Learning the hard way

[petermmc]

It goes like this...

After I set up my new home office I decided to re connect my two external hard drives to my PC. In so doing I mixed up the power adapters and managed to fry one of my external hard drives. You know the one with all my photos. Well of course I back it up regularly by burning dvds...well it had been 12 months. I somehow got out of the habit. I got into the habit of transferring photo files directly to the external drive and not keeping a copy on my PC hard disk.

In my search for answers as to why I lost so many photos that would never be seen again, I came across the idea of retrieval software to find anything on my CF card which I use in my D200. I downloaded the freeware called PC inspector and managed to retrieve about 1000 deleted photos from my CF. Makes up for it a little. The other thousands are lost forever.

New years resolution. Back up x 3.

[Myrtle]

Don't know if this will make you feel any better, but I fried a whole computer using your method - couldn't salvage a thing


Linda

[TonyT]

Lost my hard drive on friday

All photo's were all backed up over xmas, 2 ex's and dvd;s17of, was about to do the same for my bookwork and business files

Well it will give me something to do for the next few weeks

[petermmc]

Its good to see I am not alone. The adapter that fried my ext hard drive looks almost identical to the proper one. It even has the same 4 pin plug. It seems that sata needs more power.

[Reschsmooth]

Thanks for the reminder - our photo directory is now backed up to at least another destination.

[Grev]

Well on the topic of hard drives, ultimately they're not very reliable, or maybe I am unlucky, I have gone through 3 hard drives, and all different brands, Seagate, IBM and Hitachi. All had mechanical errors.

[ks04]

Ouch, that's gotta hurt. On a side note i've been lucky and have never had a hard drive die on me, been through seagate, WD, hitatchi and even maxtor. I guess it really just comes down to luck of the draw.

I find a second drive in the PC works well for backups, copy everything important off the external drive every so often to the 2nd disk in my computer.

Starts backup

[Mr Darcy]

In my years as a Hardware techo, I used to tell customers that it was not a case of IF the HDD would fail, but WHEN. Reliability seems to have improved over the years, but they are still mechanical devices with flying parts. A crash is inevitable sooner or later.

Always keep at least one copy of everything you don't want to, or can't afford to, lose in a separate physical location (2nd HDD, Tape, CD, DVD, Paper...). If you are worried about theft/fire, keep a second copy off site (bank vault, friend's house, work, in a hollow tree, internet provider) as well.

In my case I make two copies of everything to two different external HDDs about once a week. More frequently if there is new important stuff. I used to have them in separate location, but circumstances have changed and my old system no longer works. I will eventually set up a VPN link to my daughter's place and keep a second copy there. I Also keep RAW images and JPG/TIFF on separate HDDs.

[Raskill]

I'm definetly not an expert on this, but I would have thought the 'physical' data still existed on the HD, but something fragile on the boards would have been damaged by the increased power. If this was the case, I'd reckon you could have it retrieved by someone. I reckon it would cost an arm and a leg though.

[MarkW]

There are companies around that will remove the shiny silver disks from the assembly and retrieve the data directly from that disk. This is very exy but if they cant be replaced from any other system - how badly do you want them back??

From my understanding, the only time you can't retrieve the data is if 240v is applied directly to the HD and the disc is actually heated above a certain temperature (whatever that is??). The amount of damage will be proportional to your end costs for retrieval.

[Mr Darcy]

Hmm. It depends on what's fried. It may be possible to swap a new circuit board from an identical HDD, and get your original working again. This won't work if the servo motor or heads are cooked, & I would only trust it for as long as it took to get all the data off, but it might get all your data back for the cost of a single HDD & some time.

[petermmc]

The reason I posted this was as a possible reminder or booster to those who have fragile info in the hands of a mechanical device that needs backing up.

I investigated the idea of retrieval and estimates for 'possible' recovery were in the vicinity of $1k and above. Some of the companies seem a bit dodgy and seem to know that the customer is probably desperate.

At the end of the day, I have only lost a few thousand photos. I will try to not let this happen again by backing up more rigorously. Bring back 'filum'

[Benny2707]

I am a little bit new to the whole 'backing up' thing. I have all my photos on my laptop and then backed up on an external HD but after reading this story I might sneak a few DVD's from work and burn everything tonight. You just never know I guess. Thanks for the prompt!

[Mr Darcy]

Bring back 'filum'

Yep, and leave it in the sun, or the rain, or spill some wine on it, or scratch it, or set fire to it, and only one negative, so once its gone its gone.

At least digital allows the potential of more than one "negative" Each exactly identical to what came out of the camera. Its just a shame too many people keep all their negatives and prints in the one shoebox, then leave it on the back shelf of the car. or at least the digital equivalent.

[Grev]

Actually, off topic again, what is the approximate cost of having a RAID setup with at least 2 drives mirroring? Possibly two 500Gb drives as well...

[methd]

^^ it will only cost the price of the mirror hdd...

I just put everything on smumug as second backup from DVDs. Takes ages but i leave it overnight, and at at least it can accessed from anywhere as well.

[ks04]

Actually, off topic again, what is the approximate cost of having a RAID setup with at least 2 drives mirroring? Possibly two 500Gb drives as well...

Raid doesnt cost anything to run, all that it costs is the hardware. If your mainboard doesnt have RAID capabilities built-in then you will require a PCI/PCI-e raid card, you can pick up a decent 2 drive card for around $100. Then 2 drives, identical works best but not essential, 500GB drives can be picked up for ~$130/140 these days.

[michael_]

havent read the entire thread but you sure its gone? i thought the same but took it to a data recovery place, $600 later + a new HDD all my photos where recovered.

[ATJ]

While RAID is good, it only protects against a drive failure and does not protect against stupidity - e.g. deleting a file will still mean it is deleted.

After losing an HDD in 2003 (fortunately my photo backup regime was pretty good then) I am even more fanatical about backup, so I:
* Use Nikon Transfer to transfer from CF card to two hard disks at once
* regularly backup one of those disks to a network connected Linux box under the house
* monthly create two copies of the previous months to DVD+R, once copy goes under the house, and the other goes to my sister-in-law's house.
* periodically create new DVD+Rs of everything

I also use a program called CHCheck to verify the data on the DVD+Rs and make sure it is readable and still matches what's on the hard disks.