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Mauser765
Member
Username: Mauser765

Post Number: 1227
Registered: 01-2004
Posted on Thursday, November 09, 2006 - 10:07 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Anyone had any valid experience with companies that do hard drive recovery ? I just sat down this morning to do a few hours of backups and the external hard drive literally seized right before I got started with an audible death "thunk". Hows that for bad luck..
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Gannon
Member
Username: Gannon

Post Number: 7091
Registered: 12-2003
Posted on Thursday, November 09, 2006 - 10:53 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Forensic HD recovery isn't cheap.

There was a firm out on Lahser in Southfield ten years ago, but I do not remember the name.

Call my go-to computer answer man, Kevin Edwards of MI Computers, Dearborn/Livonia. Guy's a wizard, and his service people should be able to give you a hint or two.

I only have an e-mail for him, but you can look up the store phone numbers and give them a call.

Lemme know if you want that e-mail, I won't post it unrequested.

Good Luck, tell that Murphy Fuck to go bother someone else.

MF sure does love technology...I've had a helluva year, just blew out my Palm Pilot memory trying to synch it to my computer...haven't been able to communicate between the two since March/April.

Thought I had it right, my backup Pilot seemed to want to talk, but when I did my active one...then checked to see how Outlook received ALL OF MY CALENDAR, PHONE, NOTES, AND TASK DATA FROM THE LAST SEVEN MONTHS...it was blank, and now so was my Palm.


I'm getting better, though, at least now I can talk about it. Lost maybe three weeks to the bottomless pit of depression, now I'm like Beetle Bailey's Sergeant, dangling by a root. I'll be damned if I let it do me in, though.


Cheers.
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Mauser765
Member
Username: Mauser765

Post Number: 1228
Registered: 01-2004
Posted on Thursday, November 09, 2006 - 3:28 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Thanks Gannon. Yeah, please shoot me that email if you would - my handle @ yahoo.com

I only lost about 9 months worth of daily photographs. Ieeeeeee...
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Mauser765
Member
Username: Mauser765

Post Number: 1229
Registered: 01-2004
Posted on Thursday, November 09, 2006 - 3:30 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Oh, and the Southfield place is still there - $2500 is their price.
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Gannon
Member
Username: Gannon

Post Number: 7099
Registered: 12-2003
Posted on Thursday, November 09, 2006 - 6:01 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Check yer inbox.
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Gannon
Member
Username: Gannon

Post Number: 7100
Registered: 12-2003
Posted on Thursday, November 09, 2006 - 6:03 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

For YOUR photography, I'll pitch in to help you recover it...


I dump everything I shoot onto TWO CD-ROMS immediately...especially the professional stuff.
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Mauser765
Member
Username: Mauser765

Post Number: 1230
Registered: 01-2004
Posted on Thursday, November 09, 2006 - 7:38 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Yyyyyeah I knew better. My fault ! I do have hundreds of DVDs double backed up and in fire safes. And I was sitting down for a day of burning the recent stuff that died.

I found a Canadian company that says they do it for $500. Damn Western Digital drives.
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Mauser765
Member
Username: Mauser765

Post Number: 1231
Registered: 01-2004
Posted on Thursday, November 09, 2006 - 7:44 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Not seeing email in box or in the bulk folder, I sent you another email to the address in your handle here. Thanx.,
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Lowell
Board Administrator
Username: Lowell

Post Number: 3275
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Thursday, November 09, 2006 - 8:31 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Ouch! Sorry for your loss Mauser, I hope you get it back.

I faced this a couple of years ago and got the prices mentioned above. Plus you can end up paying that and still having it be unrecoverable. The price can vary if it just a software as opposed to a hardware crash. As my loss was not as significant as yours I waved goodbye to the data and learned my lesson.

IMO, the best way to do back up, now that the $ per gigabyte prices have plummeted, is to get multiple 300-500 external drives, then run scheduled programmed progressive backups / archives that simply backup everything on the computer. It is fast, everything is there where you expect it to be and recovering a file is quick and painless. I also rotate one offsite HD copy at a friend's house. So if a meteor hits the house, I only lose a week or two at worse.

I'm sure you know all that but I thought I would share my post crash panic reaction for others.
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Gannon
Member
Username: Gannon

Post Number: 7103
Registered: 12-2003
Posted on Thursday, November 09, 2006 - 8:32 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Sorry, yeah, that's the one I replied to...get it yet?!

Where is this Canadian firm located?!
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Lowell
Board Administrator
Username: Lowell

Post Number: 3276
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Thursday, November 09, 2006 - 8:40 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Addendum, I also got a two drive RAID array set up on my main box and on this internet server.

I am truly "Once bitten, twice shy."
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Mauser765
Member
Username: Mauser765

Post Number: 1232
Registered: 01-2004
Posted on Friday, November 10, 2006 - 7:07 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The Canadian company is called data-r-us. Heres the link to my exact failed drive :
http://www.data-r-us.com/drive s/WESTERN_DIGITAL_WD_Caviar_WD 1600BB__160.html

$500 is more than I can afford for this at the moment, but its all I can see laying out for what is not an essential expense. $2500 is more than the truck I drive is worth. haha !

Yeah Lowell, I agree with all the above methods, and having gone through this in the past with a near miss, I shoulda woulda coulda known better but got lazy and too comfortable. From now on every 5 gigs is getting burned and stored. With the new Nikon D80 I just got thats gonna be every couple days, so it wouldnt be practical to try to store all that on drives anyway.

Once bitten, twice bitten for me.

Fool me twice, shame on me. ugh.

Gannon, for some reason I never got any of your emails, but I did find your friends contact info.
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Gannon
Member
Username: Gannon

Post Number: 7110
Registered: 12-2003
Posted on Friday, November 10, 2006 - 8:09 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I resent it as soon as I got back from the FSC...I am glad to have THIS feedback loop, now I know I am once again at the mercy of some crafty virus-creating hacker-fuck that should spend eternity in their own special hell.


Somehow, all of the resources of Norton, Inc. and Spybot, and AdAware are just not enough. Discovered just a few weeks ago that even though my Norton Firewall tray icon said the program was operating...it really was disabled. Whatever now has true control over this near-brick of a box can fire up the icon and make pretty for first glance.

All this after buying a NEW hard drive and starting from scratch, because TWO computer experts couldn't exorcise this thing. I made the mistake of not going to Kevin first, because I thought I could do it myself...but on two occasions I was desperate and used people recommended by others that I 'thought' would be cheaper. NOW, I'm too embarrassed and broke (from all the lost business as I waste my life as unpaid IT, and all the attendant depression from the struggle) to afford him.






Human nature is incompatible with the rigors of attending our technology.

We will ALL simply 'forget' to back something up...and Murphy just seems to always be ready.

We are doomed to these sorts of catastrophic failures...which usually cause devastating destruction of memories and work that we've dedicated to digits electronically.


I wonder if the psychiatric association is keeping up with technology...is there a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder that specifically addresses THIS sort of trauma?

I'll give them some data on my reaction to my Palm data vaporization...the depression lingers and triggers on and on and on each and every time I reach for it to search out a phone number, or especially the handy global search function that was SO-O endearing the first time I discovered it.


The more we get attached to our technology, the greater the chance of it not only breaking our heart...but possibly breaking our life. Consider me DetroitYes's first neo-Luddite, I'm done relying on technology...the Luddite's were right, even if they couldn't have possibly seen this day in the 1700s.



As much as I search for it, I can't find MY own reset button...
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Gannon
Member
Username: Gannon

Post Number: 7111
Registered: 12-2003
Posted on Friday, November 10, 2006 - 8:10 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Just dawned on me, your anti-virus is probably protecting YOU from my infected e-mail. That, or your provider is catching it.
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Mauser765
Member
Username: Mauser765

Post Number: 1234
Registered: 01-2004
Posted on Friday, November 10, 2006 - 11:05 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

ahhhh.. That makes sense. I use ZoneAlarm (not the free one) firewall for my primary security, and then all the adaware type add on s after that.

Yep yep - love hate relationship with technology. I have the "breaks" right now - where everything in my life seems to be crumbling before my eyes. I had two computers before, and the main one died. So I took the drive out and daisychained it to the backup machine. Recovered the data from the dead OS on the old drive. The second machine died later that same week.

Yesterday morning started at 5:30 a.m. with a corrupted MySQL database on my website server. Got that restored. Then the hard drive failure. Suddenly my ISP quit and I couldnt get online. ALl unrelated events. It rains, it pours.

Just got done replacing the alternator and bad battery in my ford truck, now the battery went bad in the Taurus. I charged it and got the Taurus started this morning to go out and get the new battery, promptly locking the car door behind me while the engine was running. Luckily its a Ford, so I was able to get into it in 3 minutes.

The upstairs toilet decided it needs to be rebuilt today. I was already putting off fixing the downstairs one so I need to do both today. I went to shut the water off to the upstairs toilet and the handle is missing on the valve.

Lately nothing has more broken parts than my own body though - after dealing with a damaged disc in my neck it turns out I have one in my lower back from the same incident. Throw in a separated shoulder and you got one chronic pain ridden creaky jointed mauser.

Powerchair-atcha ! Just look for mauser in the electric hoveround that wont start. heh.

All that and I thank God everyday. Could be so much worse no matter how stupidly bad it all seems.
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Gannon
Member
Username: Gannon

Post Number: 7118
Registered: 12-2003
Posted on Friday, November 10, 2006 - 12:03 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Thanks for the perspective enhancement exercise.

I feel much better now.

I think.

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