Remember to backup

[Ken]

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to remind you guys/girls to backup your files. You think it's not going to happen but it will. Live and learn, I guess.

My IDE Hitachi started to act weird fifteen minutes ago. I kept getting files and folders as corrupt and thought hmmm. I restarted and double clicked the drive and it stated it wasn't formatted and if I wanted to format it.

Great, all my movies, music, uni work, photos and everything else that should have been backed up...gone. I'm not going to format it though yet as there seems to be a lot of people complaining about data corruption on nForce4 motherboards so fingers crossed.

 

[Ken]

Thanks for the help guys.

Still managing to laugh looking at the unopened 25 pack of Verbatim DVD-Rs I have next to my monitor.

 

[Ken]

Seconded.
Back up NOW.
My HD died a while back and although i keep no important files and lost nothing of importance getting your system back to where it was is a complete nightmare.
Back up everything and do it NOW.
Searching around trying to remember all the installs done my box in and to be totally honest it was a mate that finally remembered the last few things. Totally frustrating and all just to get your system back to where it was before the disaster.


Walks off to hit something.

I'm trying to do that now. I have a vague idea of the folder structure on the drive. It was something like this...

Brother
Sister
Mine
Movies
Music
Photos

Brother's and sister's folder didn't have anything important and movies and music isn't really important compared to the uni work (luckily nothing current) and other personal stuff in my folder. Oh, photos is, I mean was important. Just trying to remember what was in my folder.

The SATA Hitachi was meant to be my backup but I left the OS installed on it when I bought the WD Raptor. I figured if the Raptor died, I could just plug in the Hitachi and off I go again.

 

[Ken]

Installing the trial of Easy Recovery Pro now. This will be interesting...

 

[Ken]

Looks like I need to format it and I don't want to just in case it makes file recovery more difficult.

Has anyone sent their hard drive off to Ontrack? How much did it set you back?
Cheers.

 

[Ken]

I just sent Ontrack an email and they'll return with a quote.

http://www.hosthideout.com/showpost.php?p=44265&postcount=21

So I'm looking at £60 for a breakdown of what can be recovered and then up to £1300 for the recovery.

****

 

[Ken]

**** indeed, is this data *really* that important?

I can live without it. Didn't expect it to be that expensive.

As I'm aware you only pay a huge amount if you've gone and set the drive on fire, dropped it out of a plane and then run it over with the car . The cost they incur (apart from their profit) is usually getting an identical drive with which to rebuild yours if its physically destroyed. For example replacing the drive heads, controller board etc. If, as it sounds like, its just data corruption, it will be relatively cheaper. Its still going to cost you a few hundred though.

Have you tried any recovery programs? If its just data corruption you may be able to rescue it.

If it's just data corruption, am I correct in saying that all they'll do is use their own software? I'm trying their Easy Recovery Pro now and in three minutes time, I'll have a list of what can be recovered.

 

[Ken]

Try a bootable Linux disc (Knoppix) and run from the disk; should give access to the bad drive; recovered a mates photos this way after everyone else had failed.

A lot cheaper too

Cheers

ftp://ftp.knoppix.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/knoppix/

I'm downloading KNOPPIX_V3.8.2-2005-05-05-DE.iso right now. I take it that's all I need? The drive is still unformatted. Will Knoppix still see it or do I need to format it? Sorry, totally new to Linux.

Easy Recovery Pro ended up listing only 19GB out of the 120GB that was on the drive.

 

[Ken]

Got the quote...

No way I'm paying that.

I've been busy ripping my CDs and converting them to mp3 so I haven't been doing much recovery. I guess there isn't anything I really need. Easy Recovery Pro isn't doing a good job. Most of the files recovered are corrupt.

that might not be a problem. I had a similar thing happen with testdisk 6.3 http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/TestDisk.shtml. It only listed so much, but recovered all of the data i had on my 160gb hdd. I think this was something to do with the 'dos mode' it ran in though. I have had a similar problem using dos console to ftp to my server and look at my mp3 files - there were too many files in a folder, and not all were listed.

Someone also recommended getbackdata to me, but I didnt need it.

GetDataBack is a really good util.

Its helped me out on a good few occasions at work and at home.

http://www.runtime.org/gdb.htm


^^ Best program I have ever found for data recovery

I've used it a few times too, would definitely recommend it.

Thanks guys. Thanks to Psymonkee for his kind email recommending it too. This is better than Easy Recovery Pro. The filenames are messed up but I'm getting slightly fewer corrupt files. It seems the bigger the file, the less chance it will open.

You will need to chat to someone who knows about linux to be able to use the disk .... not too hard though, if I remember.
Leave you HD exactly as it is; boot from the Knoppix cd and use a few commands (can't remember, but someone will help) and you should get access to the HD so that you can get stuff that you need; once you've got the stuff, format and reinstall etc. Good luck.

Cheers. I'll definitely look in to this method as it sounds promising in that I will get all my data back intact.

I think what I'll do now is format the SATA Hitachi that's been left unplugged with the OS installed and use that as my secondary drive and leave the IDE Hitachi unplugged until I have time to work on recovering the files. I need to get my music collection back and continue working on my dissertation for now.

Thanks for all the help guys.