Hey, I have an external harddrive that has been a problem for only a couple of days. My computer stopped recognizing it all of a sudden and I immediately took it into Geeksquad at Best Buy to check out. They seemed optimistic about recovering the data. Today I got a call saying they couldn't recover anything.

What is my next step?

If I can't recover the data, that means I have lost all of the full size files for all of my weddings this past year. I put the full size files on there temporarily to save space on my main computer so I could do all of my album design for the end of the year without it slowing down. So this has been really bad timing. I am planning on calling all of my brides and having them burn me a copy of their image disk now, whether or not I can get my drive recovered.

Has anyone had to do this? It seems like a nightmare and I fully regret not having a second backup on disks for all of my weddings.

Where can I take my harddrive now? I think he said there were other options for recovering it, like rebuilding it and trying again. The guy said it would cost a couple thousand, and that would be totally worth it if that were an option....

HELP! I know this is my fault, please refrain from telling me again, I feel bad enough already.

Check with a company that does data recovery. The Geek Squad people are lucky to be able to spell PC if you spot them the first letter. There are several companies that do hard drive recovery but be prepared to pay for it. It can get expensive.

I don't know, but I would get it away from geek squad immediately and don't let anyone touch it except for a reputable experts experienced in data recovery. Any messing with it and you may end up with nothing left to recover.

Bad news, Meri! But google "hard drive recovery" and you'll see quite a number of professional outfits that must be miles ahead of geeksquad. I don't have any experience with any, but they sound good. Just don't power up that drive again yourself.
Good luck,
Bert

At least you know now that what you did was wrong. You should have at least 3 local copies (some prefer 5+). Putting all your work on one drive and having it as the only source of this information even for a few minutes is a bad idea.

Check out data recovery softwares like Data Rescue 3. Though, your disk might be beyond the threshold of what a domestic software can salvage. You might need to look up professional services - those guys cost a LOT. You're looking at possibly $600-$1,000 if not more.

Most probably the circuit board controlling the read write functions is shot. The data is still on the platter and any competent hard drive recovery or computer repair company can get that data off the platter. As already mentioned get it out of the hands of the barely educated Geek Squad, RIGHT NOW!

Dave

Saad Syed wrote:
You might need to look up professional services - those guys cost a LOT. You're looking at possibly $600-$1,000 if not more.


+10. Last time I got a quote on this it was about $1500 for 200 GB.

Ok, first off... I hate to repeat the same thing that others have said, but this is a VERY IMPORTANT thing that needs to be drilled in.

KEEP YOUR STUFF away from the Geek Squad.

No seriously.

While I'm sure there are a few of them who may know what they're doing, the reality is that the vast majority of them DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH KNOWLEDGE to fix a serious problem but HAVE ENOUGH KNOWLEDGE to make the problem worse. As someone whose primary career is in IT I can tell you... these are THE WORST PEOPLE YOU CAN POSSIBLY EVER HAVE NEAR A COMPUTER. They're the ones who see a warning message that THEY THINK THEY UNDERSTAND and instead of having the humbleness to say "You know what? I have no freggin' clue what clicking yes is going to do... let me call the Helpdesk" they click YES, FUBAR everything and THEN call the helpdesk and say "There was a warning about something with the MFT table, but there are two of those right?"

Ok. So to repeat: GEEK SQUAD = worse than useless. Useless would be taking your computer to a Nail Technician. Geek Squad is WORSE than USELESS. If you're NOT a computer person and you rely heavily on computers then you need to get yourself a REAL computer person who will help you in the future. Geek Squad is like choosing to have someone who'se never missed an episode of "ER" as your surgeon when your appendix ruptures.

And how do I know this so well? Simply because some folks I've run into through the years that did NOT make it in IT jobs are now working for the Geek Squad.

Enough of that.

Next up, how to make sure you're NEVER in this predicament again.

Do yourself a favor and read the article I wrote about keeping my brides' data safe in my South Florida Wedding Photographer business

It's not terribly long, and I think it addresses pretty much every aspect of keeping your clients' stuff safe. (if it doesn't then please let me hear about it in comments!)

To be perfectly honest calling your brides and asking them for their DVDs... oh boy... I hate to twist the dagger that's stuck in your back... but jeez!

Ok, you know what? Let me help you out here.

I know it's lying but this could be INCREDIBLY DAMAGING for your BUSINESS. Deservedly, I will say, but just 'cause you deserve to go down in flames doesn't mean I'm not going to hose you down anyway

Write to your Brides and let them know that you were informed by the distributor of your DVD media that the batch you were provided was part of a recall. Tell them you'd like to personally pick up the DVD and copy it to a new media that should be exempt from the problem.

DO NOT, FOR ANY FREGGIN' REASON IN THE WORLD have a BRIDE mail you the DVD. If the DVD is lost in the mail then you will be in shit so deep what you're in now will seem like a puddle.

And if you're thinking "it's 2009 what are the odds that the DVD will get lost in the mail" then you are beyond hope.

Ciao!

nOt lisy

data on a hard drive is pretty resilient. and yes get it away from the geek squad fast!
depending on how much you want to shell out and how bad you need data HD disks can be removed and remounted to recover data each disk piece by piece, so unless you put the drives in a giant electromagnet or physically damaged the disks inside the actual drive, chances are you can get at least some of the data back for a price.
doug

Are you a member of the PPA? If you are/were, the E&O insurance which is mandatory if you are a wedding photographer would subsidize the cost for you. If not, you'll probably join tomorrow, right?

With that being said, www.drivesavers.com is the top data recovery company in the world. They are the ones who recovered the data from teh space shuttle when it broke apart upon re-entry. Yes, they are not cheap but if your HD isn't clicking, then you probably have a good change of getting it back. What you don't want to do is plug it in or mess with it anymore unless you really know what you are doing.

Good luck with that and, when it's all sorted, go out and drop $300-$400 on a few 1 TB drives and BlakX external sata drive docks. There realy is no reason you should have a single point of failure when doing weddings unless you are a sadist.

Do not even look at that drive until you get it to a professional who specializes in data recovery, further use of the drive can cause more damage, like I did 5 years ago, don't feel bad I did something similar but on a smaller scale. Take advice or what people think is wrong with a grain of salt and consult a professional. Technically, trouble shooting a hard drive via photographers forum could be a recipe for disaster, just don't crack that drive open, those screws are enticing, but it is sealed for a reason.

Not to come across as a d1ck, but just toss the drive and load up images from your back up(s).

Your out there shooting weddings, these are once in a lifetime events that cannot be repeated, reshot. You need backups of your cameras, lenses, lighting, computers, drives, files.

A simple workflow would be to shoot wedding, then download raw files to computer. Color/exposure correct files. Copy job to back up drives, burn DVD(s) of all files (RAW+XMP). It's now ok to clear and reuse cards.

Since you have an external drive, there is a good chance that the drive is fine and the bridge board has failed. Send the drive and housing to a professional recovery company and if they just have to remove the drive from the housing and duplicate, you should get away cheap. If the drive does have a mechanical failure you may have a bill that can hit the 4 figure mark.

Mr645 wrote:
Not to come across as a d1ck, but just toss the drive and load up images from your back up(s).



Seems apparent that this is a situation where the OP stored all of her images on a single drive and doesn't have backups available.

Make sure you shop around. I had a hard drive failure a couple of years ago and talked to about a dozen different specialist and most wouldn't look at my drive for unless i paid them upfront about $2000. I finally found one that only charged me if they could recover the data and it was only $600.

Keith

Sorry to hear of this problem. Check your power supply; could be a simple fix. I have learned the hard way, not once, but twice! If your drive needs to be recovered, I have experience with two outfits that I have had really good luck with:

Datacent: http://www.datacent.com/ In Canada, but recovered a 2-disc RAID 1 array drive for like $400 - super cheap! It will cost a little more to get it up there and back, but the cost savings were worth it for me.

ESS Data Recovery: http://www.datarecovery.com/
These guys recoverd a RAID 5 for me and let me tell you I'm really glad I had the PPA trust behind me. As it was, it still cost me $2,700 but they did a great job.

Good luck and please report back with what happens.

Steve

My fiancée had her external hdd become unrecognizable by the computer while on our vacation. She took it to Future Shop (kinda like Bestbuy) and they said they couldn't get anything off of it.
So, instead of losing everything on there, she opened up the hdd enclosure herself and reseated the cable going to the hdd. It's worked ever since, the connection was just knocked loose.

I know this may not be what's happening in your case, but it could be something simple.

Jason

First things first. Is the hard drive spinning? Put your hand on the enclosure and if you can feel movement, thats step 1. Is it making any extra crunching sounds?

Look up a program called File Scavanger 3.2. May be a free trial?
Had the same problem with my HD and it went around windows and found the drive. Then allows you to copy by file type. Don't do the copy all as it had problems. Do each JPG, TIFF, etc as a group. They will be out of order but you will have them.
http://www.quetek.com/
Link

kluckie wrote:
Make sure you shop around. I had a hard drive failure a couple of years ago and talked to about a dozen different specialist and most wouldn't look at my drive for unless i paid them upfront about $2000. I finally found one that only charged me if they could recover the data and it was only $600.

Keith


Who was this?
I had a simular experience last year, I was moving files around trying to do the proper backup thing when my mybook went south for the ever!

I was quoted more than $2K...

all depends on if it is software or hardware issue. If the disk seems to spin and isn't making clicking you may be able to recover it. I use R Studio (I think that's the name) on PC and I'm on my macbook now. I think you can download the trial to see if you can recover the files. you probably have to purchase to actually recover the data.

i second ... don't use geek squad. I have recovered 4 of 5 friends HD that they said was not recoverable.