No Flying For A While, Pranged My Kite !

[RAF_Louvert 101]

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This morning after being on the road all week I was looking forward to some enjoyable OFF flying time, but such was not to be. Grabbed a cup of coffee, sat down, fired up my computer, and it would not recognize the hard drive at all. Tried and tested everything and came to the realization that my Seagate HD had gone west. I know a lot of people like Seagate products but this is now the second HD of theirs I've had that went bad after about a year of use. So, I have ordered up a pair of Western Digital 640 GB Caviar Black SATA drives, (I have never had a Western Digital product failure), and at $69 each I figured I may as well put in two so I can place the page/swap file on the second HD and improve performance. I am also moving up to a 900 watt PS at the same time. I of course will have to start from scratch and reload everything which means all my campaigns are lost. However, the loss I am really sorry about is all my paint files for the OFF planes I've done. All those hundreds of bits of clip art are now gone and I will have to start from scratch.

 

Ah well, c'est le vie.

 

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[Morris 2]

Sorry Lou,

 

But at least is a upgrade to ur PC.

 

m

[Olham 164]

Lou, I am all but a computer expert, but shouldn't it be posssible to "rescue" the data?

Couldn't you search for such a "data rescue expert"?

 

PS/Edit: and get yourself an external hard drive (50 - 80 bucks), were you store your

precious data as a copy. (I know, it aches to hear such "great" advice AFTER the crash...)

Really sorry for you, Lou, as I have a vague idea, what you lost.

Edited March 13, 2010 by Olham

[RAF_Louvert 101]

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Thanks for the concern Morris and Olham.

 

Yes Olham, I should have backed up recently to an external drive or media, but it's been about six months since I've done so and that's my own dumb fault. I will definitely try to do a recovery on the HD, however if I can't get it to run there is no way to pull the data off of it. They say we learn from our mistakes, but I tend to think we just find new and better ways to make the same mistakes over.

 

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[Von Paulus 8]

Sorry to hear that Lou.

I like both brands Seagate and Western. But usually I tend to use more Western than Seagate. Those two are the more reliable hardisk brands that exist in the last 10 years.

If the HD is not recognized in the BIOS setup, than I'm afraid that only the labs can recover. Depending in the damage degree they can recover data. They have wonderful forensic tools. But it's very, very expensive. It has to be really worthwhile.

If it is recognized in the bios than the matter can be different... there are some tools that can help in that case. If that's the case you can always PM me Lou.

[RAF_Louvert 101]

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Thanks VP. No, the BIOS does not recognize the HD. I also loaded default drivers via my ASUS tool kit, still no go. And I ran a DOS scan on the drive and it comes up dead. Afraid she's a goner. Will make a nifty coaster for my coffee mug though.

 

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[OvS 8]

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Thanks VP. No, the BIOS does not recognize the HD. I also loaded default drivers via my ASUS tool kit, still no go. And I ran a DOS scan on the drive and it comes up dead. Afraid she's a goner. Will make a nifty coaster for my coffee mug though.

 

.

 

Lou,

 

Best investment, since you'll have to do it anyway if you intend on keeping this PC, is to buy another HD.... make the crashed HD a slave and try to recover the data.

 

It's scary though that the BIOS is not recognizing the drive. Do you have a friend's PC you can do the same with, hook it up as a slave? It won't hurt anything, it'll just not work.

 

OvS

[RAF_Louvert 101]

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OvS, I was planning to give your idea a go later to day when I get back from running a few errands. I have my second computer that I can plug the HD into and see if it will find it. Thanks for the advice.

 

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[Cameljockey 3]

I had a 3 month old Seagate 500Gb HD go south on me not long ago. From what I understand they had some quality control problems. You won't find another in my PC. Purchased a WD Caviar Green 500Gb and have had 0 problems since.

[carrick58 23]

Sorry to hear about a HD going south. Mine did the 2 yrs ago and a tech was able to recover all data . With that said, I should mention that it cost a little more than a New HD.

[Von Paulus 8]

If it's not recognized in BIOS it means:

- the cables have a problem

- motherboard IDE controller has a problem

or (99% of the cases) the electronic part of the HD fried.

[Ras 0]

Geez, Lou. You and I are having a bit of bad luck, lately. Your computer and loss of pilots and skins (Poor ole Chappy is going to have a long stay in the Stalag) and me with no place to live for the time being..(we are comfortably at our daughters') it looks like it could be a time before we are in the skies again. I should think you will be up there in good time. Best of luck and hope it goes smoothly. Ras

[Dej 17]

Sorry to hear about your bad luck, Lou. The frustrating thing, of course, and to which VP alludes, is that there is likely nothing at all wrong with the actual magnetic storage medium. If you could take that little disc out - as used to be possible - and put it in another drive unit, it could be read perfectly well. Your data is sitting there, probably mostly undamaged, but inaccessible.

[JimAttrill 24]

Well I guess the only thing you can do is take it out, get it apart and rescue the magnets. Then use epoxy to glue the magnets to your car's oil filter. They keep all the ferrous bits in the filter. (Or you can put them on your fridge).

[RAF_Louvert 101]

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Or, if after trying everything to recover the info, I could go out behind the barn with the 12 gauge over under and ... "PULL!"

 

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[sitting_duck 3]

bummer lou....

 

id be lost without ghost,,,,backs up all my computers at 2am....but that aint gonna help you...

 

if this is the case,,im sure you have thought about it,,but if its a sata drive,,,did you check your bios settings?

[Von Paulus 8]

Does the Hardisk is still in warranty? If it is you can RMA it. It won't bring you the data, but you'll have a new/refurbish HD.

If that's not the case, than the suggestion give by JimAttrill is a good one. Those magnets can be very useful.

Edited March 14, 2010 by Von Paulus

[Beanie 4]

RAF sorry to read about your HD problem.

 

I would be happy to send a copy of my images that I use for skinning - if you think they will be of help.

 

Just give me your address and I will send a disc.

 

Regards

 

Beanie

Edited March 14, 2010 by Beanie

[Rickitycrate 10]

I'm sorry for your troubles Lou.

[catch 81]

Damn bad show RAFL. I tried to recover data from a dead drive once. Failed at a most inopportune moment. But it was to no avail. It seems smashing it with a hammer and throwing the remains against a concrete wall had some negative effect on the data retrieval process. Who'dathunk it I wish they'd tell us these things when we buy 'em !

[Guest British_eh]

Right then, am I to assume that the Captain is going to have to appoint an Acting, whilst away on business for the King? There are certainly some good choices old boy. And the SIA stuff will just have to wait. Hard luck and all that.

 

Keep in touch.

 

British_eh

[Hasse Wind 46]

I know how it feels when you lose some important files because of HD failure. My first laptop ever (Acer) lost its drive shortly after the warranty expired (yeah, it was probably designed to do that), and of course I didn't have any backups of a number of files that were important to me. That taught me a hard lesson, and now I always make backups of anything even remotely important. And no more Acer products for me...

 

It's possible to recover files, but it isn't cheap if you need the services of some professional lab.

[Typhoon 5]

Lou:

I had the same thing happen to me last week. Mine was a WD 320 GB and was just over a year old. Anyway I work part time at a computer store and we used a program called Parragon Hard drive manager and we were able to recover all the data from my hard drive and clone it to a new one. We use it all the time and only charge $60 plus cost of a the new hard drive. Check around at some of your local Computer stores. Worth looking into.

 

Tony

[RAF_Louvert 101]

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Many thanks for the concern and advice folks. I will keep you all posted on my progress with this.

 

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[Von Paulus 8]

It was usual for people (junkies) to come to my shop and ask if I had any old broken Hardisks that I could spare.

I thought it was strange why did they wanted that. One day I asked one fellow technician if he knew the reason for that. An he explained me that they just wanted the Hardisks to take out the magnets. It seems that these magnets would disable the alarms in the clothes so they could steal them.

I'm not suggesting anythingl, Lou.