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Thread: Anyone know anything about Data Recovery?

  1. #1
    Guild Expert ladiestorm's Avatar
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    Default Anyone know anything about Data Recovery?

    My external hard drive quit on me a few days ago. At first I thought I had a problem with my laptop. Well, the tech was here today, and we determined that it was my hard drive, that is the problem.

    And it's a real problem. Everything I worked on, was stored in that hard drive. The two commissions I've been working on, every working project, every finished project, my crochet wip's, my game notes, and book notes, pictures... all of my work for the past two to three years was stored on my external hard drive.

    And it's now gone... My tech couldn't access the data. So now I've lost everything I've worked on for the past three years.

    Unless I can find someone that does data recovery for hard drives.

    So does anyone know anything about data recover?y
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  2. #2
    Guild Grand Master Azélor's Avatar
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    I assume this is a mechanical failure and the data might still be intact. There are professionals who can find the broken components and repair them. Different pieces can break and without knowing which one, it's not possible to tell if the data was damage. Maybe ask your tech if he know a place that does that sort of repair.

    The only advise I have is not to fix it yourself unless you know what you are doing.

    And I heard SSD are less likely to break because they have less moving parts than good ol hard drives.

    Was the crash sudden without warning?
    Just asking because mine busted last year but problems started weeks before that. Odd things I had no idea where related to a hard drive failure.
    Last edited by Azélor; 05-27-2019 at 12:08 AM.

  3. #3

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    If it's a laptop HDD i would buy and external HDD adapter with USB plug. You insert damaged hdd into adapter and plug it into another pc. It will detect it as external drive (if it's not damaged entirely). If you can access it then you can copy all data that was not affeccted by the mechanical failure.

    Here a guy shows it step by step.
    https://youtu.be/3dDSfee32PU?t=16
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  4. #4

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    Seconding Azélor's advice on looking for a professional repair or recovery service (even if the drive's mechanical components can't or can't cost-effectively be repaired, a professional may still be able to extract the data). The most key detail is that the actual disk platters are undamaged, but again it is hard to determine if this is the case from a random failure (if the failure happened as a result of the drive being moved, jostled or otherwise subjected to some amount of physical trauma - particularly if the drive was on or running at the time - damage to the disk platters would be more likely).

    Though SSDs also do have limited lifespans (the erase/overwrite cycle damages the storage elements over time), the statement about a lack of moving parts and the potential benefit of this is true (they're certainly somewhat less sensitive to physical trauma). I'm not on top of the current ideal lifespan comparisons but in general you probably could expect a good SSD to last longer than a hard drive on average, depending somewhat on the usage pattern (though they can still fail without warning - I just had to replace one myself a few days ago, and the hard drive in the same machine is still going strong). An SSD will degrade faster if you perform lots of writes of data, especially if the writes are frequent and spread across many different areas of the storage; while both reads and writes tax the mechanical parts of a hard disk it also means that the lifespan of the hard disk is going to be more linked to simply how much usage, rather than the type of usage.

    Whether you're able to have the data recovered successfully or not, keeping a separate backup updated at least semi-regularly would be strongly recommended. There are a number of free cloud services for doing so that can be more approachable or cost-effective than purchasing extra drives as well, though that assumes you're comfortable with such storage (I know I'm not).

  5. #5
    Publisher Mark Oliva's Avatar
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    If there's disc damage, the problem is more serious, as AzureWings has pointed out. However, when I've had external HD problems, it's always boiled down to the cable being defective or a problem with the interface where the cable plugs into the drive. If it hasn't been done already, that's worth checking.

    Future advice: Never have only one copy of important work at one location. My two colleagues at the Vintyri Project have all of our data on their systems, while I maintain the central repository. Everything that we've ever done is archived here four times, once on a built-in SSD and on three external HDs. Also remember the rule: Don't ever have all of your archive drives plugged in or running at the same time. One unexpected lightning bolt in a thunderstorm can destroy it all.

    AzureWings wrote:

    There are a number of free cloud services for doing so that can be more approachable or cost-effective than purchasing extra drives as well, though that assumes you're comfortable with such storage (I know I'm not).
    I have to agree with that final sentiment. I'm paranoid about cloud storage. With all the regular abuse of things stored "somewhere else" I intend to stick solely with local archiving.
    Mark Oliva
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  6. #6
    Guild Expert ladiestorm's Avatar
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    hey Mark. Yes, we checked the cables and all, the problem is the hard drive, itself. And I remembered a day or two ago, that I actually DID have a back up. I had a flash drive that I was also backing just my map stuff on... but it has flat disappeared. I hadn't backed up anything on it for about three months, because I can't find the blasted thing.

    Between profantasy, the guild, and deviant art, I still have all of the finished maps. What I don't have, are the fcws. And of course, I've lost ALL of my current wips. But I've also lost my current writing projects, wip crochet patterns, because those things I don't upload here.

    I don't like those online storage places either. I may have to go back to keeping hard copies... copies on cd's. That's just so time consuming. I will figure it out, eventually.

    But it's a good thing I have that second external drive, thanks Mark, so I won't have to go back to bogging down my system.
    Like a thief in the night
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    yet tranquility proceeds
    the accursed storm...


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  7. #7
    Guild Grand Master Azélor's Avatar
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    I might also suggest using some raid

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    no, this kind of raid (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

    For more details, check the page but basically it means using at least 2 disk to store the same data. In case 1 hard drive fails, you still got the other one and it's very unlikely that both will fail at the same time.
    And apparently, external raid is also a thing. (I thought it was only working with internal drives)

  8. #8
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    Considering how expensive repairs to a HDD can add up to this is worth a shot. There is a slim chance a linux distro may help. Ubuntu is a great place to start just to see if it reads the device. I've saved 1 USB this way when windows thought it was corrupted Linux was the savior.

    How to:
    Download the .iso from ubuntus website.
    Burn to disc/USB.
    Reboot and boot into disc/USB to get to the Linux desktop.
    Plug in the failed HDD
    Using the Linux distros file explorer navigate around to locate your device in /dev.
    Pray it shows your files.
    Move them ASAP off the failed drive to a safe location
    Then copy those to a backup archive.

    This is a very long shot but hope it helps.

    You may also want to go over to stack exchange website for more and more thorough answers.
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  9. #9
    Guild Expert johnvanvliet's Avatar
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    depending on the issue with the drive your kitchen freezer can work

    remove the drive and place it in a ziplock bag
    freeze it over night

    then while still cold plug it into the computer

    normally this will allow you to run the drive one more time and move the data off it

    This works for failing moters and barrings
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  10. #10
    Guild Novice Facebook Connected
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    Hello,

    Quite a few replies here, so I'll keep mine short.

    External HDD's are basically a normal HDD inside a plastic shell. If the HDD was a platter drive (spinning disks), and it was making weird noises, then it's quite possibly dead. If it wasn't making funny noises, you might be able to recover some/all data. If you aren't skilled with computers I'd personally suggest you pay someone to recover it. If you had a desktop, you could just plug it into that and get your data;

    For backups, don't bother building a NAS or buying another HDD if your data is worth a lot to you. Just use an online storage solution like google drive, or in my case Backblaze ($5/month for 1 PC). I've been in the IT industry for a long time, and it's just cheaper and easier to use them.

    Hope you get your data back.

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