All pictures lost : ( / please help!

Many thanks to Bob Hayden, Casey Wilson, Michael Covington,
Chris D, Grenner, Bruce Murphy, Ken Weitzel, RacerX, Drifter,
Tripurari Singh, Ed Wurster, Christoper Pollard, Owamanga,
Jack-of-the-Dust, Tim, Terence, and to all for your help.

I have tried everything you suggested me, but the %#$#%$*
WD does not work. The only option left is what Ed Wurster
recommended, to find someone local who can apply non-destructive
techniques before sending the drive to WD, thanks ED.

After going through all the data I have backed up to several CD-Rs during
the last years, I have recovered several of the files
the bad WD lost, and I believe the only files still missing
are RAW pictures I shot with my new Nikon D70. At this
point I have to decide if to start spending over $1000 just to
get back these RAW pictures, or perhaps
better use the money to buy a ticket to the French Polynesia
just to shoot the pictures again.. What do you think? ; )

Many of you assumed that I have never made back ups but in fact I
regularly do; but after the WD failure I went to check for the backed up
pictures on my second computer and there were just some folders and most
of the files have disappeared. I cannot explain that. Fortunately there were
older backups on CD-R

Although it's not normal for a brand new, well-known
hard disk to die after just 2 months of regular use,
I have learnt my lesson well and from now on I'm going to back up
to different media and redundant devices.

Once again, many thanks to you all for your valuable help.


Regards,
Paul.





"William Jackson" wrote in message
...
A couple of thoughts:

1: there are hard disk data recovery services available. These guys are
very good and can generally get most of the data from a hard disk. (if
you've had a head crash that scratched the disc, you will lose some data)
These aren't cheap though, BUT if the photos are worth that much to you
you
may be willing to pay.

2: in many cases you'll find that the electronics controller on the disk
has
fried but that the platters and heads are still fine. I've had success in
finding an EXACT duplicate drive (on ebay) and swapping the controllers,
then the disc will work. Given that this is relatively new, you can
probably buy a new disc and swap controller boards. It's worth a try, and
hard disks are cheap.

3: if all of this works, a backup is in order, but you already know that.
I
have all of my pictures backed up on:

a: a USB hard disk that I plug in every now and then and back up the
photos
b: A pack of CD-R's (it's now something like 13 of them) that I
re-create about every 6 months, one stack is kept at home, the other stack
is kept at work.


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).

Many thanks to Bob Hayden, Casey Wilson, Michael Covington,
Chris D, Grenner, Bruce Murphy, Ken Weitzel, RacerX, Drifter,
Tripurari Singh, Ed Wurster, Christoper Pollard, Owamanga,
Jack-of-the-Dust, Tim, Terence, and to all for your help.

I have tried everything you suggested me, but the %#$#%$*
WD does not work. The only option left is what Ed Wurster
recommended, to find someone local who can apply non-destructive
techniques before sending the drive to WD, thanks ED.

After going through all the data I have backed up to several CD-Rs during
the last years, I have recovered several of the files
the bad WD lost, and I believe the only files still missing
are RAW pictures I shot with my new Nikon D70. At this
point I have to decide if to start spending over $1000 just to
get back these RAW pictures, or perhaps
better use the money to buy a ticket to the French Polynesia
just to shoot the pictures again.. What do you think? ; )

Many of you assumed that I have never made back ups but in fact I
regularly do; but after the WD failure I went to check for the backed up
pictures on my second computer and there were just some folders and most
of the files have disappeared. I cannot explain that. Fortunately there were
older backups on CD-R

Although it's not normal for a brand new, well-known
hard disk to die after just 2 months of regular use,
I have learnt my lesson well and from now on I'm going to back up
to different media and redundant devices.

Once again, many thanks to you all for your valuable help.


Regards,
Paul.





"William Jackson" wrote in message
...
A couple of thoughts:

1: there are hard disk data recovery services available. These guys are
very good and can generally get most of the data from a hard disk. (if
you've had a head crash that scratched the disc, you will lose some data)
These aren't cheap though, BUT if the photos are worth that much to you
you
may be willing to pay.

2: in many cases you'll find that the electronics controller on the disk
has
fried but that the platters and heads are still fine. I've had success in
finding an EXACT duplicate drive (on ebay) and swapping the controllers,
then the disc will work. Given that this is relatively new, you can
probably buy a new disc and swap controller boards. It's worth a try, and
hard disks are cheap.

3: if all of this works, a backup is in order, but you already know that.
I
have all of my pictures backed up on:

a: a USB hard disk that I plug in every now and then and back up the
photos
b: A pack of CD-R's (it's now something like 13 of them) that I
re-create about every 6 months, one stack is kept at home, the other stack
is kept at work.


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).

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).

WD people will replace the HD under warranty, but only if I don’t
open it or if I choose one of their service partners
for a data recovery service. I just found but they charge
no less than $1000 just to recover the 30 gig folder where my
pictures were stored, so it is a no win situation for me.

$1000 sounds worth it for 7 years of memories.

--
Ben Thomas
Opinions, conclusions, and other information in this message that do not
relate to the official business of my firm shall be understood as neither
given nor endorsed by it.

Digital Paul wrote:

After going through all the data I have backed up to several CD-Rs during
the last years, I have recovered several of the files
the bad WD lost, and I believe the only files still missing
are RAW pictures I shot with my new Nikon D70. At this
point I have to decide if to start spending over $1000 just to
get back these RAW pictures, or perhaps
better use the money to buy a ticket to the French Polynesia
just to shoot the pictures again.. What do you think? ; )

Many of you assumed that I have never made back ups but in fact I
regularly do; but after the WD failure I went to check for the backed up
pictures on my second computer and there were just some folders and most
of the files have disappeared.

could the files have disappeared much earlier than you though?
before the 'empty' backups?


Once again, many thanks to you all for your valuable help.

Regards,
Paul.

On Mon, 25 Oct 2004 15:56:54 -0700, "Digital Paul"
wrote:

First, I sorta feel sorry for you, but you can't get much more
clueless than 7 years worth of data without a backup.
Welll you could if you don't have a firewall and virus checker and use
HTML in e-mail.

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 take it these were originally digital and not scanned.
The drive was only two months old, What did you do with the drive they
were on prior to copying them to this drive?

You only use one drive? You don't have any other copies?


WD people will replace the HD under warranty, but only if I don’t
open it or if I choose one of their service partners
for a data recovery service. I just found but they charge
no less than $1000 just to recover the 30 gig folder where my
pictures were stored, so it is a no win situation for me.

I’m running Windows XP Professional in a Pentium-4 PC, and
the damaged driver was working as a NTFS file system “slave”.

How do you know it's the driver and not the drive, or something else?

Now, as to the drive: Don't do anything to the drive! Do not open it,
do not bang on it, don't do anything to it!

At your experience level the most drastic measure you should think of
is trying it in another computer as a slave and REMEMBER to set the
jumper in the proper position.)

Even in your current computer, turn it on and hit the DEL key to
boot into the BIOS settings. You want the FIRST menu item which
should be the basic BIOS settings. This will include the hard drive.
Whether the HD runs or not it should boot this far. IF it doesn't,
shut the computer down, unhook the power cord and then remove the
drive. Set the jumper to slave and install it as a slave in another
computer, or get some one to do it for you.

This screen includes the ID of any drives, HD, floppy, and CD/DVD.
For the HD it should be the only one listed. Does the BIOS identify
the HD? IF it does not all is lost. IF instead it says none it means
the engineering track is gone, OR the electronics ON THE DRIVE has
failed.

At this point, as above, try it as a slave in another computer. Use
the BIOS to detect the drive and check it. IF the second computer
detects the drive and your's didn't the problem, or at least the
original problem is in the first computer.

If the drive is still dead then: Some one with experience can
*probably* swap the electronics and *try* to read the drive. Of course
this may void the warranty.

Last Saturday I was adding some more pictures to it, and
suddenly without making any noise nor previous problem
at all, the driver froze and stopped working. After several attempts

What do you mean the "driver" froze? Did the operation just stop on
the screen? What indication do you have that the drive froze and not
the computer?

I'm going to guess you installed a new drive rather than having one
installed. Are ALL connections tight? Did the CPU heat sink and or
fan get disturbed? Is there at LEAST one vacant space above and below
the hard drive for ventilation? Heat can kill a drive faster than
anything except dropping one. What about the ribbon cable? Is it
seated tightly? The same with the power cable.

I don't remember how many times I've had either a ribbon cable or
power cable fail, particularly when the power cable consists of two or
more "daisy chained". These are not exactly what you'd call high
priced connectors. It is possible for an intermittent power or ribbon
cable to trash a data file or directory entry. This is where
installing the drive in another computer and using data recovery
software is wonderful.

IF you can not bring the drive up in another computer as the slave you
have the choice of spending the money, or just kissing the photos good
by.

With nearly a terabyte of HD storage across 4 computers I have had a
failure between regular backups and it was on a file I would have had
a difficult time recreating. It cost me $150 to recover that file and
a couple directories and I keep regular backups.

I certainly hope you have learned that backups are essential. Do not
use a second hard drive, or any hard drive for long term archival
storage. AT 30 gigs you have the choice of CDs or DVDs. Make at
least two copies of each and verify they are good copies. Then make
sure to keep the backups up-to-date and keep them in different
locations. One should even be at some other home and learn the proper
way to handle which ever storage medium you choose. There are still a
lot of unknowns about CDs and DVDs, not the least being whether you
will have the equipment to read the format when you need it.

I have 4 machines with a tad less than a terabyte total storage. The
machines back up to each other across a Gigabit network. Still, I
also create two sets of DVDs for archival, or long term storage for my
images.

External HDs make great temporary backups for maybe a year or so, but
they need to be refreshed. HDs have very long times for mean time
between failures (MTBF), but that is for mechanical. As a medium they
are still considered temporary.

One thing to remember. NO STORAGE MEDUM LASTS FOREVER and they all
have their own requirements.

I certainly hope you have a GOOD firewall and virus checker too.


restarting windows, trying different computers, etc. Windows “saw”
the driver for one last time. I saw my precious pictures folder there,

I really wish you wouldn't say driver unless that is what you really
mean. I think maybe you mean drive, but it's not clear in the context
used.

but I couldn’t retrieve a single file, as after a couple of
minutes the driver stopped working for good.
All attempts that followed were not successful.

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

Don't even think about opening a drive.

the picture folder, then Western Digital will void
the warranty. This won’t matter if I succeed
recovering my pictures, but if not?

The odds are almost infinitesimal that you would succeed.
They are probably over a 100:1 that you will both destroy the drive
and void the warranty. From your post I'm sure you do not have the
skill or equipment to open a drive. It's my profession and I have a
degree in CS but I'd not even try to open a drive.


My questions a

Do I have a chance to make the drive spin, at least
for a while if I remove the cover?

Does anyone know if there is a less expensive service
to retrieve my data, even if doing so I loose the
WD warranty?

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.

I’ll appreciate any help regarding this matter.

Find a local guru who can check out the drive without destroying it.
One who can tell you if the drive is really bad or it's something
else.

This is not something for the inexperienced to even think about
trying.

The odds are what ever you try is more likely to make it worse when
the problem is most likely something other than the drive, or caused
by something other than the drive. As I said earlier I've had bad
cables completely trash the data on a drive before. Actually several
drives.

Good Luck

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Thanks in advance.
Paul