The five stages of data-loss grief

[h0rnytoad1]

What to expect when all of your photos, files and music are gone forever
By Adam Frucci

So your hard drive just died, and you didn't back it up. I'm so, so sorry. You can expect to go through the following five stages once you discover that all of your photos, files and music are gone forever.

Stage one: Denial
"No. No, there's no way. This is probably just a software issue, maybe if I try rebooting again it'll work. I've only had this hard drive for two years, there's no way it just died. I'll get all that stuff back. This silly computer always freaks out but is fine after a reboot. Even though I've tried rebooting five times and it sounds like a fork is stuck in a garbage disposal in there, it's probably just the CD drive."

Stage two: Anger
"Are you kidding me, Western Digital? I've lost everything! I trusted you, and for what? How does a company that sells such crappy products stay in business? I will murder the first WD employee I see. And what the hell is wrong with me that I didn't back this stuff up? I am the biggest idiot in the world and I want to punch myself in the face. I hate myself and don't deserve to be happy."

Stage three: Bargaining
"OK, so maybe I can download some software and boot this drive as a secondary drive and try to recover some stuff. I mean, I'll have to go buy a new hard drive and install it and then figure out how to hook this one up as a secondary drive, and I'm not sure where my OS discs are, but hey, I'm a smart guy, I can figure this stuff out, right? Or maybe professional data recovery services have gotten much, much cheaper lately. Yeah, I'll bet they're affordable now, they've gotta be."

Stage four: Depression
"All those photos. I'll never, ever get them back. I'll never see those faces again. And my essays from college, I was going to share those with my kids someday. And man, all that music, it's taken me years to collect all that. Why did I even bother? It's like the last ten years of my life have just been erased."

Stage five: Acceptance
"Ah, none of that stuff was that important. Most of it was uploaded to various sites like Flickr, anyways. At least the really important stuff. Regathering all that music will be fun, too! And hey, you know what? Maybe it's good to start fresh every once in a while. And man, hard drives have gotten a lot cheaper since I last bought one. This is really just a good way to put things in perspective; none of this stuff was all that important. Except for those photos. Why the hell didn't I back them up?"

Memory [Forever] is Gizmodo's series on what it really means when our memories, encoded in bits, flow in a million directions, and might truly live forever.

Copyright 2010 by Gizmodo.com

[h0rnytoad1]

do your backups people.

1st of the month, plug in that external drive and run your Norton Ghost, Acronis trueimage or backup&recovery, or whatever you like to backup your data.

edit: added links.

[CoreyD06]

i'm definitely guilty of not backing my files up and i know i should but don't

[h0rnytoad1]

try http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities ... mage.shtml

Norton Ghost, Acronis trueimage or backup&recovery

or free backup and recovery softwares on google

the important is to learn how it works to both, backup AND restore. now is the time to learn it while everything is running great, not when it crashes and you're panicking and wondering how to restore.

print out the instructions and keep them in your desk near your spare backup hard drive.

check http://www.ncix.com for low priced external drives to use for backups.

[Torp]

and hope the external doesn't go down.

if you go with an external go with one that has a separate power on/off button so it doesn't always boot when you turn on the main unit.

[h0rnytoad1]

thats why you use a dedicated external hard drive with its own power, not one of those tiny usb drives or thumbdrive.

and since its dedicated, that means you only use it for backups, it only gets powered up when you backup, it will out last your computer.

[Torp]

thats why you use a dedicated external hard drive with its own power, not one of those tiny usb drives or thumbdrive.

and since its dedicated, that means you only use it for backups, it only gets powered up when you backup, it will out last your computer.

spent a career at StorageTek - ever hear of drive failures... doesn't matter where they are or what they are called.

[h0rnytoad1]

thats why you use a dedicated external hard drive with its own power, not one of those tiny usb drives or thumbdrive.

and since its dedicated, that means you only use it for backups, it only gets powered up when you backup, it will out last your computer.

spent a career at StorageTek - ever hear of drive failures... doesn't matter where they are or what they are called.

beyond the scope of this thread. and frankly its called nitpicking.

the point is once ppl make their backups if their computer's drive fails they have something to bring back their data.

[WalterB]

Actually, I think it fits right in, HT. A back-up drive is just like any other drive. It is simply a regular (internal or external) drive where you save your back-ups, and can fail just like anything else. But, you can't make a back-up of your back-up of your back-up of your back-up. Being dedicated means that back-ups is all that you use it for. You could even do your back-up and then turn it off, which would probably make it last much longer. But, if you do automatic back-ups, of course it needs to be on when that happens.

I have something called a "Click-Free" that works just fine. It connects, and is powered, by USB, and starts and does the back-up of my operating files and critical documents automatically. When it gets full, I just erase it and start over.

[Torp]

I agree but you know how the air is north of the border ... but one thing is understanding the restore.... i have a tape cartridge (that I have long ago forgotten how it works and thus the backups) but the automated one (w/discipline) takes the worry out...

and most people use them like we invoke virus scanners when they prompt us to do so.

The lighting theory is why at least every six months - I'll head to the backup & dump it off to dvds for offline storage. Now if I can remember how my tape cartridge works I can use that as well.

Thus if lightning does strike twice I have the dvd's to fall back to as far as data files are concerned.

[John_fromNY]

beyond the scope of this thread. and frankly its called nitpicking.

Oh, I see that HT is pissing and moaning again...

Has the rag queen shown up yet?

Though, I do agree with HT's basic premise which is to back-up your computer on a regular basis.

Actually, I think it fits right in, HT.

I agree but you know how the air is north of the border ...

Not like south of the border...



... Right Walter and Torp!!



All I'm saying is lighten up a bit guys and smile every once in a while.

[stickyvicky]

Thank God Webair backs up every site 2 times a week for us!

[John_fromNY]

I could not open my main picture folder on the PC, due to "Not responding" errors.

that sounds serious, could be many things, virus, corrupted windows update, old hdd starting to fail. i'd like you to run a diagnostic on your hard drive (atleast) or take your puter in for a complete check up.

if you're techsaavy you should know how to atleast run a surface disk scan, otherwise i'll refer you to this page: Windows XP CHKDSK (Disk Error Checking) and make sure you select both check disk options as instructed. after that a couple of antivirus and anti spyware scans should be run.

If you are starting to get bad sectors or its too late then feel free to leave your story in this thread The five stages of data-loss grief

Thanks HT.

In Windows Vista you are given a user group. That was what was corrupted here. As such I had to recreate another user, Myself. Then I had to copy control A and control V all the files and folders from one part of my harddrive to the next. Therefore, I am now able to at least open the picture files and video files.

I do Checkdisk once a month for error-checking scanning and Automatically Fix File System Errors while scanning for and attempting recovery of bad sectors. I should also be Defraging more too. But I admit not so much of that.

I have Windows schedule a Hardware Diagnostic Test at the end of every month as well.

I also do backups every other month.

[h0rnytoad1]

very good, tho disc scan might be a bit much every month, the backups are more important, so do them every month especially if your machine is a work machine. dont want to waste hours or days getting it back up online. a simple disc restore from a good recent backup takes you about 10-15mins to get back up and do the few updates.

we each set our schedule for backups, but the more often you do em, the less trouble it is when you need to restore.

[Don1464UK]

I've got 5 3TB hard drives in my quad core (desktop) system, I'll have fun backing those mutha's up!

I use Acronis True Image Home 2011 for my cloning and back-ups, been a life saver on many occasions!

[h0rnytoad1]

I like Acronis too, their free WD/Seagate edition works but only works if u have a WD/Seagate drive. the Seagate version looks terrible, lol Still same engine, just a wizardy look.

i'm testing out norton ghost 15 but so far its buggy for several primary partitions on a single drive. working with them to figure it out.

Macrium Reflect is good, been using it a month, i like it. About same price as Acronis.

5 x 3tb? man what are you doing with those? or shouldn't i ask?! lol

i've a 500gb just for backups of my SSD's, i do em every couple of weeks since this quad is my work machine, i keep em around over several months just in case some virus snuck in amidst all ma porn. i mean work.

[Anthony_JK]

I use my 1.5TB Seagate FreeAgent external HD for both archived backups and for storage of my.....ahem, ahem, intinmate files. Has worked pretty well.

I also have an older 500GB Maxtor drive that I use for more recent backups only.

Ultimately, when prices fall, I will get a 3TB external hard drive and transfer everything over there. Never such a thing as too much storage...especially when it comes to porn.

And...I know all about external (and internal) hard drive failure...my first external drive was a 250GB Western Digital that died on me 4 years ago.


Anthony

[CoreyD06]

I don't suspect prices of drives falling any time soon, maybe 3rd quarter at the earliest

[h0rnytoad1]

probly not but not every hdd manufacturer is located in those flooded areas, plenty of other factories around the globe. i've seen prices drop just this last week, still expensive but its getting better:

you can get a 1.5tb for 99$ got mine for 69$ 2 weeks before the flood happened last year.

[Don1464UK]

Before the floods, I was buying 3TB hard drives for £139 British Pounds ($218 CAD / $220 USD) After the floods, they shot up to £220 British Pounds ($345 CAD / $348 USD)

Just checked prices today at my local PC emporium and they've come down a lot since last year thank goodness!

Check the prices in the picture below! Back to pre-flood levels! Happy days! Might treat myself to one today as my other ones are almost full!