I am teh sadness :(

D

DoggyDaddi

Gawd
Joined
Sep 10, 2002
Messages
783
Okies.. got home one morning, and my computer was making strange noises.. specifically the drive area. I looked into explorer and one of my drives had dropped. I assumed my SATA controller on my MB was going bad, as I had been forced to drop RAID when the MB refused to recognize the drive configuration after about 2 years of dependable performance.

I rebooted, and everything seemed okies, but I wasn't going to take any chances, decided to do an emergency rebuild.. just-in-case. Ordered Motherboard, CPU, mem, additional replacement drives (was 4 1.5T's, ordering another 1.5T AND a 2T. Also decided to get an Asus 7770 DirectCU.

Next morning I fired up the computer to check tracking on my order (from Amazon, they beat NewEggs prices by 15-20% on everything) and it took for EVER to load.. and one of the drives clicked for something like 11 times. Never heard a drive do that. Windows finally loaded, and my music archive drive wasn't listed. Ive been collecting live sets from all over the world with some of the absolute best DJ's ever for the last 20 years.. as well as music videos & general vids (my favorite stuff off Cartoon Network.. etc).

I ordered some tools, and they finally arrived today. I first decided to swap the board with a functional identical drive, in the hopes that might let me load it up. No soap... still clicked 11 times then zilch. So I opened it up, and the only words that came to mind were "Fuck me.."

There was this ultra fine silvery grey dust collected in the moisture pouch, and in the recesses of the drive chamber. Not to mention an odd mark/pattern across about 30-35% of the surface of the top drive platter.

This absolutely sucks.. there is no way I'm ever going to be able to replace those sets, or the literally THOUSANDS of pictures Ive taken from/at events all over the world. I don't do that any more, don't have the job to afford it, or the connections to make it happen. This was a very BIG part of my life... and it's over. :(
 
DoggyDaddi said:
So I opened it up, and the only words that came to mind were "Fuck me.."

There was this ultra fine silvery grey dust collected in the moisture pouch, and in the recesses of the drive chamber. Not to mention an odd mark/pattern across about 30-35% of the surface of the top drive platter.

This absolutely sucks.. there is no way I'm ever going to be able to replace those sets, or the literally THOUSANDS of pictures Ive taken from/at events all over the world. I don't do that any more, don't have the job to afford it, or the connections to make it happen. This was a very BIG part of my life... and it's over. :(
Click to expand...

You mean you opened up the drive case physically? Uh... For future reference, NEVER do that. Usually I would give you the standard speech about backup..... If the cover is still off, put it back on carefully and seal it in a ziplock bag. In this case, as this sounds to be exceptionally important data to you, call Drivesavers and talk to them and see if there is ANYTHING they can do at this point. From your description, it sounds like a head crash and oxide particles all over, but I have seen them get at least partial recovery with less.
 
....
backups

backups

backups.

Sorry for your loss. I guess you're learning the hard way about backups.
double backup is my principle. drive pooling for hardware failure events
offsite portable for file corruption / major failure / theft / house burning down.
 
mwroobel said:
You mean you opened up the drive case physically? Uh... For future reference, NEVER do that. Usually I would give you the standard speech about backup..... If the cover is still off, put it back on carefully and seal it in a ziplock bag. In this case, as this sounds to be exceptionally important data to you, call Drivesavers and talk to them and see if there is ANYTHING they can do at this point. From your description, it sounds like a head crash and oxide particles all over, but I have seen them get at least partial recovery with less.
Click to expand...

Just wanted to see if it was possible to swap out the head mechanism, but I seriously doubt that is possible. they don't retract off the platters, and with 4 heads, I doubt I could manage a reinstall with the replacement without doing damage to the new heads, I more or less just wanted to visually inspect the internals of the drive for damage, in the blind hope that MAYBE there was a part I could swap out to get the drive back up for recovery of the data. I'm sending in a estimate request now.. but considering how tight finances are, seriously doubt they are within budget. Been building computers since very late 80's... 1st time I ever had a drive die on me like this *sigh*
 
DoggyDaddi said:
Just wanted to see if it was possible to swap out the head mechanism, but I seriously doubt that is possible. they don't retract off the platters, and with 4 heads, I doubt I could manage a reinstall with the replacement without doing damage to the new heads, I more or less just wanted to visually inspect the internals of the drive for damage, in the blind hope that MAYBE there was a part I could swap out to get the drive back up for recovery of the data. I'm sending in a estimate request now.. but considering how tight finances are, seriously doubt they are within budget. Been building computers since very late 80's... 1st time I ever had a drive die on me like this *sigh*
Click to expand...

With a drive that has been physically opened, my guess is the estimate will come in $1500-$3000. Any internal part replacements that have to be done should be done in a class 100 level clean room, not out in the open air where a speck of dust is enough to trash a drive. I wish you the best in chances of recovery, but when you order your replacement drive order at least 1 external backup drive to go with it for backup.
 
The sad thing is you might have been able to salvage the data (at least partially). Often times when a drive starts clicking, it's on the fritz. Sometimes the failure is such that putting the drive in the freezer for a period of time and then connecting/copying the data immediately out of the freezer while the drive is still cold works (because a lot of the time, it's some portion of the arm that's expanded over time and catching--thermal contraction will buy you a little bit of time to get your data).

But once you open the drive, you're toast--sorry for your data loss.

Also, just a cautionary word of advice, RAID1 is not a backup solution (not sure if that's the RAID you were planning to run). It's drive redundancy, but not data verification. Essentially if you get some sort of data corruption on your primary drive, the controller will blindly copy that corrupted data to the secondary drive. So don't rely on RAID1 as your method for backup.
 
RAID had nothing to do with it.. I stopped using RAID several years ago and went to simple drives.. something failed in the motherboards on-board controller and THAT is why I had thought I needed to replace components.. I assumed the controller had finally started to crash completely. As it turns out, it was the drive and not the board.

Turns out that is the ONLY drive I don't have back-ups for. I DID, but ended up using that particular backup drive to help out someone who needed a computer for her school work, never got around to backing up the drive again, seeing as how I only accessed it to add more music to storage. My fault.. ah well.
 
You've been on [H] ten years and ... oh screw it.

That sucks. Waiting on some money to configure my RAID or if that HD goes I'll be ripping 300 DVDs/Blurays all over again. I also haven't backed up my email server in a while so I supposed I'm not one to be talking.
 
this makes my head hurt.... there is so much

you did what ???? in this story


sorry for your loss and all...but whiskey tango foxtrot
 
I lost family pictures I had stored on an old 40gb HDD yeeeears back so I understand your pain :(

Like the guys say though.......I learned my lesson the hard way and have multiple backups now.

Best of luck with recovery efforts.
 
Things just kept happening to delay buying new drives. By the time I could finally afford to do it was exactly when things went bad. It's crazy, but like I said.. I DID have it backed up... but used that drive as the OS for a friends kids school computer.. just haven't been able to afford to replace it till now. I KNOW it's on me, just thought I would share a cautionary tale >_<

\smokeythebearvoice ON
"Only YOU, can prevent hardware crashes & data loss."
\smokeythebearvoice OFF
 
You did wha.... Next time put it in a freezer for a few hours and try spinning it up again for one last read. Ohhh no.
 
Still got your memories!

Sometimes I kind of wish I could lose all the stuff and baggage I have around me.
 
terayon1515 said:
You did wha.... Next time put it in a freezer for a few hours and try spinning it up again for one last read. Ohhh no.
Click to expand...

Did the freezer trick.. no soap :(. I was considering putting it in a ziplock with just the connectors at the zipper, submersing the bag in water & freezing it with the connectors & zipper JUST above the water line.. but thought it would probably slip or shift while freezing and get ice in the connector socket
 
I think most peoples incredulity is less about the lack of backup and more that you pretty much insured you'd never be able to recover it by opening the drive. Here's a picture of the head heigh vs the thousands of dust particles you let into the drive when you opened it

z_q_flyingheight.gif
 
Ouch! on the data lose.

But opening up a HDD to replace a part?... Please hand me your Whirling Platter card so I can cut a corner off it.:(
 
DoggyDaddi said:
Did the freezer trick.. no soap :(. I was considering putting it in a ziplock with just the connectors at the zipper, submersing the bag in water & freezing it with the connectors & zipper JUST above the water line.. but thought it would probably slip or shift while freezing and get ice in the connector socket
Click to expand...

This is also an incredibly bad idea.

As long as you leave the hard drive in the freezer long enough, it's going to be the same temperature as the ice anyway. The ice makes no difference as to how cold it gets. If you wanted to keep the drive cold while you used it, this is still a bad way to do it unless you had some system to contain the ice, etc.

For future reference: If the data on the hard drive is truly valuable, just put the hard drive in a ziploc bag in your closet until you can afford proper data recovery.
 
Everything aside, just thinking about the 1 off DJ's sets you may have had makes me want to donate to drivesavers for you... I lost about 800gb of sets and vids a few years back... It hurt...
 
Man... after reading your story I feel horrible, I might just suffer with the additional heat and keep my ZFS server. I lost like 200MB of awesome games, plugins, GIFs, and documents back in 1996 on a Mac, I felt like a piece of me was gone. Now I have around 800GB and growing, I'd seriously hate it if all that was gone..

I always get paranoid when I think about hard drives, spinning about 90 times a second and changing the polarity of a few atoms. Sometimes I wonder if hard drives are writing correctly even if they hiccup lol.
 
Bad luck mate. :( I've always been a bit anal about backing up my stuff and I still managed to lose all my uni work including my dissertation/final year project (approx 6 months of work) a couple of years after uni in a combination of hardware failure and PEBCAK. Still narks me about 6 years on. :(
 
DoggyDaddi said:
RAID had nothing to do with it.. I stopped using RAID several years ago and went to simple drives.. something failed in the motherboards on-board controller and THAT is why I had thought I needed to replace components.. I assumed the controller had finally started to crash completely. As it turns out, it was the drive and not the board.

Turns out that is the ONLY drive I don't have back-ups for. I DID, but ended up using that particular backup drive to help out someone who needed a computer for her school work, never got around to backing up the drive again, seeing as how I only accessed it to add more music to storage. My fault.. ah well.
Click to expand...


Things happen move on bro.
 
crushy said:
Things happen move on bro.
Click to expand...

Seriously, bro? Why don't you try to have a little respect for others especially considering you've been here a grand total of 2 days. If you want to be part of the forums and help out that is fine but If you're going to be an a**hole don't even bother joining. With an attitude like yours you should just GTFO. It's simple, don't be a dick. Alright bro, brah?
 
Had kind of a nice surprise... LONG time ago I was pretty involved in the *.mod scene, dicking around with Amigas making music and EGA demos that pushed the limit of what cards & monitors could do. All of that was lost too, and didn't remember it till very recently.

Seems the mod scene is still around, and I was able to replace most of the mods I liked to listen to when I was feeling down. >_<. I had no idea there were still archive sites on the web that had them.
 
DoggyDaddi said:
Had kind of a nice surprise... LONG time ago I was pretty involved in the *.mod scene, dicking around with Amigas making music and EGA demos that pushed the limit of what cards & monitors could do. All of that was lost too, and didn't remember it till very recently.

Seems the mod scene is still around, and I was able to replace most of the mods I liked to listen to when I was feeling down. >_<. I had no idea there were still archive sites on the web that had them.
Click to expand...

Yeah, there are a lot of mod and 669 tracker repositories around. Brings me back to the early 90's and all the stuff I downloaded from purple motion and the other musicians from future crew, renaissance and other people in the demo on music scene.
 
Man, that sucks hard bud :( I always appreciate it when ppl share their tales of data loss woe though. I am typically uber paranoid that I don't have enough backups, not running them often enough, am I using the best software I could be, best practices, etc. But, sometimes we all get lax and fall off the wagon (even us paranoid ppl:D). Good to have a sobering reminder to backup the backups of our backups ;-)
 
sn_85 said:
Seriously, bro? Why don't you try to have a little respect for others especially considering you've been here a grand total of 2 days. If you want to be part of the forums and help out that is fine but If you're going to be an a**hole don't even bother joining. With an attitude like yours you should just GTFO. It's simple, don't be a dick. Alright bro, brah?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the kind word and very warm welcome on forum. You can't express your feelings in word, what you want me to say? When he said My fault, ah well. I said it happens bro, move on. If that's what you call attitude then sorry it wasn't and i must not have expressed my condolence correctly.

Once again, Sorry for your lose bro, but instead of thinking too much move on since nothing can be done after you open the HDD in open environment.
 
Oh man that sucks. Sorry to hear about losing all your music and vids.

I haven't really had a hard drive go bad on me,(WD for the win), but I've done plenty of stupid things like formatting the wrong drive. oooops what was that? All my music and porn? Uh oh.

A long time ago, when I was youngin' I worked as a desktop support for a medium sized company. Anyways, I would always tell the users to backup their important work files to the network drives. Because we don't backup laptop drives.

So this guy comes to me, and says his laptop wont boot. It was a bad hard drive. Yep, you guessed it, he had all his work on his local drive. I asked you have all your work on the network shares right? Nope, and it was like 8 months worth of work he had. I'm surprised they didn't fire him.
 
Backup is king. Even with a raid 5 setup I still preach backup. I work for a MSP and we had a client with a server with 3 drives in raid 5 and two of the three failed at the same time and they lost the whole array. They had no backups and had to spend a fortune on data recovery services.
 
crashplan unlimited is cheap and works well. no excuse for losing critical stuff anymore. I'm glad I saw this thread because I haven't seen something so ridiculous in a while, I found it exciting. rather than rescuing the drive this guy kept using it, then swapped pcbs (which doesnt work anymore), and then opened the hard drive up to look inside (which never worked because it is insane). oh my! I'm exhausted
 
DoggyDaddi said:
Just wanted to see if it was possible to swap out the head mechanism, but I seriously doubt that is possible. they don't retract off the platters, and with 4 heads, I doubt I could manage a reinstall with the replacement without doing damage to the new heads, I more or less just wanted to visually inspect the internals of the drive for damage, in the blind hope that MAYBE there was a part I could swap out to get the drive back up for recovery of the data. I'm sending in a estimate request now.. but considering how tight finances are, seriously doubt they are within budget. Been building computers since very late 80's... 1st time I ever had a drive die on me like this *sigh*
Click to expand...

Yea... opening a drive is not exactly the best idea. Might be worth doing a google search for that kinda thing (and figure out it is a bad idea) before trying it on a drive that you are not planning to immediately throw away thereafter.

Backups + redundant storage = :)
 
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