Bad HDD, need file recovery opinions now!!!!

[BBones]

ok, if finally happened. My Seagate FreeAgent (only 3 weeks old) is or is going bad. I cannot access it anymore though Windows does see it and the program I am using (PCInspector File Recovery) can see files and is allowing me to move some of them over to my local HDD.

Question, does anyone have a suggestion for a good or best HDD REcovery program? The one I downloaded is Freeware and seems to be doing a decent job (either that or the HDD is not messed up SOOO bad yet)

[Poseidon]

I paid the $70 for www.recovermyfiles.com and it was worth every penny! It recovered better then 60K pictures, and all my word, excel, etc files too!

[rdlugosz]

Though it may seem obvious, I'll suggest that after you go through the recovery process you get some type of backup system in place. The can range from an external drive (or even just a second internal one) or you can sign up with one of the several online backup services.

I've detailed my backup workflow (http://blog.rrdphoto.com/2007/05/unlimited-online-backups-for-your.html) on my blog & it combines several approaches including a local file server, multiple external hard drives, and the Mozy online system. Your approach certainly doesn't need to be so elaborate; just try to make it automatic - otherwise you'll always be the failure point.

I think the main point is that the recovery service *may* be able to help you out, but it's not garaunteed. For a small amount of money you could avoid this with a subscription to a backup service like Mozy or Carbonite.

[Rhuarc]

Though it may seem obvious, I'll suggest that after you go through the recovery process you get some type of backup system in place. The can range from an external drive (or even just a second internal one) or you can sign up with one of the several online backup services.

I've detailed my backup workflow (http://blog.rrdphoto.com/2007/05/unlimited-online-backups-for-your.html) on my blog & it combines several approaches including a local file server, multiple external hard drives, and the Mozy online system. Your approach certainly doesn't need to be so elaborate; just try to make it automatic - otherwise you'll always be the failure point.

I think the main point is that the recovery service *may* be able to help you out, but it's not garaunteed. For a small amount of money you could avoid this with a subscription to a backup service like Mozy or Carbonite.

I just read your blog, and it seems like you are pretty impressed with Mozy. I'm currently using www.elephantdrive.com and am pretty happy with it so far.

Does anyone else use either of these backup services? I'd be interested in knowing what others use, and which of these seems to be better.

Oh, and in regards to the original posting, if you really do have a hardware failure, there are some companies out there that for a hefty fee will recover bad hard drives. From my understanding they can actually move platters to different drives so that if a read or write head went bad the platter will be accessed using a new head. They are pretty pricey though, so it may only be as a last resort and if the data is truly unreplaceable.

[BBones]

Actually I was in the process of building up some sort of poor mans RAID set up. This HDD was only 3 weeks old. I was going to buy a second one after I got home from Utah next week.

best laid plans and all that.

[rdlugosz]

I just read your blog, and it seems like you are pretty impressed with Mozy. I'm currently using www.elephantdrive.com (http://www.elephantdrive.com) and am pretty happy with it so far.

Yea, I've been pretty happy with it especially considering the pricing. The only downside so far has been my upload speeds, but that's entirely on my ISP and not Mozy... 384kbps up is pretty weak, but there's no viable competition in our market against Time Warner RoadRunner. What makes matters worse is that you can get 10mbit down / 1mbit up just across the river in Northern KY...

A friend of mine who also uses it was saying that now that everything is uploaded it works great - new shoots that he loads onto his drive get sync'd to Mozy within about a day.

[Rhuarc]

Yea, I've been pretty happy with it especially considering the pricing. The only downside so far has been my upload speeds, but that's entirely on my ISP and not Mozy... 384kbps up is pretty weak, but there's no viable competition in our market against Time Warner RoadRunner. What makes matters worse is that you can get 10mbit down / 1mbit up just across the river in Northern KY...

A friend of mine who also uses it was saying that now that everything is uploaded it works great - new shoots that he loads onto his drive get sync'd to Mozy within about a day.

Have you and your friend compared Mozy and ElephantDrive? Which one seems to be the better option for a photographer?

[rdlugosz]

Have you and your friend compared Mozy and ElephantDrive? Which one seems to be the better option for a photographer?

They're likely both similar, though I have not actually used ED. Based on a quick look at their website, it seems like ED may be a bit more expensive and has more limitations on the account (monthly transfer, etc.). Both services have a free option, so you can always try them both out and see what works for you.

[Rhuarc]

I'm trying out Mozy right now. The one thing that I realy like with them over ED (Elephant Drive, not the other thing!) is that if you had massive failure and needed to restore many gigs of files you can order DVD's of your backups to be mailed to you. Instead of trying to download many hundreds of Gigs.

One other site that I saw that is really cool looking of ProtectMyPhotos.com

They claim to have unlimited space, but in their ToS it says that if you go over the "average user" then they have the right to ask you to get another account. But the amazing thing about it is they have a photoviewer with the site, and they claim to back up RAW files. I don't know if their viewer can view RAW or not, but that is pretty cool.

So to make al ong post not short, I'm going to use Mozy for awhile and see how it works in the long run.

[Art Scott]

I beleive that Acronis makes a recovery software...I have used their migrate software and it works fantastic........I migrated a whole HDD including OS and other apps without losing any bits and pieces that many ghosting software are known for losing (photoshop bits and pieces)....it may be that you could use the migrating side of Acronis and save everything intact and quickly...I did a 120 gig that was tea totally fully to a 300gig in a matter of minutes and it was their trial version of Easy Migrate......LINKY HERE (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/download/)

[entropysedge]

Acronis makes a great product! When the hard drive on my old Viao laptop decided that it was going away, a good friend of mine who does computer repairs used True Image (and a bunch of dry ice to keep the hard drive working) to copy the whole drive. Recovered all my info :thumb and I was able to put it on my new laptop (being that the Viao I had was manufactured in such a way that the only way to open the part of the case where the hard drive was is to break it and it was 3 years old, I replaced it.)