Keep on top of your backups kids!

bass_junkie83

bass_junkie83

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Over the last couple of months i was finding my laptop was getting very slow and kept crashing, so decided it was time for a complete reformat and re installation.

I use an external hard drive as a backup so having checked i had everything i wanted to keep i went on and wiped my laptop clean.
Now due to the amount of stuff backed up onto my hard drive i decided i didn't want to copy it all back onto my laptop as i would be back to having a nigh on full hard drive. Instead i decided i would get a second external drive, use one as a day to day storage device and the second as the backup.

Well as law of the sod states, during the short time i effectively had no backup my one and only drive decided to die. It's been looked at by a local computer company but they have not been able to retrieve anything.

So that's all my music, all my uni work from the last two years, and every photo i have ever taken lost.

So remember kids, learn from my faux pas keep on top of your backups.
 
Sorry to hear that mate. It should be possible to swap the platters over to a similar drive and recover the data with luck, specialist firms will do it for you, sadly not cheap.
 
Just a thought it's often the power supply that pegs out with external drives, sometime opening up the drive and swopping it into a new case/power supply will work.
 
I have another guy that is pretty hot who is going to have a final attempt to retrieve anything he can, we shall have to see.
I have looked into the specialists that can rebuild the drive, but frankly, i don't rate the few thousand images i had worth anywhere near the cost of recovery. :lol:
 
Might still be something left on your laptop drive even after a format and install. Try file recovery software on it.
 
there are some free recovery tools available, i think recuva has been used to get data off corrupted cards.
 
good call! only for the fact that digital camera POTY 2009 comp shortlisted me and were requiring a high res image to upload...but i hadnt got anymore due to not backing up and losing 3 months of work..gutted:shake:

Thats one lesson i`ve bloody learnt!
 
I have mirrored RAID across all the drives in my PC (all 3TB of them) plus another 3TB (non-raided) in my old PC which sits in the garage. I have a gigabit ethernet link between them, and use SyncBackPro to back my PC up to the garage every month.

This should cover me against both common forms of data loss - drive failure and accidental deletion. It might even protect me against theft, as the PC in the garage is hidden in an old cupboard with junk piled in front of it.

I also have my most essential files backed up to a web account automatically.

Twice a year I take a copy of my most important stuff onto a cheap USB drive and drop this off at my parents' house.

Paranoid? moi?
 
Also if you have a camcorder with a HDD - empty it.

I thought 40GB - ideal. Took off my daughters christening because someone asked for it.

Got another 14 months of video stacked on it, then someone stole it! Now i have nothing.

(actually i put the money towards a d90 :) )
 
My wifes HDD failed the other day on her macbook, while I was trying to install Snow Leopard.

Thankfully she had nothing of great importance on there, however it did make me paranoid enough to go and buy a WD 'world book' (ethernet HDD, plugs into router) and back up my photos and docs
 
I now choose to back-up hard copies onto DVD. Very little chance of them failing then.
 
I've been using DataWrite DVDs for years as backup and never had a problem.

I have a simple system - download the RAW images from my CF or SD cards to the computer - backup to DVDs - Simples!
 
Most local computer shops have no idea about data recovery! What is the drive actually doing?
 
Feel for you - hopefully you'll find someone to work some magic and get your files back. Guess what, i've just started a long overdue back up on my PC :|
 
Steve2 said:
a chap i know used the freezer trick and got back 90% of the stuff on the hard drive,
Article here-

http://www.markc.me.uk/MarkC/Blog/Entries/2009/10/13_Hard_disk_recovery.html
Click to expand...

If your data is worth anything to you then forget all the "methods" you see such as freezers, banging them etc. Pass the drive to someone that knows what they are doing. What exactly is the drive doing now? If you were a bit nearer I have some specialist recovery software. I am sure someone nearer will have something too.
 
everyone's story
i just got my daughter a backup drive for that reason
she has so many photos and files from her work...and no backup
i did it about a month ago...around 40Gb
then her laptop slowed down
so i got here a recon T60 off ebay
next week the original laptop went zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
hard drive knackered

i lost all my stuff 3 hard drives ago...but fortunately one was reformatted and put in a caddy..

nowadays the external hard drives are sensibly large and priced well...i need to get a larger one
 
Bass, I've got the kit to try and recover your data.

Its one of the services that I do normally, and normally its about £120+, but i'll do it for beer money and the cost of postage.

If your interested let me know via PM.
 
cowasaki said:
If your data is worth anything to you then forget all the "methods" you see such as freezers, banging them etc. Pass the drive to someone that knows what they are doing. What exactly is the drive doing now? If you were a bit nearer I have some specialist recovery software. I am sure someone nearer will have something too.
Click to expand...

agreed.

we could do with some symptoms to offer relevent advise. sometimes its just the enclosure that fails and putting it in a PC will get your data off but id like to think that your local place would know that.... maybe.

but yes, always always always have 2 or more copies of your data at one time (RAID only counds as 1 copy even if mirrored).
 
i am defo going to get that extra WD250Gb drive for £54
cheers
 
Don't only have 2 back ups, have them in different physical locations too!
 
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