blee03
Gold Member
I’m pretty sure you can sign up for the monthly membership fee, download all your pics and cancel it the next month... I was looking into this, I have a lot of old pics on photo bucket.
If this can happen to a really smart guy like me. . . well...
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Yogi05
Platinum Member
I have had several hard drives stop working over the years. (I still have a box full of them because I won't dispose of a PC without taking the HD out).
Many times it's something catastrophic in the operating system, other times it's a "mechanical" failure of the HD.
If it's anything other than mechanical failure a damaged HD can be hooked up similar to thumb drive by using a device that powers the HD and provides a USB connection.
I think it's called a "bridge" and I use one made by Nexus. About $50cad at any computer store.
Often you can then see the damaged HD as simply an add-on, additional drive and collect your pics etc from that.
Other times a recovery software is required. I found Disk Drill to be very effective.
Run the software and it even recovers items that were deleted (in many cases).
Be prepared to look through tens of thousands of items when using recovery SW and be careful not to transfer terra bites to you PC for viewing. Transfer them in small groups.
You can categorize the items into "pictures" or "videos" within the recovery SW but there will still be thousands upon thousands.
If the HD shows as a simple external drive then it will have much the same structure as when it stopped working and things will appear where you put them.
The principle is you are bypassing the operating system (if the OS caused the failure) on the HD and if it's not a mechanically damaged HD.
Disclaimer - I am not an IT or computer guy, I have just had many break on me.
Many times it's something catastrophic in the operating system, other times it's a "mechanical" failure of the HD.
If it's anything other than mechanical failure a damaged HD can be hooked up similar to thumb drive by using a device that powers the HD and provides a USB connection.
I think it's called a "bridge" and I use one made by Nexus. About $50cad at any computer store.
Often you can then see the damaged HD as simply an add-on, additional drive and collect your pics etc from that.
Other times a recovery software is required. I found Disk Drill to be very effective.
Run the software and it even recovers items that were deleted (in many cases).
Be prepared to look through tens of thousands of items when using recovery SW and be careful not to transfer terra bites to you PC for viewing. Transfer them in small groups.
You can categorize the items into "pictures" or "videos" within the recovery SW but there will still be thousands upon thousands.
If the HD shows as a simple external drive then it will have much the same structure as when it stopped working and things will appear where you put them.
The principle is you are bypassing the operating system (if the OS caused the failure) on the HD and if it's not a mechanically damaged HD.
Disclaimer - I am not an IT or computer guy, I have just had many break on me.
plowhog
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That is actually a quite complicated question.
The gold standard is to use your backup set and do a full restore onto a new/empty hard drive-- then verify everything works correctly and all the data is there. But that is probably impractical for 99% of computer users.
A simpler thing is to identify some "trash" files on your computer, such as photos you don't want, old versions of documents, or whatever. After you do your backup, delete those from your hard drive so they are gone. Then attempt to restore that/those individual file(s) from your backup. If that works, at least you have proven: a) your data *is* being backed up, and b) the restore function *can* recover something from the backup set.
A major US city I used to work with faithfully did data backups, which took many hours to complete every night. One day after a computer meltdown they attempted to restore their data but found all their backup media blank. The backup process, for some reason, was not properly closing the files after the backup so they were not recoverable. If they had ever attempted a restore (before a crisis) they would have learned that.
MossRoad
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I used to do data recovery from "dead" hard drives. Many times it's a software issue that is easily remedied. A file gets hosed on the drive that keeps track of everything. Restore it, and you're good.
Many times it was just an operating system failure. All of the data was still intact. Again, either restore the OS, or put the drive into another machine as a 2nd drive and copy the data to the host drive.
Physical hardware problems are a different animal. Surprisingly, I had great success over the years putting the dead hard drive into a plastic container and putting it in a freezer overnight. Then I'd pop it out of the freezer, install it as a 2nd drive in another computer, and it would spin up one last time. Don't turn it off or let it sleep. I'd copy all of the files to the host computer. Worked about 75% of the time on IDE drives.
My most satisfying experience was this:
A woman at my job had all of her wedding and 1st child's birth on her PC. That's the only place they were. The PC stopped working. She took it to Geek Squad at Best Buy. They told her it was toast. She was in tears. I overheard her talking to a coworker about it. I asked her if I could take a look at it? (I was in I.T. for 30 years, so I'm skeptical of big box repair shops). She brought it in the next day. I pulled the disk, put it into another PC, and ran a program from Stellar Phoenix. It found everything. I burnt it to DVD and gave it to her. She gave me a fruit basket, candy, and a gift card. Her husband thanked me as well.
So don't give up on that dead drive. Buy a new PC, and keep the old drive and attempt to figure out what's wrong with it. Hardware or Software. I'd say of the hundreds that I did over the years, I only failed a handful of times.
Many times it was just an operating system failure. All of the data was still intact. Again, either restore the OS, or put the drive into another machine as a 2nd drive and copy the data to the host drive.
Physical hardware problems are a different animal. Surprisingly, I had great success over the years putting the dead hard drive into a plastic container and putting it in a freezer overnight. Then I'd pop it out of the freezer, install it as a 2nd drive in another computer, and it would spin up one last time. Don't turn it off or let it sleep. I'd copy all of the files to the host computer. Worked about 75% of the time on IDE drives.
My most satisfying experience was this:
A woman at my job had all of her wedding and 1st child's birth on her PC. That's the only place they were. The PC stopped working. She took it to Geek Squad at Best Buy. They told her it was toast. She was in tears. I overheard her talking to a coworker about it. I asked her if I could take a look at it? (I was in I.T. for 30 years, so I'm skeptical of big box repair shops). She brought it in the next day. I pulled the disk, put it into another PC, and ran a program from Stellar Phoenix. It found everything. I burnt it to DVD and gave it to her. She gave me a fruit basket, candy, and a gift card. Her husband thanked me as well.
So don't give up on that dead drive. Buy a new PC, and keep the old drive and attempt to figure out what's wrong with it. Hardware or Software. I'd say of the hundreds that I did over the years, I only failed a handful of times.
Richard
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Question for you/anyone.
Back in MS-DOS days, you could write a command (I believe it was 'Xcopy32') and you could add some switches to it....for example
xcopy32.exe/d = copy the file IF the DATE has changed. So you don't copy the same file every day, it copies it once and if you edit that file, it changes the date so it's automatically included in the process. (I omitted the part as I recall where you put in the destination folder for said copy)
So, my question is.... can this effectively be done today in the Windows environment? If so, where/how? (or do you now need to buy a stand alone program???)
I always liked that command, it allowed me to back the entire office up (7-8 users) every day when they turned their PC's on.
Yogi05
Platinum Member
I don't know in reference to your specific DOS commands, but I have reverted to DOS on a less-than-one-year-old PC and had success with it. Hard to remember switches and DOS commands after all this time, but what I needed to do came back fairly quickly.
This was on a PC using win10
This was on a PC using win10
/pine
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There is big difference between a software or O/S issue and an actual failed HDD...
Most external (USB) hard drive bases can be used to access a HDD that spins up but won't boot...
Most IT techs that have been around the horn are familiar with Steve Gibson...here is a link to his SpinRite hard drive app.
Also check out his freeware selection...The guy is one of the most respected utility programmers in the industry...
en.wikipedia.org
Most external (USB) hard drive bases can be used to access a HDD that spins up but won't boot...
Most IT techs that have been around the horn are familiar with Steve Gibson...here is a link to his SpinRite hard drive app.
Also check out his freeware selection...The guy is one of the most respected utility programmers in the industry...
Steve Gibson (computer programmer) - Wikipedia
Last edited:
MoKelly
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Goodness. That is just like the Russian hackers who lockup your system and demand ransom for the pass key!
MoKelly
/pine
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Not really...the PB users used the service on their own initiative...They clicked the "I Agree" button to a TOS /UA they most likely never read...
JamesHW
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I’ve been lucky recovering data from mechanical hard drives and once was approached with a western digital that was unresponsive containing irreplaceable data. Suspecting the circuit board, I found the same model on eBay for $15. I ordered it and swapped the circuit board and the dead drive came to life.
