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well, last night my computer crashed, and i have now lost everything i have ever written. for the stories that are here, that is at least recoverable, but i will have to start over all the ones i was working on, as i had no back up. It hurts like crazy, but its just one more bump along the road, right?
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All May Not Be Lost
I am aware that sometimes what's on the hard drive may be recovered. Geek Squad or some enterprising computer entrepeneur might be able to recover your data files for you. It certainly could be worth the expense. Don't give up!
Portia
Portia
Backing up
I backup my laptop weekly using a slim 500 gig western digital My Passport Hard drive. Its the size of a cellphone, rugged, doesn't heat up or make the noises the normal ide hard drives make and is quiet. I recommend for you to get this or something similar and backup you files from your laptop on such a device and maybe burn a dvd of some of the more important stuff now and then to stash away for future drive failures. It never hurts to back things up.
And when a crash comes round again, you will be prepared and the event and downtime will be minimal
Sephrena
Computer crash
Please post the symptoms that your computer is/was displaying. It is possible that just a few system files went south (and can be replaced). If the hard drive itself is the problem, there is an old trick that you can try. Put it in the freezer for an hour or so, then re-install it and grab your data off of it.
Hard Drives
Unless one drops them, it's relatively uncommon for a drive to crash these days. The delicate bits are in the processor and the display chip, which run at high temperatures and can easily go wonky. If one can manage to hook up the drive to a new computer, which may be a bit difficult if it's a laptop, or easy as pie if it's a "desktop" or floor model, everything is usually right there handy.
Seagate sells a 750GB portable hard drive I quite like the look of that hooks up with a simple USB cable, or you can use dropbox, or a simple Gmail account, to provide cheap off-site storage, although I know this is a bit anterior to the facts, but I've had similar incidents, so speak from experience.
Before haring off to a commercial service, many of which charge an arm and a leg for a very simple procedure, I'd try to find someone local and amateur. I paid exactly one case of decent beer for my last data rescue, and both parties were very pleased.
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Seagate aint a good brand
Suggest a Western Digital as the better choice. And yes hard drives fail a lot especially if they are above 1TB these days for 3.5" internal drives. I would suggest no more than a 500GB portable drive if it is of the 2.5" platter variety if you are looking for better reliability. Also for key files you can't afford to lose, like a few hundred megabytes of story, a good old fashion usb flash drive will do fine and a 4GB version can be had for at most 5 to 8 USD tops ( check Walmart). A 4GB version will store a LOT of stories to say the least.
Kim
I have more Western Digital
I have more Western Digital drives fail than any other two brands. I have a pile of them on my workbench, many of them failing just past the warranty period (in one case, in warranty, but I didn't get time to send it back before it expired). That includes the RE (Raid Edition), which are supposed to be long lived server drives.
So, when I can, I buy Samsung and Seagate.
Now, if you want a bit more reliability, get a 3.5" drive, and get a 5400 RPM drive. As external drives, the platter speed doesn't matter as much, but the reduced speed reduces the strain on the bearings - thus less heat.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Okay - hard drives can die,
Okay - hard drives can die, but it's generally because of power surges, or bearings going out, nowadays.
What happened, and have you tried to reinstall on that drive yet? If not, DON'T.
You're better off paying $50 for a new hard drive, and another $10-20 for an external enclosure, in that case. With more information, I can give more assistance.
(Oh, Sephrena - a 500 gig wouldn't TOUCH my need for backups :) )
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
I found
a set up at Aldi food stores of all places that allows me to plug in a hard drive and then plug that into a USB port and treat it like a thumb drive. Just because a drive "dies" doesn't mean you can't possibly salvage a lot of info from it. Some may be damaged, but probably not all. Very good 20.00 investment for me.
How did it crash?
I've had several computers crash over the years. In one, the CD/ROM went out and it appeared to be the motherboard--it wouldn't boot at all. In most cases though the hard drive wears out and does something funky. If that's the case there are things to try:
Buy a new hard drive at least as big as the old one. Remove the old one and install the new one exactly like the old one. If you aren't sure about doing this, take it with you to the computer store. Also buy an enclosure for the old one with a USB connection on it. Set that aside for the moment.
Use the system restore disks that came with your computer to resurrect it to the new drive. Start it up, remove all the trial crap that they trash them up with, and let it run all the automatic updates until it finally gets current. This can take up to three days.
Once the new system is up, put the old drive in a ziploc bag, then put it in the freezer for about 4 hours. Then, start up your computer, put the old drive in the enclosure and plug it into your USB port. If you can browse to the files you need, use Windows Explorer to copy your user directories to your new machine.
Often when old drives crash, the problem is that the mechanism starts to stick at certain points. So freezing it causes everything to shrink, and the heads have to align in a different place. If this is the problem, you might be able to read it before it warm up.
Of course, it might even work without freezing it, and since it's no longer the primary drive, you might get Windows to run chkdsk (automatically look for and fix errors) on it, and that might actually work too.
I know the frustration, I lost all my purchased downloads, "save" copies of some of my favorite stories, my three stories, and all the notes from editing Tiffany Shar's books a few months ago. But using these techniques I got almost all of it back, and for less than $100.
Hugs
Carla Ann
before doing anything to the drive
see if you can find someone to download a copy of the system rescue CD and burn to CD. it might allow you to boot up and mount the drive and a usb thum drive and copy the needed files. you will probably need some help, but PM me and I will hgive you my cell and I will talk you through it. I have salveged several machines this way. Best of luck, hon! Take care and hgs,
Diana