johnnycamra Loc: Hackettstown, NJ

My hard drive had a head crash and I lost more than half of my photos and videos just because I procrastinated in backing them up. 1000's of memories gone forever! I am so devastated! It was a Seagate hard drive which I was told that it was a common problem with that brand. Please learn from my mistake. BACKUP YOUR PHOTOS AND VIDEOS AND DON'T BUY SEAGATE HARD DRIVES!

joehel2 Loc: Cherry Hill, NJ

It makes me sick to read this, sorry.

johnnycamra Loc: Hackettstown, NJ

Thanks.

PixelStan77 Loc: Vermont/Chicago

Sorry to hear of your loss. I know the feeling and have ben in your shoes around 25 years ago. Today, I go overboard and have them backed up from my computer on 3 different drives. No Seagate.
You may want to consider: I have not used them.
http://www.harddrivelabs.com/

pixbyjnjphotos Loc: Apache Junction,AZ

You have my sympathy. I have nearly all my photos on three hard drives. Your problem with the seagate hard drives is pretty much common knowledge and the reason I only use Western Digital drives. So far, no problems. But, all drives will eventually fail so back ups are the only way to go.

Garyminor Loc: Raleigh, NC

Even a crashed hard drive may have some recoverable data. It might be worth it to send the drive to a recovery lab, let them evaluate it, and give an estimated cost for recovery. A good lab can disassemble the drive, remove and clean the platters, and install them in a new drive.

Best wishes!!

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

All rotating platter Hard Drives are prone to failure. I have Seagate drives that are 5 years old and are still in service; I have had WD drives fail in a NAS. Stuff happens. The key is to never, ever keep all your eggs in 1 basket. You are going to spend $200 - $300+ for HD data recovery, why not shell out $400 for a dual drive Ethernet NAS enclosure and 2 HDs in RAID mirroring configuration? I've gotten email from my Netgear NASs that they anticipate HD failure due to increasing bad sectors. Allows me to swap out the drive before disaster.

blackest Loc: Ireland

My preference is a system with 3 drives 1 to boot 2 paired as software raid 1 + external backups The raid is because backups are never quite up to date. with the sata raid it is pretty quick can be 2x as fast on read.

Wrong to blame a brand really for drive failure, they all fail, had to replace a western digital with just 18 days and 2 hours of running time clocked up, last week somebody knocked over the tower. It didn't matter though because there was nothing irreplaceable on the hard drive.

If you plan for failure it just costs for replacement drives.

Usually if you get heads stuck on the platters, you can open the drive and unwind the heads, do it in as clean an environment as possible. usually you will get a couple of hours or so out the drive to copy as much as possible off the drive. It is terminal from that point on. There are specialist drive recovery companies who may have clean room facilities who will do it for a price but if you can't afford that price ...

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Thank you - I just rebuilt my system from a failed attempt on Microsoft's part to automatically, without my permission, update my Win7 to Win10. Setting up my backup schedule was the last thing I had to do before I could claim "mission accomplished" - and you just reminded me of that. I owe you a beer, or a single malt, or a bourbon and branch, or whatever your poison . . .

blackest Loc: Ireland

Windows 10 isn't too bad, and seems to support most essential hardware but I did 3 systems identical boxes and the upgrade install failed on one saying windows 10 wasn't compatible with the system. Funny that as I had done a clean install on one of the other identical systems already.

Anyway the way to go is

first recover your product key from your existing install

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/product_cd_key_viewer.html

make a note of it :)

if your on a home version you will want install media for home if pro or above the win 10 pro install media
if its 32 bit windows then you need to install the 32 bit version first.

now if you don't really want to go to windows 10 just yet swop out your hard drive for another it doesn't need to be big 80gb is more than enough.

now do a clean install on that disk using the product key you recovered from your windows install.

it should be done in around an hour if you don't give a microsoft account you can just set a local admin account.
if you want to sign in with a microsoft account add that as a second user and you can promote that user to admin.

if you add a microsoft account to the first user it converts that account into a microsoft account losing you your local admin account. You really don't want that.

Anyway at this point you should have a 32 bit version of windows 10 activated.

To switch to 64 bit you need the 64bit media and use the same product key as before.
Microsoft lets you upgrade 32 bit 7 to 32 bit 10 and associates your hardware with that key. You need that association to be able to switch from a 32 bit windows 10 install to 64 bit windows 10.

They do not allow going from 32 bit 7 to 64 bit 10 directly.

When Windows 10 is activated you can swop back in your Windows 7 disk and carry on as before. Come july 29 when microsoft starts charging for 10 you already have a registered product key for 64 bit windows 10 and you can upgrade for free when you want. :) It is associated with your hardware.

Realistically at some point we are all going to be pushed into windows 10 at some point this little exercise saves paying for it. It actually performs quite well on a 1.8 ghz dual core laptop. Boot times are much quicker once it has set up your account.

Bobbee

I just brought a 4 bay NAS, Currently I have two drives, 1 volume mounted @ 4TB configured Raid 1. I have been backing up but still was uncomfortable. Now I think I am OK except I need to get a 4TB drive to do incremental backups and get that drive out of the house.

FYI,
I have only two directories on the drive @Document and @Pictures. The only issue I see with this is with my WebService development projects under @Document. In those directories the path names get kind of long and I get path length errors. But for most, this should not be an issue. I find it easy to locate things when looking for them.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Sorry to hear it. I am sure a Service can retrieve your images for a fee, the HDD would still be toast. I try to stay with Western Digital too. Only one to actually die on me so far was an older IBM branded HDD. Odd you posted this as I was thinking of backing up a number of "batches" of photo from my PC and archiving them to two duplicate drives in a day or two.

At the moment once I get off the UHH I have to spend some time backing-up my Wife's PC so I can get it upgraded to Windows 10 while it is still free. I've been using it on my new PC since December. Good luck!

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

That's a shame, but life goes on. There is a class action lawsuit again Seagate because they have so many failures. I backup to two externals every couple of days. I backup seven folders - pictures, files, downloads, music, etc. I also have a Synology NAS. I use Syncback SE as a backup program.

DaveHam Loc: Reading UK

I think all of us have at one time or another experienced loss from not adequately backing up. A timely reminder certainly to me.

I would have to take exception to the suggestion that Seagate experience more crashes though; they are the largest manufacturer and they have not got there by shipping poor quality.

Julian Loc: Sarasota, FL

I am with you; the Seagate drives are the worse. I also had a hard drive crash and when I attempted to restore my files, I found out that my external backup drive (a Segate!!) was defective and will not respond. A total disaster as well.