Hard Drive whoes...

[Kottwitz-Graphics]

Man, when it rains it pours...

I came out the the office this morning, and turn on the computer, and my external hard drive is clicking. I turn it on, and the computer recognizes the thing, but the computer can't see it. The front of the case (a Mad Dog Multimedia case from Radio Shack) lights up, and there is a faint clicking from the drive.

I talked one computer repair shop, and its a gamble if the info off the drive is retreivable... And he wants $350 to get the files...

And only 1 day after the heater core goes up in my truck...

How do you guys handle backups? These files are only my art files, accounting & customer files, and clipart.

 

[TheSnowman]

Our computer has some kind of a mirrored raid, where if the main drive now fails, it's still supposed to be copied to the other drive in the computer, which I can't even see. It should be a carbon copy of what I am using right now.

I also every now and then back up all my customers art files to my Bad Wrap hard drive, and we daily back up Quickbooks to a jump drive.

 

[jiarby]

The problem I have always had with external drives is two things:
1. Heat. They enclose the drive in a blastic shell with inadequate or no air flow. The drives run hot. The drives fail.
2. Power. They use inadequate AD Adapter style power supplies... made by the lowest bidder. They fail

Then the user (YOU) plugs them in and leaves them permanently attached to the PC running 24/7.

You gotta make a disaster recovery plan. Then follow the plan. Waiting until a disaster happens is too late to start thinking about how you recover from it.

Start here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/saving-data-a-head-crash,1044.html

 

[sarge]

first thing i would do with your external drive is PUT IT IN A FREEZER .. and freeze it for at least 24 hours .. then what i do is get some of those chemical freeze deals .. froozen peas or corn works as well .. and pack those around the drive .. then fire the drive up and very fast .. no delays .. copy the files if you can from the external drive to your main drive .. do NOT screw around with coping it to a dvd or cd disk .. it sounds like to me there is a bearing in the drive that is wobbling .. freezeing it will tighten up the bearings sometimes long enough to get your data retrieved .. my success rate is about 85% .. my buddies at IBM and Boeing is about the same . so give this a try .. and NEVER i mean NEVER trust an external drive unless it is just a source for back up .. what i do is i have a computer i will call a server .. it has xp on it .. not a big power buddy .. just a poo dunk box . but it has 2 350 gig hdds .. all it does is store data and act as a print server .. no special software needed .. just network it to your business network .. and if you cant figure out how to schedual back ups do another thread and i will assist if needed

 

[sarge]

i want to add one more thing .. if you are using a data server of some sort .. never work off that drive .. copy that file to your own box or hdd .. work off that then when your finished with that file . copy it back in the data server .. the reason you use 2 hdd drives in your server is to 1) warehouse your graphic files .. 2nd) the other drive is where i keep my customer files .. i also keep a copy of both drives on 1 drive in my computer .. just as a backup to the backup

 

[Alphonse43]

What I have found with most hard drive crashes, heat is the main culprit. I remove the drive from any enclosures and run it from a "Ritmo R-Driver III USB to Sata/IDE cable" this allows it to run nice and cool. I have now been able to recover data from 5-6 drives that way. Heat is always the problem, be it caused by ventilation or voltage, 99 times out of 100 that will be the problem. I now run fans down low in all my PCs, to keep an airflow over the hard drives,and ventilate high in the case to help remove any heat build up, the cooler the case the better everything will run.
Alphonse43

 

[weaselboogie]

I use a sync software between computers specifying which folder needs synced. That way, I have a live backup on any computer in different locations that I'm at. It syncs deletions also.

If a hard drive goes out or a computer goes down, I still am ready to work without worrying about all of my info in one place.

 

[BRUSHMARKS]

we have multiple back ups. we do not use our internal harddrives for files 1 is for program files the other is a scratch disk we have a 1tb harddrive with all our files, W.O.s, adn all out clipart/fills. then we back the 1tb up every friday onto another hard drive which we have 2 of that are kept out of shop. so we have 2 back ups to our main hard drive. so 1 is always current adn 1 is 1 week old.

 

[signage]

For backups I recommend Acronis true image! Cheap but well worth it!

 

[Kottwitz-Graphics]

Thanks for all the responses.

I took the hard drive to the computer repair. After calling around, from The Dweeb...er, I mean Geek Squad to a couple of others, I got a recomendatin from a friend for someone that does data recovery.

I got a call from the guy a short while ago, and it looks like the data is moving off the drive, and then shutting down. He has it set up to restart, and then continue...

Cost so far...$375 for data retrieval. And a new hard drive - about $150...

I think I got off cheap, considering one guy I talked to wanted $250 per hour, and he estimated that it would take in excess of 6 hours, at least from what I described over the phone...

So, first thing Monday, I will be installing a back-up utility program to keep to (2) extra hard drives to keep this from happening again.

 

[Kottwitz-Graphics]

For backups I recommend Acronis true image! Cheap but well worth it!

That's not a bad looking software. It has a free trial, and looks just what I, or anyone that has important files, needs.

Thanks.

 

[signage]

No problem! It is great for you production computers because once you create an image you have all setting saved and reinstall/recovery is very fast!