All pictures lost : ( / please help!

"Digital Paul" wrote in message ...
My 2-month old Western Digital WD2500 Serial ATA
hard drive stopped working and I lost all my digital family
pictures (from the last seven years).
[snip]

Just to reinforce what others have already stated: Backup your data!
It won't help you now, but archiving 7 years worth of photos on a
single source without a backup isn't exactly a smart thing to do. It
becomes a matter if when -not if-you will lose your data.

Data recovery services are almost always expensive. Most of them are
geared towards a business/corporate environment where the data itself
(or the loss of the data) could cost the company a large amount of
money. You have to ask yourself how much is the data worth to you? Go
ahead and try the suggestions that have already been offered (except
maybe the ones requiring you to open the drive enclosure) and
hopefully one of them will work.

good luck,
Terence

My 2-month old Western Digital WD2500 Serial ATA
hard drive stopped working and I lost all my digital family
pictures (from the last seven years).


thats why we have CD-Rs and DVD-Rs.

My 2-month old Western Digital WD2500 Serial ATA
hard drive stopped working and I lost all my digital family
pictures (from the last seven years).


thats why we have CD-Rs and DVD-Rs.

On 26 Oct 2004 15:39:00 GMT, ATSPAM
(Developwebsites) wrote:

My 2-month old Western Digital WD2500 Serial ATA
hard drive stopped working and I lost all my digital family
pictures (from the last seven years).


thats why we have CD-Rs and DVD-Rs.

Hold on.. 2 months old WD? - I missed that the first time round. Just
plug in your old hard drive and copy the images again. Then all you've
lost is the last 2 months.

--
Owamanga!

Owamanga wrote:
On 26 Oct 2004 15:39:00 GMT, ATSPAM
(Developwebsites) wrote:


My 2-month old Western Digital WD2500 Serial ATA
hard drive stopped working and I lost all my digital family
pictures (from the last seven years).


thats why we have CD-Rs and DVD-Rs.


Hold on.. 2 months old WD? - I missed that the first time round. Just
plug in your old hard drive and copy the images again. Then all you've
lost is the last 2 months.

--
Owamanga!

Hi...

Betcha a dollar against a donut that he copied *all*
his pictures to the new drive; then deleted them from
wherever they were

(I really like the chocolate coated donuts

Ken

Owamanga wrote:
On 26 Oct 2004 15:39:00 GMT, ATSPAM
(Developwebsites) wrote:


My 2-month old Western Digital WD2500 Serial ATA
hard drive stopped working and I lost all my digital family
pictures (from the last seven years).


thats why we have CD-Rs and DVD-Rs.


Hold on.. 2 months old WD? - I missed that the first time round. Just
plug in your old hard drive and copy the images again. Then all you've
lost is the last 2 months.

--
Owamanga!

Hi...

Betcha a dollar against a donut that he copied *all*
his pictures to the new drive; then deleted them from
wherever they were

(I really like the chocolate coated donuts

Ken

"Digital Paul" wrote:

My 2-month old Western Digital WD2500 Serial ATA
hard drive stopped working and I lost all my digital family
pictures (from the last seven years).

I find it extremely hard to believe that anyone, even the most stupid,
clueless newbie, could not have at least made some backups (either
literal bit-copies, or something more fancy like a redundant disk
array) over a period of seven years.

A month, sure. Half a year, kinda dumb, but within the realm of the
possible.

But seven full years?

My dilemma is that if I open the drive with the hope that
I can free the disk to make it rotate once again just to retrieve
the picture folder, then Western Digital will void
the warranty. This won?t matter if I succeed
recovering my pictures, but if not?

Your disk costs $200. Your recovery estimate is $1000. Instead of
asking about saving $200, your question should be "will opening the
disk up destroy, forever, any possible retrieval attempts by third
parties?"

But we need not concern ourselves with such questions: the very idea
of some guy with a wrench at home prying open a disk in some feeble,
hair-brained attempt to get it "spinning" again can only be offered as
some kind of joke.

If trolling required a license, yours should be revoked.

"Digital Paul" wrote:

My 2-month old Western Digital WD2500 Serial ATA
hard drive stopped working and I lost all my digital family
pictures (from the last seven years).

I find it extremely hard to believe that anyone, even the most stupid,
clueless newbie, could not have at least made some backups (either
literal bit-copies, or something more fancy like a redundant disk
array) over a period of seven years.

A month, sure. Half a year, kinda dumb, but within the realm of the
possible.

But seven full years?

My dilemma is that if I open the drive with the hope that
I can free the disk to make it rotate once again just to retrieve
the picture folder, then Western Digital will void
the warranty. This won?t matter if I succeed
recovering my pictures, but if not?

Your disk costs $200. Your recovery estimate is $1000. Instead of
asking about saving $200, your question should be "will opening the
disk up destroy, forever, any possible retrieval attempts by third
parties?"

But we need not concern ourselves with such questions: the very idea
of some guy with a wrench at home prying open a disk in some feeble,
hair-brained attempt to get it "spinning" again can only be offered as
some kind of joke.

If trolling required a license, yours should be revoked.

"Michael A. Covington" wrote in message
...
Do I have a chance to make the drive spin, at least
for a while if I remove the cover?

Don't remove the cover. Twist it around in all positions without opening
it.

I have found some software designed to retrieve lost data
from damaged drives, like HDD Regenerator, but I can't
try anything because my PC does not even boot when the drive
is connected.

Sounds like your problem is most likely "stiction" (drive will not spin
up). Moving it around a lot is a good way to open it up. Twist it back
and forth about the axis of rotation.

Stiction on a 2 month old drive? I know manufacturing standards have
fallen - but that takes the ****....

"Michael A. Covington" wrote in message
...
Do I have a chance to make the drive spin, at least
for a while if I remove the cover?

Don't remove the cover. Twist it around in all positions without opening
it.

I have found some software designed to retrieve lost data
from damaged drives, like HDD Regenerator, but I can't
try anything because my PC does not even boot when the drive
is connected.

Sounds like your problem is most likely "stiction" (drive will not spin
up). Moving it around a lot is a good way to open it up. Twist it back
and forth about the axis of rotation.

Stiction on a 2 month old drive? I know manufacturing standards have
fallen - but that takes the ****....