Ugly Hedgehog - Photography Forum
Home Active Topics Newest Pictures Search Login Register ☰
Main Photography Discussion
Hard Drive Head Crash
Page <<first <prev 5 of 5
Jun 30, 2016 08:36:54   #
aellman Loc: Boston MA
 
blackest wrote:
If the disk spins up and has read errors or says this disk is unreadable and needs to be formatted then you can make an image file and then repair the damage on the image and recover files from it. If the drive is stalled it may mean drastic measures. Of course file recovery is usually never 100% some files are usually lost but people are generally happy if you can recover some.

1)Hard drives can fail with corruption of the data and partition tables.
2)The most common is for the heads to be crashed on the platters and can't spin up
3)or finally the hard drive controller board is fried. With the third option it is possible to change the board if the tech has a copy of that drive model to hand.

As you can imagine with hard drives being replaced with new models all the time the last option may take time to find a donor drive. Some drives may have been standard on a particular set of models so not too rare. Techs tend to be packrats so you might be lucky.

The real answer is to be properly backed up but most people are not. I would generally only work on drives in the first category and the second only if they couldn't afford top tier data recovery. I don't have a clean room and its a gamble.
I've yet to find a drive with a shot controller that a) mattered and b) I had a replacement board for.
If the disk spins up and has read errors or says t... (show quote)


Great info, but I still prefer to go with Carbonite and avoid all of this potential risk, angst, and expense. Carbonite was a small startup in Cambridge, MA that through smart marketing and a great product became the 800 pound gorilla in automatic continuous cloud backup for home and small business users. A bonus: they have 100% U.S.-based user support, and it never takes more than a few minutes to get through to a tech. (No, I don't work for them. Just a very satisfied customer for years.)

Reply
Jun 30, 2016 22:48:22   #
photoman022 Loc: Manchester CT USA
 
Thank you for sharing so that others won't make the same mistake. All external hard drives will eventually fail (even those not made by Seagate -- which was my first, and only, external hard drive to fail). I use external hard drives to store all of my photos, that is why I have 3 external hard drives; if one fails I still have the other two. As soon as the new drive arrives, I start the process of copying my files to the new drive (which takes hours and hours and hours).

Have more than one external hard drive!

Reply
Jul 1, 2016 01:20:31   #
rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA
 
Carbonite is even s-l-o-w-e-r when recovering data. The Cloud is the only secure offsite storage that you should trust.

Reply
 
 
Jul 1, 2016 09:08:16   #
TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC
 
Merlin1300 wrote:
OUCH !! $80 per Month ??
I'll rent a safe deposit box and keep HDD copies off site.
OR - - get a freeware encryption program and leave an encrypted copy of my data drive with trusted neighbors


Since I'm not using a home office for business anymore, I have no intention of paying $80/month for Internet access either! That's just the preliminary pricing that's been quoted. With 3 competitors now vying for business, my guess/hope is that competition will drive down the price.

Reply
Page <<first <prev 5 of 5
If you want to reply, then register here. Registration is free and your account is created instantly, so you can post right away.
Main Photography Discussion
Home | Latest Digest | Back to Top | All Sections
Contact us | Privacy policy | Terms of use | DMCA
UglyHedgehog.com - Forum
Copyright 2011-2024 Ugly Hedgehog, Inc.