Hard drive dies with all my astro images.

nebulosity. (Jo) · #1 25-03-2014, 09:50 PM

Well there goes two years of hard work, late nights, countless hours of designing, building, setting up, polar aligning, image processing, manual guiding, cold nights and lots of fun.

All my astro images, Nightscapes, Time lapses, ect... all gone

Oh, well. Start again I suppose, and this time making sure that my image library is on a couple of hard drives instead on one. At least a few of my images are on Astrobin

Hope this doesn't happen to any of you guys.

Jo

RickS (Rick) · #2 25-03-2014, 09:59 PM

That's bad luck, Jo

Doing backups is a PITA but a necessary evil if you care about your data.

brian nordstrom (As avatar) · #3 25-03-2014, 10:07 PM

No back ups Jo ? I learned years ago to back up everything , I keep mine on 2x external HD's , do it about every 2-3 weeks .
There are places , one in Sydney ( cant remember the name ) that can extract files from a dead HD , its expensive and takes a long time and it can be done ,, but

.
Sorry for your bad luck it Sux for sure , been there done that many years ago ,, back-up , back-up , back-up .
Brian.

MrB (Simon) · #4 25-03-2014, 10:20 PM

Do you still at least have the raw files on the flash cards(SD or CF)?
Flashcards are so cheap now I don't delete the raws, just swap out the cards when one is full.

Astro_Bot · #5 25-03-2014, 10:22 PM

Ouch! I once learned that lesson myself many years ago, though not with astro images.

I keep my raw images in two places at once, until processed - camera card or laptop (depending on capture mode) and special astro HDD. Then I keep the finished products on my main HDD which is regularly backed up to another. I never give Mr Murphy a chance - he's a right b*stard.

Hope you figure out a way to recover your data.

Did the drive simply not spin up? You could try gently tapping it at boot time - it could work, even if it's unlikely - I saw it work once.

Occulta (Chris) · #6 25-03-2014, 10:36 PM

Jo

Have used these people before who recovered 98% of the data on a failed drive. Would recomend them highly.

http://www.payam.com.au/

Chris

GeoffW1 (Geoff) · #7 25-03-2014, 11:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Occulta

Jo

Have used these people before who recovered 98% of the data on a failed drive. Would recomend them highly.

http://www.payam.com.au/

Chris

Hi,

I agree with Chris, give it a go. Get a quote or two. Data recovery is big business, and the really good places keep a store of every kind of drive model so they can swap parts into a failed one.

Some HDD failures are just hardware based, like in the internal board, or the mechanism driving the read/write heads. If the heads have not bounced across the disk surface they can get back everything.

Other failures are software based, and if the whole File Allocation Table is corrupt, it is harder.

Difficult jobs can even cost a $1000 or two, but it may be worth it to you

All the best

jenchris (Jennifer) · #8 25-03-2014, 11:06 PM

whip out the hard drive and bung it in the freezer for 20 mins the reconnect it and when it spins up, be ready to snatch the data before it dies again.
Did that last time I failed to back up - I don't fail any more -I have a backup on my desk (ext HDD)changed data x2 weeks and one on the spare drive in the PC (monthly full) and one in the fireproof safe - which is my full disk mirror.

I'm sorry for your loss - it hurts.

RAJAH235 · #9 26-03-2014, 01:13 AM

Jo,
Have you heard of "spinrite" from grc.com?
Steve Gibson created it years ago & it's the best HDD maintenance & recovery program out there.
It's just around 180 kb & costs just $89.00 US.
> https://www.grc.com/intro.htm
(I have no affiliation or interest in it.)

OzStarGazer · #10 26-03-2014, 04:28 AM

Yes. Try a data recovery program. I used one for a memory stick and it worked fine. The names of your files might be changed, but you can still rename them of course.
There are free online backup programs too by the way, and I think also free software. I lost data with my first computer too, but now I always have a backup.

Octane (Humayun) · #11 26-03-2014, 07:18 AM

If the drive is physically stuffed, then, no software is going to work. It will have to go to a professional for recovery.

I feel your pain, Jo. I've been there. Except, in my case, I transferred my images directory to a housemate's laptop to free up space temporarily. In the space of a couple of days, his drive died. Lesson was learnt! Now everything is automatically backed up.

H

nebulosity. (Jo) · #12 26-03-2014, 08:12 AM

Thanks guys,

Until a week or two ago I had my library on the iMac which has time machine backups every hour, but to free up some space I transferred the library to an external and was yet to buy another for backups. Only a day too late!

The drive seams to still spin, it just won't mount. I have tried repairing on the iMac but no go. It's in town now at a computer bloke who is going to run some of his program's on it. Lets hope he might able to get something off, I think the library is around 240GB.

Jo

wasyoungonce (Brendan) · #13 26-03-2014, 10:16 AM

Bad luck Jo...guessing the external HDD was a Seagate then?

Satchmo · #14 26-03-2014, 10:23 AM

I recommend an external network raid drive that runs two discs in mirror - for the future - the cost is nothing when you think of the amount of hours you spend on your data .

lazjen (Chris) · #15 26-03-2014, 10:29 AM

I hate HD crashes. Been dealing with them over the years and they always suck. So far, we've had backups for most stuff, but we nearly got caught short recently.

Since I've got a reasonable amount of bandwidth, I'm trialling Crashplan at the moment with the online cloud backup component as well. Costs a fee per year, but the way it's set up, our files are auto backed up across multiple machines and on the net, and we don't have to remember to actively do backups. It's already saved me when my Windows OS trashed my machine last week and I had to reinstall it.

Only cons are that seeding via upload (instead of the disk seeding service) is going to take us a long time (I think we've got around 1.5TB to do). I don't mind though as it'll get there eventually.

mithrandir (Andrew) · #16 26-03-2014, 10:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Satchmo

I recommend an external network raid drive that runs two discs in mirror - for the future - the cost is nothing when you think of the amount of hours you spend on your data .

Totally agree. For a bit under $2K I got a NAS and five 3TB NAS certified disks. It has 4 gigabit ethernet ports and USB3 and is set up as RAID-5. I have about 12TB of space available.

wasyoungonce (Brendan) · #17 26-03-2014, 10:42 AM

I built a WHS 2011 with HP N54L micro server. I currently run qty 2 4TB HDDs (as a pool with another 250GB HDD as boot drive) with Stable Bit Drive pool so I can remove a damaged drive and it will rebuild the pool image.

I also back up from this using an ESATA caddy but are limited to 2TB backups due to WHS 2011. I will upgrade and install more HDDs as necessary ...can go to 16TB or more depending upon HDD costs. Currently using Hitachi 4TB cool spins...very nice drives indeed!

This set-up has saved my family members from crises of lost data and photos more than one so far so is well worth it.

04Stefan07 (Stefan) · #18 26-03-2014, 10:53 AM

I am paranoid that something like this one day will happen to me which is why I have a backup system I have set up.

- An external HDD with a full backup of everything on my computer (astro work, music, images, etc).
- DVD discs for long term backup (lasts longer than a HDD and less chance of it breaking) of the important stuff (music, astro and images)
- USB backup of important personal files

Also I have an excel spreadsheet with what is backed up on where and on what dates.

The backup to my external drive I do once a fortnight unless there is a major change/update and my DVD backups once every 3 months since that is long term and is a lengthy process.

I am not comfortable with having just one backup therefore I have multiple.

noeyedeer (Matt) · #19 26-03-2014, 11:53 AM

I'm like Stefan. I rarely trust hdd backups all of my files are on CD/DVD. even blueray disks are quite cheap now for 24odd gb of virtually faultless storage. just time consuming burning them but least it's permanent. I tell people at work if you're using regular external hdd don't put anything on there that you're not prepared to lose, always have another copy somewhere if it's important. and I would recommend the western digitals over Seagate or Toshiba anyday.

fingers crossed the computer man can do his magic.

matt

OzStarGazer · #20 26-03-2014, 12:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nebulosity.

Only a day too late!

This happened to me too once. I did have a backup, but it was not the latest one. Something had come up and I thought I will make the new backup tomorrow, and of course the HD crashed.... Luckily I only lost a month's files, but it was still annoying because it was really a matter of hours...