customsteve01 Posted August 10, 2009 Share Posted August 10, 2009 I need some help and advice. As you guys know I went on a motorcycle trip last month and I took tons of pictures (over 3000). Well over the corse of the trip I would download the pictures to my laptop and when needed I would delete the pictures off the camara card. Well when I got home before I had a chance to back up the picture files onto an external hard drive my hard drive in the laptop crashed. Everything else in this computer was backed up, all the rest of my pictures and music are safe in two other external hard drives. So what are we talking 3000 plus pictures from a trip of a lifetime gone. I do have some pictures maybe 800 on the two camara cards. What was lost was probably from Lake Tahoe to Calilornia up the coast and back to Norh Dakota. I also saved maybe 200 in photobucket but they have all been resized to a much smaller format and really can't be used except for viewing on the computer in there small size. I sent the disc off to see what it would cost to retrieve the pictures. Well they want $1200 to try and retrieve them, thats about 900 more than I was wanting to pay. Does anyone have any HELPFUL advise as to how I should proceed? I know I should have backed them up as soon as I got home but that didn't happen. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LarryC Posted August 10, 2009 Share Posted August 10, 2009 Wow, what an awful shame! I truly hope you can recover that lifetime pic experience. I wonder, can Skonopa help? For one or two hard drive crashes in my past, I used Fred (don't have his last name) at ACOM in Rockville. He was very successful at recovering nearly everything on my failed drive, and IMO he clearly knows how to handle computers and hard drive issues. He didn't charge $1,200, either. He also installed a backup drive on my computer. Here's his info, and I suggest you give him a call to see what you think: ACOM Computers Fred 932 Hungerford Drive Suite 40A Rockville, MD 20850 Tel. (301) 294-9101; www.acomcomputers.com ; infoacomcomputers@yahoo.com Larry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ace168516 Posted August 10, 2009 Share Posted August 10, 2009 Steve, do you know how bad the drive is? If it can be recognized by a computer bios I may be able to help using some of the data recovery apps I use at work...does it click or make crazy sounds? ACE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
customsteve01 Posted August 10, 2009 Author Share Posted August 10, 2009 Larry, Thanks for the name and number. I wondered if Steve might could help too. Ace, I took the drive out and put it in an exteral hard drive case I have and the other computer could see it but not access it. Thi other computer would just lock up till you disconected the external drive. No it doesnt make really crazy noises, you can hear it running tho Here is the diagnostic from the place I sent it. Evaluation: After preliminary diagnosis we have observed the following issues with your media. Disk read error Firmware CorruptionI really don't know what that means but I am assuming they are going to have to open up the drive and fix something to to be able to access the data I want. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LarryC Posted August 10, 2009 Share Posted August 10, 2009 I paid Fred $858 in 2006 for data recovery ($550), Windows and device drivers and McAfee re-installation, and a new hard drive. The backup external hard drive installation last fall was $326 including local service call/installation charge. I have a no. for Steve Konopa if you need it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Posted August 10, 2009 Share Posted August 10, 2009 I don't know enough to know if you can recover frtom a HD with a read error... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ace168516 Posted August 10, 2009 Share Posted August 10, 2009 Steve...read error is no biggie usually...you just lose the file on that track...couple options. You can replace the board if the firmware is bad...little PCB on the back of the drive...would have to hunt down the *exact* same drive though...maybe easy maybe not. They could be pulling your chain though (not all repair places are actually honest). If you want, I will look at it for free if you pay for the shipping and return shipping. If it is a read error and I can get the bulk of the stuff, I would not even charge you if you can supply something to put it on. ACE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJkizak Posted August 10, 2009 Share Posted August 10, 2009 Relying on a lab top hard drive---that's real dangerous. I don't know anyone with a labtop who did not have a hard drive failure. They are extremely sensitive to low battery operation expecially if you have it plugged in. Battery must be charged even if you plug it in. JJK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winchester21 Posted August 10, 2009 Share Posted August 10, 2009 That sucks. I just had to replace my desktop because it was not worht fixing. Shop around. That deal sounds like a ripoff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay481985 Posted August 11, 2009 Share Posted August 11, 2009 Try putting it the freezer and then plug it in asap and try and remove everything before it heats up again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LarryC Posted August 14, 2009 Share Posted August 14, 2009 Steve, you have an OT PM. How's fixing this coming along? Larry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colterphoto1 Posted August 14, 2009 Share Posted August 14, 2009 1. if it somehow comes to life, be prepared to copy the important files right away. DO NOT WRITE ANYTHING NEW TO THE DAMAGED DRIVE 2. This happened on my iMac and data recovery was 95%, still some scrambled data (mine was mostly music files so had a lot of songs with skips to rerecord) don't know what might happen with photo files. 3. Backup, I don't do it enough, but have most of my stuff on 2 or 3 hard drives and dump to them occasionally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JL Sargent Posted August 14, 2009 Share Posted August 14, 2009 Ace wrote "If you want, I will look at it for free if you pay for the shipping and return shipping" I would suggest you do this. Can't beat that offer. Not to mention that fact that Ace is a standup guy. I bought a great computer from him several weeks back. Everything about it was exactly as he said. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skonopa Posted August 14, 2009 Share Posted August 14, 2009 Steve...read error is no biggie usually...you just lose the file on that track...couple options. You can replace the board if the firmware is bad...little PCB on the back of the drive...would have to hunt down the *exact* same drive though...maybe easy maybe not. They could be pulling your chain though (not all repair places are actually honest). If you want, I will look at it for free if you pay for the shipping and return shipping. If it is a read error and I can get the bulk of the stuff, I would not even charge you if you can supply something to put it on. ACE Sorry, I've not seen this sooner. Anyway, 'ACE' is indeed correct here. The read error is fairly simple to get around. Hopefully where the read error occurs in some system file or such that would've came from an application/OS install and not in one of your picture files. At this point, the only thing that is worth saving would be your photos and any other documents you may want to save - would not bother with anything such as application files and such. If you cannot get it to 'ACE' here, I could certainly attempt a crack at it. However, I would certainly take up 'ACE's offer as he seems to be better equipped to handle situations like this than I, especially since I am a software engineer, not really a hardware techniction Sticking it in the freezer is actually not a bad idea either. Although I've never tried that myself, but I've heard about folks that succesfully manage to get data off such a drive. I do recall years ago, while in college, of recovering data from a floppy diskette by carefully removing the actual diskette from the jacket very gently washing it with a mild soap and water, putting it in a jacket of a brand-new diskette and recovering the files off of it (that student, whose paper was due that day, was VERY grateful). Still, royally sucks that your harddrive had to pick this moment to take a dump on you. Along the same lines, just after getting back from Indy, only to be greated by a dead harddrive in my eMachines desktop. Fortunatlly, in my case, everything was already backed up on my server, so just a simple replace the drive and reinstall the OS and applications on it and copy back any data I needed off the server. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ace168516 Posted August 14, 2009 Share Posted August 14, 2009 I have successfully done the "freezer trick" as well. It is usually a last resort kinda deal though, because stuff can go wrong. I always seal it in an airtight static bag and put several bags of silica gel in it to keep the moisture out...when you fire the drive you have to move asap though...cold drives heat up and cause condensation and water and electronics is bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skonopa Posted August 14, 2009 Share Posted August 14, 2009 I have successfully done the "freezer trick" as well. It is usually a last resort kinda deal though, because stuff can go wrong. I always seal it in an airtight static bag and put several bags of silica gel in it to keep the moisture out...when you fire the drive you have to move asap though...cold drives heat up and cause condensation and water and electronics is bad. Excellent point on the condensation issues and so forth. I agree - the "freezer trick" would be a last resort type of thing. Probably why I've never actually attempted it, as in nearly all cases that I've had dealing with harddrive failures (already had to replace three in a Dell I had for work, until I finally replace the Dell with a Lenovo - in one instance, right after I checked my code into the source control repository, otherwise I would've really been up $#!+ creek without a paddle that day!), I was able to either recover data via the conventional method of putting in an external case and hooking it up, or had the data already backed up and did not bother with the one or two files I may have ended up loosing, that for one reason or another, never made it into the backup (usually something I could've lived without anyway). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
customsteve01 Posted August 18, 2009 Author Share Posted August 18, 2009 Ok guys the freezer trick did not work for me but I did it before you guys posted about last ditch try. Well I dropped it off yesterday at another recovery place here in town. I talked to them on the phone for about 30 min. and decided to let them take a crack at it before I looked to ACE for more help. What would be the chances of getting another drive just like this one and swapping the old discs into the new drive? Would that be worth trying? It would be easy to spring the 70 or 80 bucks for another drive, I wouldn't be out all that much if it diesnt work. Well I would not want to try it myself but I would buy a drive and let ace try it if it might work. I will follow up more tonight, I should know more by then. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ace168516 Posted August 18, 2009 Share Posted August 18, 2009 Swapping the discs (platters) will not work...that is what you need a clean room for...as soon as they are exposed, they are compromised. There is usally a pc board on the back of the drive that might take care of the firmware issue if the initial place diagnosed it correctly, but it would have to be same model/same firmware and bios revision. I am not sure what the local shop is going to do...they may be just as good as my shop, I can not say. If they can't get anything, I would ask what they did and in what shape the drive was in (recognized by bios...recognized by windows but no partition...what they did to it) That way if you aren't getting anywhere, I can advise without wasting your time and money. The drive has been through a lot at this point...put in an external enclosure which could have freaked out the MBR if windows did not know what to do with it, shipped and possibly dissasembled at another place, been in the freezer and now off to another shop...hard to say. Hopefully it is a good shop and they will either get you some data, or will atleast explain what they tried. If it is recognized by the bios and in the device manager, but not accessible, I can go above and beyond that point...so if they are hoping to plug and play and recover, they are probably wasting your time...that is what you did with the external enclosure more or less. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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