Computer HDD failure...

The_Shadow · February 13 2013 06:43:55 PM MST

I maybe a little busy tring the recover data from my HDD, it went down today, its not very old either. PITA
At the moment I'm on an older drive, testing stuff. Looks like I'll be tied up for a bit!
Wish me luck! Be back soon!

sqlbullet · February 14 2013 07:14:17 AM MST

Good luck. I hate loosing a drive.

I don't know which is worse...The boom, I'm dead drive disaster or the slow failure that starts with a file that won't delete and occasional system unresponsiveness that you don't associate with an impending disaster.

Two of the laptops purchased this year where I work have lost hard drives already. And about 4 months ago we lost 3 drives out of an array within a few days of each other. Again, relatively new drives. Seems like some QC someplace may have slipped.

sgh · February 14 2013 08:30:23 AM MST

I have used this item to recover and transfer data from not completely dead drives on a couple occasions. Worth having around for those times.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3249952&csid=_61

sqlbullet · February 14 2013 10:15:18 AM MST

Yeah...I have a couple of those kits around my house.

REDLINE · February 14 2013 04:27:21 PM MST

Wishing you the best of luck!

The_Shadow · February 14 2013 05:05:31 PM MST

Well so far no luck getting data back, still trying! I'm trying to run it on one of those kits but the wife's lap top saw it but then windows explorer stopped responding while trying to read it...it maybe toast. ${$default_sad_smiley}$

I'm going to try a few other things from Seagate to see if I can get in or see what the diagnostics shows.

But for now NO joy! ${$default_embarrassed_smiley}$

sqlbullet · February 15 2013 09:47:28 AM MST

yeah...See's it, then goes nuts trying to read it. I am not much for windows admin, but on a Unix/Linux system you could cat syslog and see the read errors scroll by as it cycles through bad sectors on the drive.

You may be able to save some data. Depends on how far the munged data went.

The_Shadow · February 15 2013 06:13:27 PM MST

Guy and Gals, backup your data, don't put it off! When my drive went down I was about half hour from doing the backup.

Bad news the 500Gb Seagate gone, no data retrieval using any machines testing it... ${$default_angry_smiley}$
Hitachi 1Tb Backup portable (unmounted tested several ways, spins and beeps) dead dead and gone... ${$default_angry_smiley}$

Checking on warranties for both of those, mean while I ordered a new 1 Tb Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm, sata 6.0Gb/s 64mb buffer 3.5" ${$default_grin_smiley}$

They want as much for a smaller 500 Gb or 320 Gb unit that is not a referb, so I opted for the 1Tb ${$default_embarrassed_smiley}$

They the daunting task of starting over again from scratch...

The_Shadow · February 17 2013 05:01:55 PM MST

Been busy building back some of the files I loss due to the drive failures...
Good news I am working hard on rebuilding my powder picture data base.
Some of my data and resource documents, but many things lost forever.

New drive should be here in a few days, And I'll be starting over again...

REDLINE · February 17 2013 06:55:39 PM MST

That does suck. It wasn't all that long ago that I actually have begun to back up my drive. Luckily I've started before loosing it all. I count myself lucky. Now I don't have to rely on the luck anymore.

sqlbullet · February 18 2013 09:33:52 AM MST

I keep both hot backups using the Apple backup utility to a 1TB pocket drive, as well as weekly backups to the 3TB NAS at home. That device is set up RAID 1, so I would have to lose two drives before the data would be gone. Counting the drive in my machine, that gives me double redundancy with up to an hours loss and quadruple redundancy with up to a week's loss.

Hope I never have to test it under duress. (yes I do test restores of randome files once a month to validate the backups).

REDLINE · February 18 2013 11:44:17 AM MST

I'm not that thorough. Hopefully what I'm doing gets me by.

The_Shadow · February 20 2013 04:06:57 PM MST

Great News! I managed to not only get my data but fix
and restore the drive to working status...

I performed a few test from the new freshly loaded
Windows 7Pro, while the computer did see the drive.
Under properties for the affected drive I used repair
tools and this actually fixed several things.

While I had access I transferred all of the data to my
new drive and gave it a quick look over to insure it was
intact and viable. Everything was looking good!

After that I disconnected the new drive and tried to boot
off of drive, it ran more diagnostics then loaded into
the Windows & Ultimate OS. I am running on this old
drive as I am typing here.

Now to work more with the other 1Tb drive from my
portable backup to see if I can resurrect that one! Wish
me luck! But for now LIFE is Great! ${$default_grin_smiley}$

REDLINE · February 20 2013 07:47:06 PM MST

GREAT NEWS!!! ${$default_cool_smiley}$

sqlbullet · February 21 2013 08:50:31 AM MST

That is great!