Topic: Got bit in the ASS!

[74cb750]

I bought a 1 TB drive 6 months ago for backup. WOrks great.

I have a 6 year old Gateway (still works fine) and have had 2 Dells.
Dell and Gateway are networked together and share the 1TB external drive.

My website is mirrored on 2 sites. That is because the 1st off-site provider
went out-of-business and gave me no notice. Shut down my website.
ThaT recovery was very time consuming.

[Gregorymoto]

The Mac laptop has a 4 year life plan. The desk tops last for ever. I still have a working Mac plus and a LC2. The LC2 is my shop computer (that i never use).

[Raul CB750K1]

Raul, sounds like you have a good plan going on there, the only thing I'd suggest is keeping your backups off-site (ie away from home) that way it'd REALLY take two disasters to kill all your data.  Right now a fire or flood would still take everything out.  You raise a good issue though about shelf life.   Also, those of you burning to CD or DVD should make sure to verify your backups after writing.

mystic_1

I have a Fujitsu Siemens Laptop that has been switched on for 99.9% of the last three years. I like to have it on at all times in case I want to check mail, search for something and also for downloading. No problems so far but an scratched screen because of my little kid playing with scissors.

The only data I have that would be impossible to recover would be the family pictures -and videos-. The rest can always be downloaded again, or in case of documents, re-typed.

I print my pictures more or less once a year. Get all the pictures taken, select the best ones and send them online to be printed. I prefer to see pictures in paper rather than in screen, but the hard drive is the perfect storage solution for them, just not so reliable in the long term.

I also thought about the fire -or even burglary- situation, but in such a case, I would still have the printed copies that nobody will ever steal. In case of fire I would not only lose my pictures, but also my wordly posessions, therefore my pictures would be the least thing I would worry about. After all, I probably have no more than 30 pictures of myself for the first 15 years of my life, and I'm a perfectly happy person....  I have lost many data along the years, voluntarily and involuntarily, and after the initial piss-off phase is passed, you quickly get on with your life. Phone numbers, old documents, and what not, we like to store everything, but many of that data we will never use again, and if we need it, there is always a way to get it back from another source.




I don't like much the online backup solution, just because I don't want to keep my things out of reach and with access by anybody. I have lost many data in the past, having had just

[Laminar]

DROPBOX DROPBOX DROPBOX DROPBOX DROPBOX DROPBOX DROPBOX DROPBOX DROPBOX


Two gigs absolutely free. Pay for more. It stores all of your data offsite, and it AUTOMATICALLY BACKS UP EVERYTHING. Even better, it saves previous versions of your files for the past 30 days (for the free service) and more for the pay service.

Your other options, since you're already using a Mac, is to get Leopard and Time Machine. I'm unaware of a better way to back up your data. It automatically backs up every hour, and saves hourly versions of your files for as long as you have disk space. I have 250GB allocated to Time Machine on an external drive and I have all of my irreplaceable music, photos, documents, etc., saved with months and months of previous versions if I ever need to go back. Even if you deleted a file a month ago and suddenly need it, you can go "back in time" and recover it. All of it's done automatically - no need to manually back up every day or month or so, no need to copy anything to DVDs or other optical media that degrades over time or you could lose track of.

Between Dropbox and Time Machine I'm completely covered. When my laptop's hard drive died on me it didn't matter. After installing the new drive and OS, I just connected the Time Machine drive and it restored my entire user profile exactly as it had been before, all the way down to the desktop picture.

[ev0lve]

Hmmmm,

You didn't say if it was a drive issue or not? Maybe I just didn't see it.

Standard for me is to remove the drive and plop it in an external enclosure. If the drive is clicking you might try throwing it in the freezer for an hour or two - don't laugh it's worked for me Won't run forever as whatever's bound up will heat up and bind again but you will get a shot at your data. Will work multiple times.

Lastly, assuming you can mount the drive but it's corrupt there are some utilities you can try. Disk Utility is the first one - verify and repair.

Then you can try some of the larger guns if need be:

DiskWarrior - almost always get the job done. In fact I can't remember the last time it didn't it was so long ago.
http://alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/index.html

TechTool used to be the poop way back but I haven't used it since getting DiskWarrior.
http://www.micromat.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=48

If you get it back and you're really serious about keeping your data you might look into getting an external RAID 1 enclosure as well.

Good luck man! Computer failures are like death by a 1000 paper cuts. Unfun.

[MCRider]

Along Laminar's lines: I subscribe to Norton360 for virus control (PC) and it comes with 2 GB continuous backup. Runs all the time, or very often anyway, I don't understand these things.  But it covers all my business documents. No more ZIP drives.

I didn't even know I had it, my nephew compuer kid pointed it out to me. That handles all i need, THough i understand Seaweb's needs are greater. It does expand like DropBox for a fee.

My nephew mentioned DropBox to me as well, he uses it. But since mine came with Norton360. If I drop Norton360 (not likely) I need to make other arrangements but that's simple to do, just switch to DropBox or other.

[Skonnie Boy]

Wow, seaweb, your mac sounds suspiciously similar to mine.  I had to replace the HD after two years.  It was like playing Operation.  A very expensive version, that is.  $400-$1000 seems like a lot for data recovery, but what do I know.  Some guy in my IT dep. did mine for a bottle of Maker's Mark.  Always thought that unless files have been written over, they're recoverable.

[Laminar]

Wow, seaweb, your mac sounds suspiciously similar to mine.  I had to replace the HD after two years.  It was like playing Operation.  A very expensive version, that is.  $400-$1000 seems like a lot for data recovery, but what do I know.  Some guy in my IT dep. did mine for a bottle of Maker's Mark.  Always thought that unless files have been written over, they're recoverable.

There are two different kinds of data recovery - software and hardware.

Oftentimes when a hard drive bricks good software can pull data off of the good sectors. I've done this before - the computer wouldn't boot but I put it in an external case and recovered all but a couple files with some kind of Disk Doctor software. This can be done for the price of software, which is often free from the internet.

The hardware kind is the expensive kind, and it's only done when software fails. This is where they pull the plates out of the hard drive and read them individually. This has to be done in a very sterile environment and is very labor-intensive, hence the high price.

[seaweb11]

The data I need is important enough.  

As I said earlier, if the tech guys at the Mac shop could have done it, they would have, and billed me.
They removed drive etc..... crap was lying all over the place and still no go.

That is why I shipped it off to the next level of data retrieval. "clean room"

I will be starting with the new mac desktop and I belive it has timemachine and stuff in it so this shouldn't happen to me again.

Interesting reading

[Inigo Montoya]

Aren't hard drives fun! Better than a solid state though if you ask me. Data recover from a solid state failure is much more difficult. One thing that sometimes works also is if you have 2 or the exact same model of drive, you can sometimes swap the pc boards on them and get your data off the bad drive.

[clarkjh]

When your all back up and running maybe you should look into buying a RAIDed NAS unit.  They run linux and you can put the size drives you want into the box.

James

[seaweb11]

what was that whoooooosh that just went over my head

[Laminar]

what was that whoooooosh that just went over my head

Pick up a 1TB external hard drive. Look up Time Machine in your System Preferences. The rest is self-explanatory.

[seaweb11]

I believe the Mac shop sent along one of those backups to the Lab in Vancouver to store all the stuff if they can get it out.

Thanks.

[tramp]

back up
back up
back up

[clarkjh]

what was that whoooooosh that just went over my head

It is the same as another computer, or external HD, but with more then one HD, usually 3, that is fault tolerant if a drive fails.  Works as a stand alone server to store your files.
Something like this plus the size of hard drives you want
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4616591&sku=L49-1150
James

[ev0lve]

RAID - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels

NAS - Network Attached Storage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network-attached_storage

Most canned NAS I've seen is SMB/NFS shares which is a little funky sometimes (large number of files in a dir, too many connections, file locking issues - to be fair though that's with a bunch of folks accessing the same files - your situation would be the other way around minus the lag time listing large numbers of files in a single dir).

If you've got multiple machines you'd like to backup - Mac and PC - to one device NAS would be good. Otherwise a single drive is good, RAID is better - but more expensive.

Time Machine will eventually eat all the storage you can give it depending on how far back / how many increments / how much your files change - so BIG drive

[Skonnie Boy]

Wow, seaweb, your mac sounds suspiciously similar to mine.  I had to replace the HD after two years.  It was like playing Operation.  A very expensive version, that is.  $400-$1000 seems like a lot for data recovery, but what do I know.  Some guy in my IT dep. did mine for a bottle of Maker's Mark.  Always thought that unless files have been written over, they're recoverable.

There are two different kinds of data recovery - software and hardware.

Oftentimes when a hard drive bricks good software can pull data off of the good sectors. I've done this before - the computer wouldn't boot but I put it in an external case and recovered all but a couple files with some kind of Disk Doctor software. This can be done for the price of software, which is often free from the internet.

The hardware kind is the expensive kind, and it's only done when software fails. This is where they pull the plates out of the hard drive and read them individually. This has to be done in a very sterile environment and is very labor-intensive, hence the high price.

Ah so.  That makes sense.  I was fortunate to have access to free new OS and software from said IT guy.  Plus, I just junked my old HD since I got everything off it, minus apps and such.  I will say I felt like such a man after putting in the new HD, though.  It doesn't take much for me.

Interesting thread.

[333]

Okay, my 2 cents.  First, the majority of my computers have been laptops.  And maybe I've just had good luck, but I haven't had that many (what was it? 30%?) fail on me.  Obviously, batteries don't last, but I've only had one die from something else.  I still have my first one, a IBM 486, and someone gave me a 386.  Both still boot up when plugged in.

Being a scavenger and a packrat, I "obtain" a fair amount of dead computers.  This one that I am using mostly I found at the curb, missing a hard drive, everything unplugged from the motherboard, and a bad power supply.  I had both of these items, and when it booted, I found a P4, 3 GHZ w/ hyperthreading(the predecessor to dual core processors).  I added a DVD burner w/ LightScribe (open box sale at the discount local computer store-$19.00), and $6.00 for cables to attach a second HD(also already had).

I can't say enough about these HD enclosures.  Best money I ever spent.  I have 5 of them, 2 for 2.5 laptop size HDs, and 2 for 3.5 HDs, and 1 that does 3.5 and CD IDE drives.  In addition to those, I also have a cable that does all IDE and Sata HDs.  When you have a PILE of HDs, these are the best way to back up.

[mystic_1]

Don't just junk the old HDDs, open them up and harvest the magnets.  They are super-strong and are quite handy in the shop.  Also, Moto-Bunny used some as a "green light trigger" by mounting them in her center stand feet.

http://forums.sohc4.net/index.php?topic=35872.msg420463#msg420463

cheers

mystic_1

[seaweb11]

Received word yesterday that the simple $400-$700 option didn't work out in my favor

Seems they were off to the clean room with my computer today or tomorrow or Fri.?
He asked me for a credit card number before they headed in that direction.
I have viewed their web site and it clearly states that they will not charge you for their retrieval rates if they can't retrieve anything so I asked.......

He said that was true, but there would be a $100-$150 charge for bla, bla, bla.
Seemed reasonable so keep your fingers crossed for me.

[mystic_1]

I'll FTP some positive thoughts in your direction. 

mystic_1

[clarkjh]

Here's hoping.

James

[seaweb11]

Data recovery is still a no GO!
I got tired of sitting around drinking beer and smoking pot, and went and picked up my new iMac today so I can get back to work.
Won't really know how much I will have to redo until tomorrow, but holly crap the internet is fast!!!!!!!!!!  and big!!!!!!!!!!

[oldfett]

I'll step in quick and say this, if you have high speed internet (and judging by what you have posted you do) you can't beat online file storage. Off site data storage (such as the online options mentioned) is great for one reason, its not in your house. Jump drives, external hard drives and RAID are great but what if someone breaks in? What if the house burns down? What happens in a lightning storm and everything is fried? Any backup is better than no backup but off site backups are the best.

Good luck on the data retrieval. There are not to many places equipped to actually pull and read platters and those that do charge more than just that arm and a leg.