I lost a hard drive today

[ZoomZoom71]

Came home to print out some real estate docs and my PC was creepin' along. I'm thinking my wife d/l'd some kinda virus or spyware. So, I d/l'd Defender, scanned and got nothing. Then, I decided to do a defrag, which is when I noticed that only 2 of my HDD's were showing up. I restarted, then saw the CHKDSK thing come up and it listed one of the volumes on the missing HDD. Damn!

This drive has many, many photos and vids of my 1st daughter, from birth-2.5 years old. That's gonna SUCK if I lose 'em. It also has a lot of MP3's on there, too, but I have the CD's, so no real worry about those. Any hope for me?

[namehater]

i dont know anything about hard drive restoration, but i have a question for you, is this the same pc that you just changed the power supply in?

[dmiller68]

Well if you have checked all the connections to it and still nothing. I would power off let it sit then bring it up. If the drive doesn't come back you have some options if you want to spend money...


Data restoration company... Look for a local one but they are expensive hundreds to thousands....

or

I give you the following trick but you have to act fast and I make no guarantees that it will work. Take the hard drive out of the computer and put it in the freezer for a couple hours. Then take it out and put it in the computer and try booting it. You won't have long if you use this method. If it works you may get 15-20min before you crash it hard.

then...

Go out and buy yourself MS OneCare and a external drive and setup a nightly backup job.

[Swasagon]

what does the freezer trick actually achieve?

[BrewCityUpstart]

I'm gonna staart stickin stuff in the freezer just to see what happens!

Thats sucks, E-Dog. That reminds me, I need to get an external hugeibyte hdd to save my mp3's n stuff...

[ZoomZoom71]

Great tips, Dmill. I unplugged it last night, so I could get my computer to run at a normal pace. When I have some time tonight, I'll reconnect it to see if it just needed a "break". I'll look into OneCare. I've seen it on the shelves, but never read much on it. What I'd like to have is a hi-cap off-line media storage, like a HDDVD burner. Are those for sale at a decent price yet? I think a 15GB disk is enough, as the largest files I create are AVI files from my miniDV camera, which can be about 14GB.

namehater, yes, this is the same PC in which I just installed the new PSU. I don't think the new component has anything to do with my hard drive crashing, but that thought, among others, certainly went through my head last night.

[ZoomZoom71]

I was just searching for HD DVD burners and there are NONE! I saw a few articles/press releases on Toshiba's first desktop burner from Jan '07, but nothing is yet for sale. WTH? How are they gonna compete in a format war when Blu-Ray is already ahead of 'em in the PC market? Am I missing something?

[dmiller68]

Originally Posted by Swasagon

what does the freezer trick actually achieve?

Well in theory most hard drive crashes are caused by the protective substance that is put on the platters. It basically gets to warm and the head sticks to it. So you but it in the freezer and the substance gets very hard and non-sticky enough for the head unit to come free. Now you can imagine why this would only work for so long because as soon as you put the drive back in the pc and it starts spinning it is going to get warm very quickly. When the head hits the sticky spot again it usually causes a catastrophic failure.

[dmiller68]

Originally Posted by ZoomZoom71

I was just searching for HD DVD burners and there are NONE! I saw a few articles/press releases on Toshiba's first desktop burner from Jan '07, but nothing is yet for sale. WTH? How are they gonna compete in a format war when Blu-Ray is already ahead of 'em in the PC market? Am I missing something?

There are none out yet and last I heard it was delayed for awhile. This is what lead me to my PS3 purchase becuase I assumed at that point the war was over.

[Gordon]

Heh, I was going to suggest the freezer trick, but someone beat me to it.

[Serren]

Sometimes just whacking a dying drive will get it spinning again. I think this is more of a fix for mechanical/age related problems though.

This should be a reminder to EVERYONE to make a back-up this weekend of your important files. Family photos and videos are priceless. Get these suckers on to some dvd's before it is to late. Your hard drive will fail. It is only a matter of time. Dont wait until you start to see problems. Blank dvd;s are what, twenty-five cents each? Save those files and send a copy to a family member while your at it for off-site storage.

Another trick I do since I have a network is to move my photos around to each computer. This is quick and assures that I they are safe on at least one pc.

Good luck Eric!

[ZoomZoom71]

*looks for BFH*

Thanks, Serren.

[WormholeXtreme]

Originally Posted by ZoomZoom71

I was just searching for HD DVD burners and there are NONE! I saw a few articles/press releases on Toshiba's first desktop burner from Jan '07, but nothing is yet for sale. WTH? How are they gonna compete in a format war when Blu-Ray is already ahead of 'em in the PC market? Am I missing something?

It's much cheaper just to use an external hard drive for backups. I have an NAS with a gigabit connection that I use for my backups. Either way regular backups are always a good idea. All it takes is one to make you a believer. I know it did with me.

[ZoomZoom71]

Yeah, I agree it's cheaper, but I'd rather not rely on a magnetic or electric (or whatever HDD's are) storage method. Know what I mean?

[MadBryan]

Spinrite and Carbonite

[ZoomZoom71]

Wow! Crisis averted! I thought this crashed HDD had my pictures on it, but it didn't. I had already put them on my external HDD. Whew! Now it's not as much of a big deal, now.

[Serren]

That is good news!