27 November 2012

Virtually all of my photos are lost

Ten days ago I had two external HDDs containing five years of photos and loads of other files.Then I broke one by dropping it. I was going to replace it and i wish I had. Yesterday the other drve died with the click of death.

I have some photos on my computer but at the moment it looks as if I've lost most o my work unless ther'sa way through this.

I could scream.

13 comments:

Francis Sedgemore said...

Do not panic! Unless the filesystems have become irredeemably corrupted, the data are still there on the platters, even if mechanical damage has been done to the read/write system. There is a chance that at least some of your files could be rescued, but it would involve significant financial expense on your part, to retain the services of specialists with the equipment and skills required..

Andrew MacLaren-Scott said...

I agree with Francis. Something can surely be done, although I have no idea of cost. All the ones saved online in your various blogs should be fine too, of course, but I think keeping calm, keeping the parts safe and slowly exploring the options of specialists is the way to proceed. I suspect you may find some excellent guidance and even assistance via internet forums. Good luck. In addition to hard drives at home an online back up system in "The Cloud" is an idea for the future too.

Andrew MacLaren-Scott said...

I see lots of options and info by simple Google searching, making me convinced the data on the one that just "died" should all safe and well and not too expensive to retrieve

kellie said...

Horrible. Hope a solution emerges. You'd think it would be possible for someone knowledgeable to move the actual disk into a working drive. Myself I've lost too many external drives to trust them much.

Syncopated Eyeball said...

Oh, Shaun, what a shame. I would have screamed. Anyway, from the previous comments it looks like there is cause for hope. My fingers are crossed for you.

CherryPie said...

I will ask a friend for some ideas on how to try and recover the data.

Stan said...

It's a terrible feeling to lose photos or other stuff saved like this, but I'm also in the don't-despair-yet camp. It would definitely be worth seeing if the data can be recovered.

jams o donnell said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
jams o donnell said...

THank s! I hope I can get my photos back.Time will tell

The Illusive Man said...

Cherry asked me about this... I'd recommend trying Piriform to begin with, that should help you get your files back. You can get more info here: http://www.piriform.com/recuva

The software is free to use, and I've used it myself a number of times to help recover files - my own and other peoples'

jams o donnell said...

Thanks for the advice.I'll
look into that software

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Sorry to hear it, Shaun. What Francis says, otherwise. Experts can retrieve data from physically damaged drives in many cases.

As for the future: I am always skeptical about the reliability of magnetic memory devices like hard disks. You would do much better with taking backups on DVD (yes, I know it's a pain in the ass) or, as an alternative, keeping your pictures on the cloud. Like Skydrive, Box and such.

jams o donnell said...

If I can get the data back I will be using a different method and that's for sure Snoopy!