Has anyone had any experience with a data recovery company. Monday morning the hard drive on my main design computer crashed, Although not a good way to start the week, It was still backed up by Carbonite. Well not actually, According to Carbonite there was a glitch in their system and although everything said it was backed upped, No new files have been added to the backup since 2012. Currently the drive is at Data Recovery Center in Philadelphia. Is there a legitimate chance I can get the last 3 years back. I thought I was being prepared for a hardware failure, LESSON LEARNED
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Data Recovery experience
- Thread starter fwgrafix
- Start date
Ive recovered bad hard drives myself. Sometimes you can sometimes you cant. Our network here is RAID5 and 1 drive went out. We sent to a company and they recovered everything up to the day. If I had known how to use the software I would have done it myself. We backup everything ourselves though. It even happened again recently and I recovered everything myself. The software is pretty easy to use.
phototec
New Member
What software was easy to use?
UFS Explorer. I have the one specific to RAID. I mean, I recovered 95%. The "O" folder wasn't recovered, but we have a backup so no big deal. You have to copy all the drives and build a raid on your computer after hooking them up using the software. Use copies so you dont fudge the real drives. It was amazing how well it worked. The guy who originally recovered it showed me he was using the same software so this time around we were not going to pay someone else to do it.
MikePro
New Member
had a major crash a few years back, on our NAS server. 20years worth of everything (design/production files, photos, survey info, etc.) we thought was safe with mirror'd hard drives (which we NOW backup two offsite copies of) was gone and every recovery service in a 1hr drive said they couldn't do it.
...longstory short, internet for the win! spent a weekend and figured out how to try to recover myself before final attempt to send it out to someone w/o guarantee I'd ever even see my HD again.
http://www.runtime.org/
download free software and attempt a scan of your hard disk (removed from your comp & installed into a $15 external enclosure from ebay/wherever). It will let you view all of your files to confirm successful scan, but requires you to buy a ~$50 code to register the software & it will allow you to complete the process of recovery.
edited: oops, didn't read you had sent it out already. pretty sure you should be good, however. these guys are in the business because they CAN recover data. worst-case, they remove the discs and install into a working mechanism to read it properly, but majority of HD failures results in a corrupted disk image causing the file system itself to completely lose all of it's structure. ...which is recoverable/restorable.
...longstory short, internet for the win! spent a weekend and figured out how to try to recover myself before final attempt to send it out to someone w/o guarantee I'd ever even see my HD again.
http://www.runtime.org/
download free software and attempt a scan of your hard disk (removed from your comp & installed into a $15 external enclosure from ebay/wherever). It will let you view all of your files to confirm successful scan, but requires you to buy a ~$50 code to register the software & it will allow you to complete the process of recovery.
edited: oops, didn't read you had sent it out already. pretty sure you should be good, however. these guys are in the business because they CAN recover data. worst-case, they remove the discs and install into a working mechanism to read it properly, but majority of HD failures results in a corrupted disk image causing the file system itself to completely lose all of it's structure. ...which is recoverable/restorable.
WildWestDesigns
Active Member
RAID 5 is what I would suggest for storage, mirrored is what I have my OS drive on (one of my rigs anyway).
visual800
Active Member
Techman
New Member
never trust carbonite.. I been saying this for years. This is not the first time someone has been left holding the bag after paying their fee for years.
IT is pretty easy to recover data from most drives. Ive done it so many times over the years it coulda been my retirement plan.
IT is pretty easy to recover data from most drives. Ive done it so many times over the years it coulda been my retirement plan.
I bought a QNAP NAS that holds 2 drives, so I set it up as a raid 1. So I have two 4 terabyte drives, with one synced to my data drive on my computer, and the other duplicating the first drive.
I am wondering if it is possible to make a clone copy of my c drive with Acronis onto the QNAP? I understand I will have to manually back up the clone, but I can't figure out how to get Acronis to back up to a folder...
Is it possible to add a mirroring drive to an existing computer and if so what do you use for software to run the mirror sync process?
WildWestDesigns
Active Member
That's the case with almost anything really. Nothing is really 100%. Carbonite has saved my mom's files on one big occasion when her storage drives went south on her. More then worth the cost of her paying for it all that time before. I think Carbonite was also good when Joe had his issues, I think it was Joe that had that, but I could be remembering wrong.
The best thing really, is to not have your eggs all in one basket. Any one backup method could go south on you and at the worse possible time. They all have their pros and cons.
That's the key thing. Technically, only has to apply to 51% of drives in order to be true. When we have failures around here, they tend to be catastrophic. SSDs are also a different animal compared to your old fashioned mechanical drives as well.
I firmly believe that backup is better then trying to deal with after the fact recovery from failing/failed drives. Better to be pro active in that regard then to try to see what you can recover later.
So, if I'm understanding your situation correctly, you have a Raid1 synced to back up your storage drive?
If the NAS is setup to just back up your storage drive, I would setup Acronis to back up your C:drive and have that tib file go to your storage drive, so that it is then backup to your NAS. You'll still have to maintain it manually on your storage drive, but then it'll be backup automatically on your NAS, if I'm understanding your setup correctly.
When I had Win installed directly on my computers, I had a freshly installed OS backup with none of my programs installed tib file, then I had a fresh install with my programs installed tib file and those 2 tib files, I left alone, no overwriting backups at all. I would then start a 3rd tib file that would handle all the subsequent backups. It takes up far more space of the storage, but in my mind (and it may only be in my mind) it allowed for more options, especially if something got corrupted in some form, I had a fall back file or 2.
Yes I have Raid 1 synced but it only does folders, not the whole drive... QNAP software is supposed to be the easiest of the NAS software, but it seems a little clunky and not as intuitive as it could be. I could have it sync every folder I guess.
I am not sure it Acronis will allow me to mirror to the data drive without a partition. When I try to clone my C drive to my data drive (B) it pops up a window that says:
"The destination hard disk drive you have chosen contains some partitions that could contain useful data. Click OK to confirm deletion of all the partitions on the destination hard disk drive."
It offers OK or Cancel. When I cancel I cannot go further. The Next button pops up the same delete the partitions window...
What is a tib file?
I am not sure it Acronis will allow me to mirror to the data drive without a partition. When I try to clone my C drive to my data drive (B) it pops up a window that says:
"The destination hard disk drive you have chosen contains some partitions that could contain useful data. Click OK to confirm deletion of all the partitions on the destination hard disk drive."
It offers OK or Cancel. When I cancel I cannot go further. The Next button pops up the same delete the partitions window...
What is a tib file?
WildWestDesigns
Active Member
AAAAhhhhh, I see now. I wouldn't use Acronis in that fashion. I would do a normal backup using Acronis to your storage drive, not mirror your hard drive to your storage drive (for a few reasons).
That's Acronis' native backup file.
Will an Acronis backup of my C drive be the same as a mirror? Will I be able to put it on a new hard drive at a later date and run windows and all my programs off it? I see the backup option has a "make bootable" option.
I also see a small fat 32 partition and I don't know what it is for or what disk it is from... how can I find out?
Thank you for helping me here.
I also see a small fat 32 partition and I don't know what it is for or what disk it is from... how can I find out?
Thank you for helping me here.
WildWestDesigns
Active Member
I do not consider a mirror a backup. Mainly, because if you delete a file on the main drive, it will also be deleted in the mirror. You don't still have that backup copy.
Yes, you just have to make sure that certain other components, motherboard, processor etc are not different as that may break certain installs, depending on how particular those programs are to those ID numbers. But if you are just putting in a new hard drive, should be fine.
Moze
Precision Sign Services
2015 was a frustrating year for me, technologically.
My website and email were hosted by the same company. Never had an issue with the website hosting, but every so often, just enough so it would annoy me but not enough to merit a change, my email wouldn't 'send'. I could receive emails, but nothing would go out. Eventually, this was getting worse and worse until it was happening weekly. Every time they said they found the problem, shouldn't happen again, etc. It was beyond frustrating. I finally switched my email to Office 365 and haven't had a single issue.
A few months ago, I bought a new Dell standalone system. Everything worked fine except for one morning I turned it on and it wouldn't complete the handoff to windows. Excruciating conversations with barely-speaking-English-Dell employees ensued. Long story short, my hard drive had mechanical damage which resulted in sector damage, etc. Tried running Recuva and another program and nothing. So I essentially lost about 4 months of quotes, invoices, completion photos and financial records.
Took it to a data recovery place and for the tune of $1830, they got every thing back. Expensive lesson learned. I now use AOMEI Backupper and daily synchronize everything added to my work files to an external hard drive. Every few weeks, I plan on doing an additional backup to a second external hard drive.
Fun stuff.
My website and email were hosted by the same company. Never had an issue with the website hosting, but every so often, just enough so it would annoy me but not enough to merit a change, my email wouldn't 'send'. I could receive emails, but nothing would go out. Eventually, this was getting worse and worse until it was happening weekly. Every time they said they found the problem, shouldn't happen again, etc. It was beyond frustrating. I finally switched my email to Office 365 and haven't had a single issue.
A few months ago, I bought a new Dell standalone system. Everything worked fine except for one morning I turned it on and it wouldn't complete the handoff to windows. Excruciating conversations with barely-speaking-English-Dell employees ensued. Long story short, my hard drive had mechanical damage which resulted in sector damage, etc. Tried running Recuva and another program and nothing. So I essentially lost about 4 months of quotes, invoices, completion photos and financial records.
Took it to a data recovery place and for the tune of $1830, they got every thing back. Expensive lesson learned. I now use AOMEI Backupper and daily synchronize everything added to my work files to an external hard drive. Every few weeks, I plan on doing an additional backup to a second external hard drive.
Fun stuff.
WildWestDesigns
Active Member
I would add that second (or more) external drive to the rotation sooner rather then later. External drives are not exactly the best for long term storage compared to good quality internal drives in a NAS or RACK type of environment. For most of us, a NAS would be fine. Just be sure to do a quality setup with quality drives. Like everything else, you get what you pay for. I tend to also like to use a NAS as a File Server as well. So all files are accessed with those a part of the local network (it's not available to the outside, but it can be if you want). I also maintain backups of my VMs on there as well, as the VMs are the ones that have my business related software on it, since they haven't been ported to Linux.
RAID itself is not a backup, just a protocol to help recover files in case there is one, two, or more drive failures (depending on which RAID protocol you are using). Sometimes there can be another drive failure while your in the process of getting a new drive setup in your RAID. If your RAID controller fails, your whole array fails
Keep backups simple
C drive only programs. You have cds and cloud access for any reinstalls. D drive completely separate drive for any and all data. E through whatever for external backups or syncs. System crashes occur on the c drive no problem reinstall or buy another hard drive reload programs data is safe on the day d drive keep on working. Keep it simple
C drive only programs. You have cds and cloud access for any reinstalls. D drive completely separate drive for any and all data. E through whatever for external backups or syncs. System crashes occur on the c drive no problem reinstall or buy another hard drive reload programs data is safe on the day d drive keep on working. Keep it simple