Hard drive failure (again) - make backups!

Shay Stephens · November 22, 2006

So here I am in the midst of a heap of fall work to process. And my data drive decides now would be a good time to up and die on me. I went to my backup data drive and it too was dead. Fortuneately, they died the morning after I had just finished and uploaded two book designs to be printed. I lost my master design files, but should be able to get the uploaded files sent back to me for future use so I don't have to remake them if another order comes in later.

I also had two shoots (one wedding and one engagement) that I have not been able to start processing yet. But, I had backed that data up on DVD's as soon as they were loaded on the computer after the shoots. So all it requires of me is to load them back to the computer and start work on them.

Had I not backed up that data right away, I would have lost the whole shebang. So this is a plea to anyone out there who has irreplacable data not backed up in some way to please take the time to do so. Hard drives fail, and usually when you can least afford it to happen. My fortunes with hard drives this year has been abysmal. Let this be a warning to all!

Back it up!!!

gus · November 22, 2006

Mate you convinced me...i just did my concert photosa 5 mins ago. I never back anything up & you would cringe how i treat my computer...i did a de-frag the other month..first one in a year.

David_S85 · November 22, 2006

Only had one drive in 20+ years go out on me, so I'm due to lose about a dozen in the next year

.

No CF card gets reformatted until DVD's are made of the images. In fact, I don't even burn the DVD's on my computer. They're done with one of those Roadstor like thingies (very slow), and only then do I copy the card contents to the HD's. I also rotate cards and erase the contents at a later date.

Shay Stephens · November 22, 2006

Music to my ears

David_S85 · November 22, 2006

Shay Stephens wrote:

Music to my ears

Right, but ask me if I have a backup of C: drive

AntoineD · November 22, 2006

Shay Stephens wrote:

So here I am in the midst of a heap of fall work to process. And my data drive decides now would be a good time to up and die on me. I went to my backup data drive and it too was dead.

…both drives dead?!

not much luck…

Of course, I agree about the backup thing.

lifesdisciple · November 22, 2006

I back up everything to my external hard drive and then burn what i consider to be extrememly valuable to me to dvd discs. I am an internet pirate and because of this my hard drive tends to get abused. I have lost too much stuff too many times. so if not yours, learn from my mistakes. Back up.

AntoineD · November 22, 2006

don't forget that such things as CDs or DVDs have a short life cycle, often between 5 and 10 years.

I remember trying to read some 5 years old cds… wow.

JimM · November 22, 2006

Shay, any chance these were laptop or notebook hard drives? I have been toasting a lot of them too lately. I think photo processing and copying gigs from CF cards move a lot of data to the hard drives. IMHO these laptops were not designed for this hard use of the hd's and these things generate heat. The overheat then damages the drives. Just my experiences, but I have learned not to trust notebook harddrives for photo uses and am actually considering drilling some extra holes in the notebook to allow for more cooling.

dragon300zx · November 22, 2006

JimM wrote:

I am actually drilling some extra holes in the notebook to allow for more cooling.

I wonder how much I could charge my clients to put holes in their $1500.00 laptops and tell them it was a performance modification.

DavidTO · November 22, 2006

We use firewire drives at work. A LOT of them. They go out all the time, but most often the drive itself is fine, it's just the chipset in the case that goes bad. Pop it into a new case, all is hunky dory.

I'm off to back up now..

Shay Stephens · November 22, 2006

JimM wrote:

Shay, any chance these were laptop or notebook hard drives? I have been toasting a lot of them too lately. I think photo processing and copying gigs from CF cards move a lot of data to the hard drives. IMHO these laptops were not designed for this hard use of the hd's and these things generate heat. The overheat then damages the drives. Just my experiences, but I have learned not to trust notebook harddrives for photo uses and am actually considering drilling some extra holes in the notebook to allow for more cooling.

No this is a desktop unit. My laptop did die earlier this year while I was in Charlotte NC though, that was when I dumped the idea of a photo editing laptop. I now consider laptops to be 1-2 year disposable devices. So now I only buy cheap as dirt laptops

and only use them occasionally when travelling.

A big update, the main data drive was still in the computer late last night when I booted into linux. The startup routine ran a scheduled fsck (file system check) and it found some htree inodes (don't ask me what those are) that were bad, fixed them, and the drive was readable again. I was able to make a backup of the data I created the night before....

so now I am off Scott free and will be ordering a new drive today.

Shay Stephens · November 22, 2006

DavidTO wrote:

We use firewire drives at work. A LOT of them. They go out all the time, but most often the drive itself is fine, it's just the chipset in the case that goes bad. Pop it into a new case, all is hunky dory.

I'm off to back up now..

I had that happen to me. I had a usb enclosure hdd and it stopped caring what I wanted. I pulled it out of the case and used my special usb cable, and I'm still using the drive :-)

wxwax · November 22, 2006

Shay Stephens wrote:

and used my special usb cable, and I'm still using the drive :-)

:uhoh

evoryware · November 22, 2006

I download all my pics onto my F drive on the computer. Then I back them up on two different USB hard drives, one which I keep offsite. Then smugmug supposedly keeps three copies in three different locations. *Knock on wood* I've never had a hard drive go bad since I got into PC's in 1997. Maxtor, Western Digital or Seagate.

ChrisJ · November 22, 2006

If I was a pro photographer, I would have a hot-swappable RAID-5 or RAID-10 array for my photos. That way if a single disk (or two with RAID-10) dies, I can still work. Optimally, also have a hot spare, then the array would be humming along after rebuild while you RMA the bad one.

But then again... I'm extra paranoid about my data.

(Note, this would be in addition to other methods of backup, not instead of)

AntoineD · November 22, 2006

ChrisJ wrote:

If I was a pro photographer, I would have a hot-swappable RAID-5 or RAID-10 array for my photos. That way if a single disk (or two with RAID-10) dies, I can still work. Optimally, also have a hot spare, then the array would be humming along after rebuild while you RMA the bad one.

…but I've been told raid systems are quite expensive. Aren't they?

We are not all working in the fashion network

rosselliot · November 22, 2006

my computer died too! it's a bad month for electronics...

it makes me SICK that my computer doesn't work, so I know exactly how you feel! I'm glald I had all of my good photos on my website and on some CDs laying around the house..

my next computer WILL BE a MACINTOSH - - - - that's for sure.

- rE

ChrisJ · November 22, 2006

AntoineD wrote:

…but I've been told raid systems are quite expensive. Aren't they?

We are not all working in the fashion network

Many modern motherboards can handle at least RAID-1 (mirror) and sometimes RAID-5 with their built-in disk controllers.

Most operating systems can also do RAID via software alone. In some cases this is a performace hit, in others it's not (depends on the OS and the comparative hardware controller).

The primary (physical) cost of a RAID system is the disks themselves. Disks are cheap!

Shay Stephens · November 22, 2006

wxwax wrote:

:uhoh

Silly goose, this is what I mean:
http://www.infotechnow.com/shopping/shopexd.asp?id=3457

You can plug any IDE hard drive into that and read it on any computer with usb

Shay Stephens · November 22, 2006

ChrisJ wrote:

If I was a pro photographer, I would have a hot-swappable RAID-5 or RAID-10 array for my photos. That way if a single disk (or two with RAID-10) dies, I can still work. Optimally, also have a hot spare, then the array would be humming along after rebuild while you RMA the bad one.

But then again... I'm extra paranoid about my data.

(Note, this would be in addition to other methods of backup, not instead of)

I have been kicking that idea around my head for a while. Nothing has really gelled yet though.

Shay Stephens · November 23, 2006

rosselliot wrote:

my computer died too! it's a bad month for electronics...

it makes me SICK that my computer doesn't work, so I know exactly how you feel! I'm glald I had all of my good photos on my website and on some CDs laying around the house..

my next computer WILL BE a MACINTOSH - - - - that's for sure.

- rE

That won't save you from hardware failure or data corruption though, just keep that in mind. But I was happy to see that my linux system fixed my drive

Hard drive failure (again) - make backups!

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