Hard Drive Disaster

[thestudioaz]

I knew it would happen sooner or later... I had my 300 gig external drive sitting on the edge of the desk and someone tripped on the usb cord, sending it slamming to the tile floor. My own stupid fault. I've had that drive for 3 years, always treated it with utmost respect. One moment of carelessness and boom. Gone. Yup. It was running. It had 140 gigs of my sample libraries and one shot libraries on it. All my drumagog and battery libraries. Along with about 40-50 VST's and plug-ins and all my reason refills, sessions, ableton sessions... gone.My question is... does anyone know if a good computer tech could recover the data. I'm sure the laser is history from the shock, but the disc itself shouldn't be damaged, right? Anyone out there ever had to go through this? Did you recover the data? I'd hate to think that it's all gone. that would be 3 years of work and all those libraries, etc. Not to mention website backups, photos, all my back-up stuff. Good news would be appreciated, but not expected at this point!

[jeffe]

If it's a hard drive then it wont have lasers. They have a number of heads that read from the surfaces of a number of layers inside the drive.If one of the heads are damaged then I think it's very unlikely you will ever recover the data. I used to open these drives many years ago, and it could only be done in a 'clean room' (dust free). A particle of dust can ruin the drive!If it's the electronics, then the only possible way would be to remove the board from a drive of the same spec, and replace it.I haven't heard of anyone repairing drives for a long time because hard drives are so cheap now, that it's just not cost effective.That's why backup is so important. I don't hold out much hope for the recovery of your data For the future. There are a few options for you to protect your data. Drive mirroring is one. Have two identical drives. Set up mirroring. Your computer will keep a mirror image of the first drive, on the second.Back up regularly to DVD, Blu-Ray or Tape. Whichever you have.Have a secondary external drive for backup. Copy everything there on a weekly basis (leave it overnight).Every time I finish a project I backup the last 4 projects to DVD.As time goes by, that gives me 4 different backups of each project.If I make any modifications to a project, then that becomes a new version of the song, and therefore a new project in the cycle.It works for me. Sorry to hear about your disaster. That's a lot to lose.

[Casey H]

There are specialized data recovery services that specialize in this. You should find one in your local area or by referral. I'm sure it's not inexpensive but what you may have lost here would be well worth it. They MIGHT be able to recover some percentage of your files.This is not to sound overly optimistic... But you should give it a shot. If the drive surface was not damaged there is more of a chance... Given that you dropped in while it was running makes this less likely, but you never know. If it was the electronics or some other mechanism other than a head crash you could get luckier.I recently met someone who is a computer forensics specialist. If you can't find a service, I might me able to ask him to suggest something.Good luck... Fingers crossed for you! CaseyP.S. After I first wrote this, I googled "data recovery" "hard disk" exactly like that with the quotes where they are shown. Scores of companies came up.

[53mph]

Thestudioaz,I wouldn't completely right-off your chances of recovering something just yet.The company I worked for once had a virus delete the server hard drive data slowly over time. We sent the drive off to one of these data recovery companies and they were able to recover a fair amount of data....most of it in wordpad format though :/If I were you I'd hope that the electronics of the drive case is the thing that's bust, and not the surface of the disc. If it's the drive case you should be able to swap out the drive into another case and boot it up (or at least read it). If you can take the drive out of the case and plug it into one of those USB external drive case (I've got one by Magnex which I used to copy data from the drive of my friends buggered PC which wouldn't boot up). If you can't read anything then contact one of those data recovery companies and contact your bank manager about a loan

[edteja]

Bummer. Good luck in the recovery room, man. I think I'll go backup my data again.

[neuphoria]

my ext. hard drive recenly failed. didn't have backup; had to do data recovery, cost $500 to do ('2nd level') but got everything back but one recently recorded track. so it can be done. (now to buy the 2nd back up.) so bite the bullet and do the data recovery. good luck.

[Casey H]

Quote:Thestudioaz,I wouldn't completely right-off your chances of recovering something just yet.The company I worked for once had a virus delete the server hard drive data slowly over time. We sent the drive off to one of these data recovery companies and they were able to recover a fair amount of data....most of it in wordpad format though :/If I were you I'd hope that the electronics of the drive case is the thing that's bust, and not the surface of the disc. If it's the drive case you should be able to swap out the drive into another case and boot it up (or at least read it). If you can take the drive out of the case and plug it into one of those USB external drive case (I've got one by Magnex which I used to copy data from the drive of my friends buggered PC which wouldn't boot up). If you can't read anything then contact one of those data recovery companies and contact your bank manager about a loan Yup, if it's the electronics or even something as simple as a cable connector that jarred loose, you could be in good shape. As far as opening the case, that's good if you are techo-handy or have someone who is. If not, better to not touch it all and send it right away for data recovery IMHO... Casey

[jeffe]

I will add to this. Failure of a hard drive is one thing. Physical damage is another. Recovery is most certainly achievable with failure. It's not so likely with physical damage. I know this because I used to do recovery many years ago.Recovery from a failed drive will cost quite a bit.Recovery from a damaged disk will be more. The cost will be enormous if the damage is internal. The work involved would be quite a bit. In fact, it would be cheaper for you to go out and buy all the software again.Saying that. I think you should try with a recovery company that will give you an assessment before carrying out the work. Then you'll have an idea of cost.

[thestudioaz]

Believe me, I've been up all night thinking of all these scenarios. I would hope it was something simple. The drive does spin up when plugged in and turned on, the power lights on the front of the case come on, but the red "data access" light won't come on and it won't read or boot. In other words, the drive is spinning, but I don't hear the little arm thingy jumping around like it's trying to access data. I do have a friend who is a local private investigator, he has recovered drive data before, so I'll be calling him today. As far as recording projects, those are all backed up on 2 seperate drives as well as the internal drive. I'm not to worried about the projects themselves. It's the sessions, the vst's and libraries that have me loosing sleep, lol. I do back-up regularly, this was the main backup/storage drive... I'll let ya know what happens and thanks everyone!

[matto]

Quote:It's the sessions, the vst's and libraries that have me loosing sleep, lol.Can't you just re-load the libraries and vsti's from the original CDs/DVDs? I know it's time consuming...but hardly worth losing sleep over...matto