefully this will work. I forget what company i used.. ill have to go through my early posts to find out... it was some of my very first posts to here at POTN.. good luck, im going to go get another external soon to Back up the one i have now!
Dude, his primary hard disk failed, not his memory cards. ;)

[dpastern]

remember when i said there safe..lol..and u said there not..and i didnt listen to u..now look what situation im in. :o

I know MJ, but I'm certainly not going to rub it in. You've learnt your lesson, and sadly the hard way :( :( I'm really hoping you can rescue your images, I really am.

A 2nd hard drive is good - back all your images up to it (as well as your main drive if you have the space). Burning onto DVDs is also good, at the very least burn the RAW files onto DVD.

*fingers crossed*

Dave

[dpastern]

Tommy has solid advice here - I'd seriously consider following it guys.

Dave

Ok. I just wanted to get it out in case someone not doing multiple backup thinks a mirror raid is the ultimate solution.

My process is: First copy photos to internal harddisk. Then copy to external backup disk (a Buffalo LinkStation NAS). Regularly burn DVD's. Copy DVD's to a standalone pc to test the DVD's can be read and data is ok. On my trip to africa in august/september I copied photos to the hd on a laptop. I copied them to an external hd 1 too at the same time. ABout once a week I copied external hd 1 to external hd 2. When I got back home I copied them to my internal disk and to the backup disk. So my africa shots live in 5 copies at the moment. I have not made DVD's of those photos yet but am going to.

[EOS_JD]

I've not read this whole post. So if I copy what's been said, i'm sorry.

Generally drives (although not the data) are guatanteed for about 5 years. I've lost a data from a couple of drives and received replacements very quickly (from Maxtor) that were bigger than the drives I lost!! Check out the company web site for their returns policy and you may find you are due a free replacement drive.

BEFORE THIS however, you need to get the data back. Try www.cbltech.co.uk

They were quoting me around £300 GBP a few years ago and still have a "no data - no fee" guarantee. It's worth knowing whether the data is available.

Are your images worth that to you? if not then they are gone (or you keep the drive safe until you can afford to get it checked out). Longer time = less likelyhood of success.

You also look as if you are going to buy a new drive. remember that you need enough space to stode the data on 2 separate drives (2 partitions is not enough).

The seagate one touch drives are excellent. I have 2 of these - a 500gb and a 400Gb drive.

I've been caught out without backups before! Lost about 100Gb of data. Now I backup everything and have over 2Tb of storage over 7 hard drives (both internal and external drives)

Do not skimp on backup - If your images are important you need to keep them safe.

cheers
JD
PS

A 2048 x 1395 image is a decent size that should be able to be printed at A4 and look fine. With some resampling I suspect you would also get a nice A3 image too.

Online storage is sometimes a very good thing!

[dpastern]

MJ - just got to the end of the thread...I'd pay the money if you can afford it.

My only other thought is complex - dual boot Linux, boot into Linux, attach the external drive, mount the drive in Linux. Why Linux? There are some excellent data recovery tools (for free) in Linux - I honestly can't remember their names though (it's been nearly 2 years since I used Linux, and I never really seriously investigated these types of applications anyways). It might not work - Linux may say bugger off when you try and mount the drive, it's impossible for me to say.

As to what Dave has said, if you have an identical drive, you could try the electronics swap, be aware that it voids warranty and there's no guarantee that it'll fix the problem. My experience is when the heads are hitting the platters, there's not much you can do to fix it. HDD manufacturers won't repair drives like this, and in reality, I'd suspect that they would if it was as easy as just swapping the electronics over.

I can't comment too much on the .bat file that Dave has give you, looks alright to my eyes though. I never was a bat file person, hell, I hate writing bash scripts in Linux lol...

Dave

[EOS_JD]

For the average home user, backup is never seen as important. there's other places £80 can go rather than spend on a hard drive.

It is VITAL that you backu your data. it's not a question of IF my drive fails, it's WHEN because they will faill..... maybe next month, maybe next year, maybe today!!!

You don't need to spend huge sums to protect your images. You can use DVD although i agree with posters above that it just takes too long and is a real pain when you have lots of data to copy. To me DVD just does not make sence as the capacity is just too restrictive. Maybe when they bring out larger format disks it might be a consideration.

Hard drive is a very quick and affordable solution or the average user which should protect against drive failure. What it won't protect against is fire or theft. many like to have spare drives located off site to maximise risk reduction.

At the end of the day it's a matter of choice how (if) you backup.

[EOS_JD]

MJ - just got to the end of the thread...I'd pay the money if you can afford it.

My only other thought is complex - dual boot Linux, boot into Linux, attach the external drive, mount the drive in Linux. Why Linux? There are some excellent data recovery tools (for free) in Linux - I honestly can't remember their names though (it's been nearly 2 years since I used Linux, and I never really seriously investigated these types of applications anyways). It might not work - Linux may say bugger off when you try and mount the drive, it's impossible for me to say.

As to what Dave has said, if you have an identical drive, you could try the electronics swap, be aware that it voids warranty and there's no guarantee that it'll fix the problem. My experience is when the heads are hitting the platters, there's not much you can do to fix it. HDD manufacturers won't repair drives like this, and in reality, I'd suspect that they would if it was as easy as just swapping the electronics over.

I can't comment too much on the .bat file that Dave has give you, looks alright to my eyes though. I never was a bat file person, hell, I hate writing bash scripts in Linux lol...

Dave

if the head is skating across the platter all you risk is doing more damage to the drive.

Keep it switched OFF.... do not keep trying to boot it up.

[gjl711]

For the average home user, backup is never seen as important. there's other places £80 can go rather than spend on a hard drive.....
You don't need to spend huge sums to protect your images. You can use DVD ....
DVD’s are a good way to backup but alas, the attitude about backing up data applies to DVD’s as well. I see all too many buy the least expensive DVDs as possible and few know that DVDs are only good for maybe 4~5 years and they too start to fail. Truth is that the real cheap ones can fail much quicker than that sometimes within a year. If you go the DVD route, spend a few more pennies per DVD and get archival media. It’s not necessary to spend lots for gold plated media, Taiyo Yuden makes some very good media at a reasonable cost.

[SuzyView]

I took my internal drive to a service and they retrieved all the data from the drive, then said it was dead so don't use it again. I paid $150, well worth it.

I back up to external drives for most work, and I burn DVD's. Have to have back up now so the computer automatically backs up once a week. Very useful and I can delete the whole week's files from weeks before. I can't be left without the original RAW files or else my clients would be sunk too.

[Citizensmith]

I haven't done it yet, but I plan to buy a fire safe to keep them in.

For CDs/DVDs that would be really expensive. Fire Safes are generally designed to keep paper contents safe. The temperature at which the paper is destroyed is much higher than where the CDs will warp or melt. It would have to be a very big, very expensive fire safe to protect them.

A simpler and cheaper solution is just to store them somewhere else. Your parents house, in your desk at work, in a safety deposit box.

[Bill Pham]

sorry to hear this MJ. i do hope that you can recover it. best of luck buddy. i'm gonna go out later and get a back up. i don't have anything back up right now either but since reading this i'm gonna for sure.

Bill

[rhys]

For CDs/DVDs that would be really expensive. Fire Safes are generally designed to keep paper contents safe. The temperature at which the paper is destroyed is much higher than where the CDs will warp or melt. It would have to be a very big, very expensive fire safe to protect them.

A simpler and cheaper solution is just to store them somewhere else. Your parents house, in your desk at work, in a safety deposit box.

Not so. My fire safe is designed keep CDs/DVDs/Memory sticks cool in the event of a fire for 50 minutes at 1500c and the cost? $250.

[TeeJay]

Not so....

Why not Rhys?.... just as long as someone doesn't set alight to your own AND your parents house on the same night! :rolleyes:

TJ

[Edit: Sorry, just re-read the bit about a fire-safe being expensive... I'm off for a lie down now!]

[Citizensmith]

Not so. My fire safe is designed keep CDs/DVDs/Memory sticks cool in the event of a fire for 50 minutes at 1500c and the cost? $250.

Thats still $245 more than the leather wallet mine are in at work.

And do you actually trust what the little label said? How much are they going to cover you for when a couple of CDs warp? It better be plenty.

[macro junkie]

i went out today and bought 250gb exsternal hardrive.as i type im downloading 1400 pics ofmr my flick aocunt on to it.this might take some time.soon as i do it i want my stuff backed up on my new exstrnal hardrive//i also want them stored in my pc hardrive and im going to get a 2nd exsternal hardrive

[perryge]

Check out SpinRite on GRC: http://www.grc.com/intro.htm

Industry leader in data recovery, worshipped by geeks around the world, and has a reputation for doing a magical job where others have failed miserably.

I read this, and immediately stopped procrastinating on my backup program! Hope things work out, this sucks big time.

[macro junkie]

Check out SpinRite on GRC: http://www.grc.com/intro.htm

Industry leader in data recovery, worshipped by geeks around the world, and has a reputation for doing a magical job where others have failed miserably.

I read this, and immediately stopped procrastinating on my backup program! Hope things work out, this sucks big time.
thats al well but its the cost..i know a place that can recover it 100%..for the fee of 500-600£..thats a joke!

[V8Rumble]

Your are paying for their expertise and your own punishment. Do you wants the full res pcs or not?

[SolidxSnake]

Wait, is the drive CLICKING or is it grinding?!

If it's CLICKING, you MAY be able to get it to work. Thing is, you need to hope that it's detected in whatever OS you are using. I've had my main hard drives die TWICE on me. On my computer, my first HDD was an 80GB ATA Maxtor drive. Of course, Maxtor is a terrible HDD manufacturer and eventually my drive started giving me the clicking of death all HDDs have on their way out. I took power out of that drive ASAP. I then disconnected it, and installed a copy of Windows on a spare HDD. Got it booted into that, then re-connected my Maxtor and tried recovering the data straight through Windows. It worked just fine. The transfer took VERY long, and the drive did click a lot through the process, but I got my data back in it's entirety. By this time, I bought two BRAND NEW Western Digital 160GB SATAII drives, and tossed them on a RAID0 array. In not even a year I got clicking from the drives, and I was absolutely furious. I tested the drives in WD Diagnostics and found that they both had a "Sector Relocation Error". I eventually went and bought myself a Seagate 250GB 7200.10 series drive (Perpendicular Recording), which runs cooler, quieter and is smaller than the WD drives. This drive is working fine for me currently. I luckily had all my main data backed up on my brother's external hard drive so I didn't lose too much of my data. I recently tried SpinRite on my WD drives, and apparently only ONE of the WD drives is/was dead. The other one is working just fine, and it's hooked up at the moment.

If you have nothing left to do with your hard drive, would you consider sending it to me? I would definitely try my hardest to recover your work, I know how much it SUCKS to lose all of it. Plus I love all of your shots, they're great :) All you need to do is pay shipping and I'll do it for free. If you are just going to toss the drive anyway, then send it my way and I'll see what I can do. PM me.

For the record, the freezer method DOES work, but ONLY for certain problems. If you don't know what's up, then don't try it.

[Citizensmith]

In case you haven't seen it there are a lot of backup suggestions here (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=348641)

[tommykjensen]

thats al well but its the cost..i know a place that can recover it 100%..for the fee of 500-600£..thats a joke!

No its not a joke. Of course all is relative and you have determined that getting your full resolution photos back is not worth that price.

[macro junkie]

Do you wants the full res pcs or not?
not for 600£ i had 300 put back but not 600£.i may do it inm the future when i have the money

[macro junkie]

No its not a joke. Of course all is relative and you have determined that getting your full resolution photos back is not worth that price.
i havent got 600£ when i do tho it would be worth it im sure.

[dpastern]

i havent got 600£ when i do tho it would be worth it im sure.

Ask them if they might be able to do it if you put down a 300 pound deposit, and then hold the data until you can afford to pay the difference? Also, consider shopping around. 600 pounds does sound expensive, but you are paying for their technical expertise. It always amazes me how people will pay $1000 for a root canal to a dentist (probably all up an hour and a bit work), yet they can't stomach to pay money to hard working techies...

Dave

[SolidxSnake]

For the record, that's a fairly good price for data recovery. What some of you may not know, data recovery involves taking the drives into a cleanroom (which is expensive in itself), then disassembling the drives and I believe they pull the platters out and somehow read the data off of them.

[EOS_JD]

Data recovery companies may charge other companies high fees however if you explain you are just a home user they'll normally try and do you a deal. CL quoted me less than £300. Was worth it to me but they couldn't recover the data and I was not charged a penny. They sent the drive back and I sent it to Maxtor who sent me a larger drive as a replacement - all free!! Superb service although disappointed (well gutted) at having lost my memories!

[nothsa]

SolidxSnake is right. Many pro data recovery places use clean room, access the platter directly and do data verification to make sure that's they are getting proper bit copies of whatever is on the drive. If they do forensic recovery, their equipment also includes digital signature trails so that the data can hold up in court as evidence. All of this equipment costs money, and they'll charge you for it. I would do as EOS_JD suggested and let them know that you're just a private guy with not a lot of cash, and see if they cut you a deal.

Bottom line: Do you want the larger images or don't you? If you do, what is the maximum you are you willing to pay for them? Once you have those answers, you'll be better equipped to make a decision.