Data Recovery?

Double H · Oct 15, 2009

CW Jones said:
sweet, so if I get a hard drive that runs off of a firewire 800 I would be able to do the same thing? I went out and got a MacBook Pro 2 days ago

my thoughts for an external harddrive is getting an enclosure with a firewire 800 connection then getting a WD 1TB drive to put in it. If I ever fill that up then I can get another WD harddrvie and put it in it

Not exactly. When you start up a Mac while holding the T key, it starts up as just a 'hard drive," you can plug in a firewire cable from it to a working computer. Your "failed" drive will show up on the working machine's desktop, you can then get what you need off the disc. This will not always work, depending on how badly the drive failed in the first place. You could take the drive out of the Dell, put into an enclosure and do the same thing, provided the disc will mount.
I would recommend getting at least two externals. It's not a matter of if your hard drive will fail it's a matter of when.

Foques · Oct 15, 2009

how many GB are we talking about?

data recovery is not based on the hard drive only, it is based on how much data needs to be recovered.
500 is a very good price, though.

Double H is right. that will work IF the HDD is ok.

If hdd is clicking, then even that option would not work.

CW Jones · Oct 15, 2009

ya my friend tried to recover it the way you just said running it from an enclosure into the mac via firewire and no dice, still didn't show up. Its clicking and doesn't seem to be reading at all. I was just told he would do it in his free time for cheap. I am only looking for my pictures off of it, maybe 30-40GB or so

UUilliam · Oct 15, 2009

Recuva - Undelete, Unerase, File and Disk Recovery - Free Download

100% free and works great!!
no need to say thank you

Piform is a great company!
Whilst your at it, download CCleaner

Or perhaps Defraggler too!

CW Jones · Oct 15, 2009

even if the drive can't be read? it was in my laptop and I got a code saying there was no hard drive connected...

hulk · Oct 15, 2009

UUilliam said:
Recuva - Undelete, Unerase, File and Disk Recovery - Free Download

100% free and works great!!
no need to say thank you

Piform is a great company!
Whilst your at it, download CCleaner
Or perhaps Defraggler too!

That won't work if the HD can't even be recognized as one when plugged in. And it certainly won't work if the problem is physical (which appears to be the case since it's making a clicking sound and not reading at all).

UUilliam · Oct 15, 2009

Device manager?
Start>Search> Device manager > Disk Drives > is it there?

^Put the disk in an external casing if you can^
If that fails, New hard drive then swap the metal disc

Obvs the above will Possibly work if your on a windows, No idea bowt mac.

UUilliam · Oct 15, 2009

Another thing,

Western digital Seem to be rubbish!

I bought a 500GB Drive from them, It failed within 1 week...
I too kit back and they said I can EITHER get file recovery and pay £30 for a new drive or get a new drive and pay £30 for recovery...
So I just left it

Now I have a Westerndigital 320GB Passport (got it through yesterday...)
Hopefully it doesnt fail me...
I think my other one failed cause power surge, But I have had a few Western Digital EHD and they have all failed fairly quick.

I wouldn't buy a 1TB either
Sure it may be cheaper, But if that breaks, You just lost 1tb of data...
instead I would buy 4 250GB, Although it'll cost about £100 more
I would rather loose 250GB as opposed to 1TB
and atleast that way, You have 4 Backup drives until you need more space than 250GB

Dao · Oct 15, 2009

Some people claim they were able to bring the drive back for a short while (even clicking) with the freezing method.
I tried it once, the drive made clicking noise, and the server cannot even see the drive. After freeze it overnight, the clicking sounds disappeared, and the server see the drive, but it still have problem. (not able to read the drive)

Of course, try it at your own risk. Some people said they were able to get the drive cold enough to get the data off. Freeze it overnight in ziplock bag and followed by dry ice with drive running outside the case.

Arfamo · Oct 15, 2009

It's always a good idea to have two backups of your files, preferably one on CD/DVD - if you only have one backup on an external USB drive say, and either it or your main system goes kaputt, then you effectively have no remaining backup at that point.

Unless you strike lucky with the freezing, then a data recovery lab option is most likely your best route in this case although relatively expensive along the lines suggested by others.

Although it's probably wont help in this particular case, having some good photo recovery software on hand is also a good bet for recovering deleted photos, either for recovering from formatted cards, PC virus's or just accidental deletion etc. This kind of software typically costs less than $70. I have a background in this and websites that recommend solutions for repairing and recovering deleted and corrupt files. I hope the following is of use to viewers of this thread.

You can very often recover deleted pictures from PCs, camera memory cards or USB Memory sticks. However, to increase the chances of being able to recover pictures after they have been deleted you must not save any new photos, files or data to the device.

When you delete pictures (or any files) the data itself isn’t deleted, just the file system pointers that says where the data for those files is located. The area where the deleted picture data was stored is also now marked as free space so it is available to the system for any new files to be written there instead.

If and when that happens, then it is too late to recover your deleted pictures so it is very, very important that new pictures or files aren’t saved to the PC or memory card concerned in the meantime.

One of the easiest ways to see if your deleted pictures can be recovered is to try some photo recovery software.

One tip is to try a demo version of a commercial product that will scan the memory card for deleted pictures and show you exactly what pictures can be recovered. At least that will show you if you can recover the deleted pictures or if it’s too late already.

You can find more useful information on how to recover deleted photos here

[FONT=&quot]I hope that's of use/interest.
[/FONT]

CW Jones · Oct 15, 2009

My friend already try freezing it overnight with no luck.

Update on the drive:

The guy that is doing the back up, is going to work on it over the weekend. He plugged it into his Linux box which was able to see the drive but not read it. He said that the clicking that you are hearing is the head of the drive moving over to read the platters but it isn't able to so its shifting back to the stationary position which is hitting up against the inner resting place of the head.

He said that its in ruff shape but he should be able to get most if not everything back off the drive. Most times what he does is he takes an image of the drive and then gives the client that and they can sort through it to figure out what files they want back and they can trash the rest.

Keep your fingers crossed. I'll update you when i know more, he should be sending me texts through out the weekend with updates.

If everything goes well, and anyone else needs some recovery I can forward you his information. He is an extremely nice guy.

fiveoboy01 · Oct 15, 2009

This is a good thread and got me to thinking, I should have another way to backup all my pictures.

I have a 2TB mybook right now and I simply cut the files off my memory card and dump them onto the mybook. Same with any files that have gone through proccessing. I have a very small(compared to the total) number of my "better" images hosted on Smugmug but I think it would be wise for me to backup what I have on the mybook. What is a good solution? Put them on a CD? Offsite storage(is it expensive)?

Keep in mind I'm no pro, don't do photography for money, and I'm just looking for a simple solution that's easy because I'm an idiot with computers :lol:

Dao · Oct 15, 2009

CW Jones said:
My friend already try freezing it overnight with no luck.

Update on the drive:

The guy that is doing the back up, is going to work on it over the weekend. He plugged it into his Linux box which was able to see the drive but not read it. He said that the clicking that you are hearing is the head of the drive moving over to read the platters but it isn't able to so its shifting back to the stationary position which is hitting up against the inner resting place of the head.

Yes, some of the clicking sound was related to the drive head. I was handed over a 80gb 2.5 inches USB drive because it was not working few weeks ago. It had click sound as well. As your friend described, it could be the head. And was I did was holding the drive on the side (where the screw mount holes are located) with my finger tips, and then twist it (like spin the drive) very fast and stop it very fast. After I did that few times, the drive came back and still working now.

This method also works for drive that the have stuck platters (spin up issue).

pony · Oct 15, 2009

No advice or anything. Just wanted to say I'm sorry. I also learned my lesson the hard way. I lost 2 years worth of photos when my 2 year old hard drive spontaneously died. They were not fancy photos, but there were lots of snapshots that it just makes me ache to think are lost forever

DH had his tech guys at work salvage what they could, but we only managed to recover about 15 or 20% of what we lost.
I'm going to follow this thread for ideas on how best to prevent it happening again.
Right now I put everything on discs and I have 2 external hard drives. I also have lots of recent stuff on flickr.

This is one of the curses of digital, right?