Data Recovery

[victor]

Just been caught out ...

My Usb cable disconnected from my image drive along with several power cuts. The image drive being mains powered and it will not respond to the pc at all but does spin up. I have lost some images and am now doing a search through backups for those I have worked on for competitions. Yes I have been lax and not backed up this drive for two to three months. (200 plus images…)

At least I exported some of the holiday images to the iPad… Needless to say I am now looking at data recovery for this drive at a cost of £250 plus… the VAT Take ….I have found a company in Southend not far from where I live. Now getting agreement to spend the £££££..

Has any one any expertise in Drobo drive set up etc. I have ordered a 3 terabyte disk to get me by when rebuilding my lightroom data base from backups and then from any data recovered.

But now want a reliable automatic back for images etc. I know MACs have a good backup flow with time machine.. but I am looking a real time on the fly duplication run of a USB hub/mains when attached to my MAC if possible. I am wary of using "The Cloud" due to varying broadband speeds etc where I live. as well as the ongoing costs.

Any information would very much appreciated...

Thanks

David

[Colin Southern]

Hi David,

Sorry to hear about your data loss.

I just wanted to chip in the fact that data recovery is in itself, dangerous. The rule is that the best chance of recovery is only available on the first attempt -- so whoever has the first attempt better have their ducks in a row.

On that note, the best in the business is www.drivesavers.com - you might like to check them out. I've used them, and they're one slick operation.

On the subject of backups, you need to look at what your risks are ... A RAID array is great to mitigate the risk of a drive failure, but does nothing to mitigate the risks of fire, theft, natural disaster, virus, human error, data corruption. Personally, I use a combination of mirrored drives, external drives, and cloud storage - the latter for just the important files (around $5 a month for 100GB).

[victor]

Thanks Colin.

I am kicking myself. How lax I have been over the past three months. Just done a review of my Lightroom database … Approx 5,900 files are "Lost"..
this includes edits etc. Some will be non-keepers and 200 processed as competition entries etc….

I use smaller drives to copy the raw files when transferring CD Card fro camera. I suppose disk space was limited…… at the time...

A local data recovery company now has my disk for review. I have spoken to him and he will advise me irrecoverable or not.


Regards

David

[Manfred M]

I use a Drobo as my primary backup. It is really easy to use, and more importantly, upgrading drives (when you run out of capacity and install a larger drive) or when you have a drive failure, it is quite simple. The main reason I went with them, rather than a more standard RAID solution (which I use as well, but not for images), is that you can mix different drive sizess and drives from different manufacturers quite seamlessly. Make sure you install at least two hard drives in the unit (my unit has 5 bays and right now I am only using four of them - a combination of 2TB and 3TB drives)

You have a number of options when you do set up your Drobo and the one I chose assumed that if there is a drive failure (I've had two), they won't occur at the same time (or at least until the redundancy has been rebuilt). As a rough rule of thumb, the capacity of the largest drive you put in will be used for redundancy, so that should go into your calculations on storage capacity. If you do lose a hard drive, depending on storage capacity that you, it may take several days to rebuild the redundancy back into your Drobo. While data is accessible during this time, you will find that read /write access is a bit slower than normal.

[RustBeltRaw]

Another truly-paranoid RAID advocate here. I prefer to keep individual disks sizes below 1TB, and I overlap the archives chronologically. So the first half of the data on one array is backed up on the preceding array, and the second half is backed up on the following array. That means a whole array can go down, and I still have uninterrupted, 2-drive backups. I use a combination of an on-board 1TB RAID in my laptop for current work, and a 2-bay Thermaltake Blacx USB3.0 for arranging and organizing backups. Archive drives are labeled by date and stored in anti-static bags, air-tight bags with dessicant.

Naturally, this is complicated, but as an engineer and SCUBA diver, I'm not in the habit of tempting fate. Since I'm already losing part of the first array, this system does not feel like overkill.

[Colin Southern]

Thanks Colin.

I am kicking myself. How lax I have been over the past three months. Just done a review of my Lightroom database … Approx 5,900 files are "Lost"..
this includes edits etc. Some will be non-keepers and 200 processed as competition entries etc….

I use smaller drives to copy the raw files when transferring CD Card fro camera. I suppose disk space was limited…… at the time...

A local data recovery company now has my disk for review. I have spoken to him and he will advise me irrecoverable or not.


Regards

David

I was in a similar situation when I crashed my accounting system and lost about 6 months worth of accounts. "Luckily", I only use it for accounts receivable, and I knew roughly who owed me what - had PDF copies from many I'd eMailed, and "they didn't know that I didn't know". So I "rebooted myself" (kicked myself in the behind) (computer engineers should know better!) and changed my evil ways.

These days I upload a PDF copy of all invoices to a cloud folder called "unpaid invoices", and flick a copy of the database up to the same location anytime I do some accounts. I actually corrupted the database again shortly after I started doing that ... this time I think I actually laughed -- didn't lose a thing.

Thank you Google Drive!

[victor]

Thanks for all responses very useful.

Data recovery is continuing … Looks like a defective disk surface which has caused the heads to crash/trashed. New heads have been fitted part of the drive is readable but part not but the disk keeps on failing. Heads are now under the microscope and a listing of DIR/Folders passed to DRS for those folders I have not backed up.

I may get something back its a wait and see...


Regards

[Colin Southern]

Thanks for all responses very useful.

Data recovery is continuing … Looks like a defective disk surface which has caused the heads to crash/trashed. New heads have been fitted part of the drive is readable but part not but the disk keeps on failing. Heads are now under the microscope and a listing of DIR/Folders passed to DRS for those folders I have not backed up.

I may get something back its a wait and see...


Regards

To be honest, I don't like the sound of that approach. DriveSavers remove the platters in a cleanroom and read the data using alternate techniques. Replacing heads is likely to put that area in more danger, IMO

I think it would be pretty rare for a defective surface to damage a head -- mostly the other way around; the heads fly about 1 micron above the surface, and sudden knocks are enough for the heads to overcome the air pressure and make contact with the platter, which damages that area (and sometimes the head). It's the main reason I can't get rid of rotating hard drives in laptops fast enough (in favour of solid state drives).

Fingers crossed for you, regardless David.

[victor]

Colin,

Thanks. I am assured that all work is being done in a clean room by a party with 28 years experience in data recovery. I have been kept informed of all being done so far.

The company was recommended by several data recovery firms in my local area who also use the same facility when pushed for space and "time restraints"

As always it is a small % of images that I did not back up… but I have recovered some images from my Flickr Account.

Big Ouch but life progresses on ...

Regards

[Colin Southern]

Colin,

Thanks. I am assured that all work is being done in a clean room by a party with 28 years experience in data recovery. I have been kept informed of all being done so far.

The company was recommended by several data recovery firms in my local area who also use the same facility when pushed for space and "time restraints"

As always it is a small % of images that I did not back up… but I have recovered some images from my Flickr Account.

Big Ouch but life progresses on ...

Regards

Yeah - it's a painful lesson we've probably all had to learn at some point.

Personally, I find the whole topic quite interesting -- it's an area I think I'd enjoy working in if I wasn't a bit old for a career change.

If you haven't already, a cruise through Drive Savers website is quite interesting - I had to laugh when I read that they have their own grief Councillor on staff!

[victor]

GOod news today.

100./. Data recovery... It's taken serval months...

now ow backing up to the cloud and 2 disks

[Colin Southern]

Good news indeed - wonder why it took so long?