Learn From My Fail: Back-Up Your Data!

[Maligator]

I come to you today with great humility. Like anyone who spends any time on photo boards and the like, I've seen threads from those who suffered some sort of disaster with their data and photos. Those disasters range from fires, to flooding, to theft, and - in most cases - catastrophic hard drive failure. While I'd never tempt fate by mocking the former, my reaction to those whose hard drives tanked was always the same: *pfft!* "Poor SOB! Must be using cut-rate gear. Or maybe they should stop visiting those *ahem* 'adult' sites!"

 

Alas, karma found her way to my Man Cave and she bestowed upon me the Blue Screen of Death. I tried the standard remedies of rebooting, cussing, and whacking the side of the CPU to loosen any 1's and 0's that were gumming up the works. But it was - as we say in my profession - "DRT." "Dead Right There." Tango Uniform. FUBAR.

 

My verkakte computer's offer to recover itself didn't work when I selected the option to back-up my files and I mistakenly chose to recover without backing up. The end result was my computer reset to factory settings, which put me back on Win8 with none of the data I'd accumulated in the last three years since I bought the damned thing. Photos, documents, music...all gone.

 

There was some light. The photos from my most-recent cruise were still on my memory card, albeit only the RAW files, since the edited files disappeared in the crash. But everything from our 2014 cruise was lost. I pulled the HDD and brought it to a buddy who does IT for a local grocery chain and he ran all sorts of programs on it for a couple of weeks in his spare time, but got no results. I then bit the bullet and sent it off to Data Doctors in Arizona. They were able to recover a lot of my data, including the 2014 cruise files.

 

I won't go into the heartache and hair-pulling I've gone through trying to get my rig back up and running normally, but the purpose of this cautionary tale is to motivate you into doing something to back-up your data, if you haven't already. Online services and dedicated external storage both have their pros and cons, but something is better than nothing, which is what you'll have when your computer decides to join the Choir Invisible.

[pierces]

 

Ok, that's one of my favorites from Despair.com and I don't get to share it too often.

 

Thanks for sharing your woe. Maybe some good can come of your disaster if it serves as a warning to those with too much faith in their hardware or just never get around to setting up a hit-the-fan plan.

 

Sorry for your loss.

 

Dave

[framer]

Dave,

 

Rub it in...

 

FWIW, I download to my laptop, then burn a 2nd copy from the laptop to a fast USB flash drive. When I get home the flash drive is downloaded to a desktop with several huge HD's It's my main archive computer. USB drives are considered a backup copy and not used again.

 

2-3 times per year before I go on a cruise I normally image the laptop. This one thing can save your behind. It has mine.

 

framer

[peety3]

I take four drives when cruising (one SSD, three HDDs). I've written scripts for my Mac that'll read in the memory cards to the SSD, perform a checksum on the files, copy the folders to HDD1, copy the folders to HDD2 ("A" or "B" - they're named the same but have stickers on the outside to tell the difference), and verify the checksums. Once the checksums come up good, I reformat the memory cards in-camera, swap the HDD2s (A into cabin safe, B connects to computer, or vice versa), and repeat the second sync/verify.

 

Worst case, after a small-boat Tracy Arm tour AND a Juneau whale watch/photo safari, and after dinner, it took an hour to read in all of the cards, and by sunrise the data was verified in three places (which is enough for me to reformat the cards). Before heading out to the next day's excursions, I swapped the HDD2s, restarted the sync, and by the time we got back from that day's excursions, everything was in four places (which is enough for me to erase them from the SSD, since it's intended to be a fast but not huge drive), still leaving my images in at least three places. The four drives are intentionally put into unique suitcases so nothing travels together.

 

If I'm really on top of my game, I pre-make Lightroom Catalogs per day, and ingest the images directly to where I keep Originals within a Catalog. Once they're all ingested, I tell Lightroom to apply some basic presets (usually just camera profile) and build standard previews, so that can run overnight as well, making it a lot easier to sit down and immediately start ranking/sorting when we get home. :)

 

I use the same drives at home for photography work, then archive everything onto a local set of external HDs that are synced to triple off-site external HDs with checksum verification. As they say, there are two kinds of people: those who have lost data, and those who will. I have lost data, and I will not let myself lose data again if I can prevent it.

[xlxo]

If I was in your situation.... I would bring it to a repair shop....

 

OS failure?

drive controller?

head crash?

 

In the most severe case.... a data recovery house can get your data by rebuilding the electronics after a diagnosis.

 

Perhaps someone can recommend a hard drive facility around Houston for you.

Edited April 26, 2016 by xlxo

[framer]

I take four drives when cruising (one SSD, three HDDs). I've written scripts for my Mac that'll read in the memory cards to the SSD, perform a checksum on the files, copy the folders to HDD1, copy the folders to HDD2 ("A" or "B" - they're named the same but have stickers on the outside to tell the difference), and verify the checksums. Once the checksums come up good, I reformat the memory cards in-camera, swap the HDD2s (A into cabin safe, B connects to computer, or vice versa), and repeat the second sync/verify.

 

Worst case, after a small-boat Tracy Arm tour AND a Juneau whale watch/photo safari, and after dinner, it took an hour to read in all of the cards, and by sunrise the data was verified in three places (which is enough for me to reformat the cards). Before heading out to the next day's excursions, I swapped the HDD2s, restarted the sync, and by the time we got back from that day's excursions, everything was in four places (which is enough for me to erase them from the SSD, since it's intended to be a fast but not huge drive), still leaving my images in at least three places. The four drives are intentionally put into unique suitcases so nothing travels together.

 

If I'm really on top of my game, I pre-make Lightroom Catalogs per day, and ingest the images directly to where I keep Originals within a Catalog. Once they're all ingested, I tell Lightroom to apply some basic presets (usually just camera profile) and build standard previews, so that can run overnight as well, making it a lot easier to sit down and immediately start ranking/sorting when we get home. :)

 

I use the same drives at home for photography work, then archive everything onto a local set of external HDs that are synced to triple off-site external HDs with checksum verification. As they say, there are two kinds of people: those who have lost data, and those who will. I have lost data, and I will not let myself lose data again if I can prevent it.

 

 

And I thought I was paranoid. :D.

 

framer

[kenevenpar]

If I was in your situation.... I would bring it to a repair shop....

 

OS failure?

drive controller?

head crash?

 

In the most severe case.... a data recovery house can get your data by rebuilding the electronics after a diagnosis.

 

Perhaps someone can recommend a hard drive facility around Houston for you.

 

I think the OP did this and recovered much of his data.

[Maligator]

I'll be buying thumb drives in bulk and will keep some in our safe deposit box, along with an imaged HDD with the OS and all of my programs.

 

One upside is that my wife made the mistake of saying, "Get whatever you need to keep this from happening again." I think a 5DmkIV would definitely help. And a 200-400mm would be a benefit. :D

 

Sent via my Samsung Note 4 while I should probably be doing something productive

[pierces]

One upside is that my wife made the mistake of saying, "Get whatever you need to keep this from happening again." I think a 5DmkIV would definitely help. And a 200-400mm would be a benefit. :D

 

 

If you can pull that off, please post the exact words you used to convince her. There are many here that could benefit greatly from that sort of invaluable info.

 

If it fails, it would also be helpful to post what you plan to tell your new wife...

 

:)

 

Dave

[Maligator]

If you can pull that off, please post the exact words you used to convince her. There are many here that could benefit greatly from that sort of invaluable info.

 

If it fails, it would also be helpful to post what you plan to tell your new wife...

 

:)

 

Dave

 

That will likely have to be another "Learn From My Fail" thread. Perhaps posted from my hospital bed. :D For some reason, she can't tell one gun from another, but can discern the difference between camera gear like a hawk.

[zqvol]

I come to you today with great humility. Like anyone who spends any time on photo boards and the like, I've seen threads from those who suffered some sort of disaster with their data and photos. Those disasters range from fires, to flooding, to theft, and - in most cases - catastrophic hard drive failure. While I'd never tempt fate by mocking the former, my reaction to those whose hard drives tanked was always the same: *pfft!* "Poor SOB! Must be using cut-rate gear. Or maybe they should stop visiting those *ahem* 'adult' sites!"

 

Alas, karma found her way to my Man Cave and she bestowed upon me the Blue Screen of Death. I tried the standard remedies of rebooting, cussing, and whacking the side of the CPU to loosen any 1's and 0's that were gumming up the works. But it was - as we say in my profession - "DRT." "Dead Right There." Tango Uniform. FUBAR.

 

My verkakte computer's offer to recover itself didn't work when I selected the option to back-up my files and I mistakenly chose to recover without backing up. The end result was my computer reset to factory settings, which put me back on Win8 with none of the data I'd accumulated in the last three years since I bought the damned thing. Photos, documents, music...all gone.

 

There was some light. The photos from my most-recent cruise were still on my memory card, albeit only the RAW files, since the edited files disappeared in the crash. But everything from our 2014 cruise was lost. I pulled the HDD and brought it to a buddy who does IT for a local grocery chain and he ran all sorts of programs on it for a couple of weeks in his spare time, but got no results. I then bit the bullet and sent it off to Data Doctors in Arizona. They were able to recover a lot of my data, including the 2014 cruise files.

 

I won't go into the heartache and hair-pulling I've gone through trying to get my rig back up and running normally, but the purpose of this cautionary tale is to motivate you into doing something to back-up your data, if you haven't already. Online services and dedicated external storage both have their pros and cons, but something is better than nothing, which is what you'll have when your computer decides to join the Choir Invisible.

 

 

Don't be so sure that they are gone. Some disc recovery software will likely be able to find most if not all of them and recover them, just don't write anything to the HD until you try the recovery.

 

 

As an aside if that ever happens again do not recover. Take the hard drive out of the machine, and connect it to another machine. You can then access the hard drive and get your data. The blue screen deals with the OS, not the data.

[Maligator]

Don't be so sure that they are gone. Some disc recovery software will likely be able to find most if not all of them and recover them, just don't write anything to the HD until you try the recovery.

 

 

As an aside if that ever happens again do not recover. Take the hard drive out of the machine, and connect it to another machine. You can then access the hard drive and get your data. The blue screen deals with the OS, not the data.

The files were recovered.

 

Sent via my Samsung Note 4 while I should probably be doing something productive