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Data Recovery

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scarletmike

scarletmike

Researching the Magic!
So I fucked myself over adjusting the TV tonight and knocked my external drive off the stand in the process. It was turned on, but was off when I picked it up, and shuts itself off after trying to power up for about 30 seconds, maybe less, presumably to keep the drive heads from impacting the platters any more. I know data recovery for impact failures is stupidly expensive, so there's no way I could afford it in the next few years, but was wondering if anyone has had to deal with recovering data off an impacted drive. This is actually my second external to fall victim to an impact failure (I'm usually really careful with equipment, just really fucking unlucky).

I've lost 5+ years of my photography (minus what's on my laptop currently) and countless files from this specific incident, and probably a similar amount of pictures on the other, older drive that's sitting dead until I can afford to recover it as well. I think it's time to either switch to SSDs for my backup options, or go to swappable drives and keep them stored in a nice, padded box.
 
If you have important files you are backing up. I really suggest looking at a raid setup on a NAS or custom built file server. Backing stuff up to one drive isn't truely a "backup" in my opinion. As for recovering data off your drive. You could also try removing the drives from the enclosures and put them in something like what I've linked below. If the drive will spin up then you should be able to recover the data onto a PC.

http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/St...0506133302:s&gclid=CLLxwaydrcUCFZOLaQodq1YAUA
 
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You could try pulling the drive out and hoping that it's just the enclosure that is broken. If the drive is broken there are services that can recover data, but they are $$$. I agree with Magua that you can't rely on 1 drive as a backup. All of my main shares live on a Windows computer and then I have a script to copy them to an old desktop running something like Nexenta or FreeNAS with a RAID 5 setup. This protects against a virus wiping out my Windows system. I also have 100GB in the cloud with Cubby.com, which allows me to replicate any amount of data from one computer to another. I currently have all of my pictures in the cloud, but TB's of data replicating to a system at my parent's house.
 
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Gillware is the place to go for full data recovery. They are quick, cheaper than most(about 1-1.5x cheaper in fact) and are really easy to use.

You ship them your hard drive (and an external drive if you don't wish to buy one of theirs). They recover the data, create an online Web page with the files and folders recovered so you can review their success, then you decide whether to pay for their services or simply pay to ship your drive back to you. I was blown away by the speed and ease of use of the whole process.

SSD is the last format to use for backups. It is built for speed and stability but not longevity.

What you need is a redundant server with multiple server friendly platter hard drives so that when the hard drive inevitably fails (without trauma like this), the other drive or drives still contain your data.

You also need an off site backup in case of a fire or other disaster. Naturally these things are easier to say than to maintain. I do a poor job with the offsite back up requirement.
 
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exhawg said:
You could try pulling the drive out and hoping that it's just the enclosure that is broken. If the drive is broken there are services that can recover data, but they are $$$. I agree with Magua that you can't rely on 1 drive as a backup. All of my main shares live on a Windows computer and then I have a script to copy them to an old desktop running something like Nexenta or FreeNAS with a RAID 5 setup. This protects against a virus wiping out my Windows system. I also have 100GB in the cloud with Cubby.com, which allows me to replicate any amount of data from one computer to another. I currently have all of my pictures in the cloud, but TB's of data replicating to a system at my parent's house.
Click to expand...
Yup try to plug it into a desktop first, either directly or with another enclosure.

The cloud is great for people with small amounts of files. It's crap for photographers with buckets of files, at least when paired with the garbage Internet in the US.
 
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Unfortunately my limited budget pretty much dictates one, maybe 2 drives, and off-site is definitely out of the question. Realistically I know recovery is more than likely out of my budget for at least a year or more as well, but I definitely appreciate and could use any recommendations. I could hear some unusual noises (possibly grinding) when I tried to get it up after the fall, so I'm very hesitant to try spinning it up again in another computer/enclosure.

I'll look into Gillware, thanks @jwinslow.
 
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When I say cheap, I mean 900+ instead of 1800-3000. Many of the other recovery services also lack the stellar virtual file browsing system of gillware and include upfront costs (or more painful return fees)

The speed was incredible. Naturally your results may vary based on their workload and the complexity of the recovery, but for me, they had the files recovered and viewable online within 36 hours of arrival and they shipped them out the same day my client paid for them (not my files, I was the helper with their problem)

And when I say off site, in a perfect world we would be backing them up regularly to some off site location. In the real world it means possibly backing stuff up occasionally to an external hard drive that you store at work. That drive does not need to be redundant as it is merely the fail safe.

Now most people are not going to take as many pictures as myself, but even avid photographers are going to have 1 TB of photos after awhile and an ever growing total with no possibility of becoming unneeded after awhile.
 
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Also, it becomes a little easier to justify a NAS server if you cut the TV cord and build a plex or other media server. We like to fall asleep to movies so we ripped all of our movies to the server and no longer have to swap the physical discs. I eventually plan to store my music there as well for easy streaming locally and away from home on wifi.

Just a suggestion if you're interested in a server but think it is out of reach. 50-100 less per month in TV bills helps to fund the server very quickly. Of course that triggers the problem of viewing Espn and Btn, but that's a separate discussion.
 
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Yeah, the online estimate said between 500-1500 (I knew it would be that range anyway, so helpful :lol:), and I'm guessing it would be at the $1500+ end with what is almost certainly platter damage. They called and left a message, so I may call back to see what if they can give me a tighter range.
 
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Yeah, dropped my laptop on the tile kitchen floor last night. HDD is hosed. Sounds like a dentist drill when revved up. Was able to get a desktop to recognize the HDD after multiple tries, but reads it as a new HDD that needs formatting

Luckily all work files are on a network, but all my family pics and such i have not backed up in awhile.

Sounds like it would be too expensive to have it recovered, but i am going to do a back alley try by swapping platters with a good case and see if i can make it work. Just need to set up a make shift clean room in the house somehow
 
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Disassembled the enclosure today and powered it up practically against my ear, and there is definitely some head to platter impacting. Took the cover off the enclosure's logic board and everything looks fine, no circuit breaks or anything. I may just try to pop a new drive in the enclosure and mothball the impacted one until I can afford the recovery since the enclosure is fine and I like the form factor (a WD My Book World Edition). Now to figure out if I can/should pop a WD Red in there instead of a Green.

EDIT: Started looking into FreeNAS, but man, ZFS is a serious resource hog, it requires pretty much a regular computer's worth of parts and pricey RAM. There's no way the logic boards in even the double disk WD externals are that souped up. I don't even think there's a half gig of ram on my enclosure's board.
 
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WD Red drives are designed for NAS servers. If this is just a backup external drive I don't think you'll want/need a WD Red. I had four 3TB Red Drives in a Raid5 and they were great but probably overkill for just an external backup drive that you only plug in and use form time to time.
 
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It may be a little overkill, but being a network drive it would be "on" whenever my computer is active. Plus, the extra year on the warranty can't hurt (as long as I park it inside the TV stand next to the BluRay player, no more sitting on top where it can be knocked over!), and I can pop it out to use in a multi-disk array in the future. I think the Greens were also WD's default for the network storage back when I got this thing (2011), but were replaced by the Reds in 2012 when the line first came out.
 
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