[Brammers]

I run 2 HDDs on my PC. 1st split into 2 partitions, one for OS, one for programs. The 2nd HDD contains my documents. It just crashed and started clicking...

Restarted windows, or rather hung at the restart screen...

Unplugged document HDD, restarted windows, it works. Oh dear...

Luckily I've managed to get it going again, CHKDSK found a problem and seems to have fixed it. I'm currently getting all my photos onto another HDD, and will then be burning them all to CDs. But please, let this be a warning to you. If that HDD had crashed I'd have lost all my documents, uni work and the digital copy of every single photo I've ever taken since 1998. I used to think 'nah, my HDD will never crash' but it just almost did! Let those of you who don't backup be warned, and do something about it ASAP.

[onefivenine]

Sounds like a close one!

What make/model was the failed drive? (for future reference!)

[Badger0-0]

Good shout

HDDs are not as good as they used to be, IMO.
After about 15 years of messing with computers, I had my first disc go down, a few months ago
They do fail.

[Liquid101]

Yep - good post Brammers.

It is a reminder that these things do fail. With HDD's being so cheap these days, setting up a 1TB RAID array in your home machine isn't out of the question. Or even just creating a regular backup onto an external disk.

[onefivenine]

Before we know it people will start printing photos again to preserve the memories!

My Canon Selphy does very good quality 6x4's with an alleged 100 year lifespan.
No current DVD/HDD/CD etc will match that - or even a fraction of it.

If it's worth keeping - print it!

[jonnypb]

you can get some cheap external drives these days and also 1TB external mirrored (2x500gb) drives aren't too bad either

glad you didn't lose anything, it wasn't a fujitsu by any chance was it? anyone with a fujitsu get it backed up asap as they're always failing. Lost count of how many fujitsu's have failed at work, all the big PC names stear clear of them now

[icemanonline]

Good Post,

I have the 2 hdds both 60GB on the laptop and 2 external drives.

Got the Seagate 160GB for £40 from PC World cos the box was marked.

And the other is WD in an ICYBOX@250GB

NO raid config here.......

I also burn DVD-r disks with 3.5GB on each disk as another back-up and store in folders when i fill a folder on the laptop. Then I start a new with a "FROM DATE," and that keeps most stuff neat and in order.....

That way I'm 98% covered...............never gonni be 100%

Glad you saved your stuff.......

icemanonline

[Brammers]

oneoffivenine, that's a lovely idea but I really want the digital copies. My PP skills keep improving, my shots keep getting better and better.

I've now got all my shots, my lightroom backups and my uni work onto another HDD, I'll buy some DVD-Rs tomorrow and get the entire drive backed up - 4.7gb on a DVD isn't it?

What do you reckon about RMAing the drive? It's a SATA Seagate 150gb for reference, couldn't tell you the model. It seems to be fine now, but after that shock I can't say I've got any confidence in it... Dabs IIRC, will they take it back and swap it? Well within warranty, only got it in March.

And incidently I'm a massive believer, not in karma or anything structrued like that, but more in that you get chances at things, and each time you get a 'let-off' or a warning like this, something bad happens, but not half as bad as what you just got let-off from. Well, I just pulled out my favourite 58mm 1.2 (beautiful moon, want to shoot it hand-held :D:D:D) and it's got a massive dust spec inside the rear element where I can't get at it. Coincidence?

[onefivenine]

I'm starting to think the best backup is probably something like a flickrPro account - 10MB file size limit per pic and unlimitied numbers.
I'm sure - er I hope - they have adequate disaster recovery contingency.

Lets face it, all the RAID configured HDDs, DVDs, and even hard copies would be out the window if they were in the wrong place at the wrong time - like the recent floods in England.

[mr_b_at_home]

I have an old PC in my loft as part of my home network with a big drive. I have a synch program that runs once a day and backs up any new files in my photo's folder to it. Should be high enough to avoid the floods

[cedmondson]

My system disk failed a month ago. Negligible data was lost as it's stored on other disks, backed up to external NAS drives and also copied onto DVDs which are then stored elsewhere. (I'm only this careful because I've been burned before).
However, it still took a ridiculous amount of time to reinstall the OS and a multitude of apps, configure them, set up mail accounts etc and download all the patches & updates applicable to each program. I'd guess maybe 20-30 hours work in all. I now keep an image of this disk on another using Acronis True Image (about £15) as I don't want to through that again.

Brammers - try Seagate website directly for RMA advice. My Western Digital was 18 months old and they swapped it without fuss.

[lightpainter]

Brammers I lost years of photos when I foolishly used a Maxtor external drive as my library, the drive went down!
I now have copy’s of all my photos on three separate drives, PC, Laptop, and External.

[GarryF]

Year or so ago my main PC raid0 array corrupted and I'd been careless backing up, lost a few things I didn't want to, turned out the PC bios had reset but by the time I figured that out I'd reset one of the discs

Now on my main PC I run a raid0 array and have a 3rd disk that I backup onto every few days, also any important data is syn'd onto a 1.2TB raid5 media server in the loft. Then a month or two back I got more paranoid and got an external 750GB maxtor which sync's the media server nightly.

Now I'm worrying about offsite storage if the house burns down it'd still all be gone. I guess burn the important stuff onto dvd-r and stores at parents/work etc

I recently got a smugmug account, they've unlimited storage and claim triple redundancy in 3 states etc etc, maybe I'll upload all my pictures to them rather than a select few.

[jonnypb]

Originally Posted by icemanonline

I also burn DVD-r disks with 3.5GB on each disk as another back-up and store in folders when i fill a folder on the laptop. Then I start a new with a "FROM DATE," and that keeps most stuff neat and in order.....

be careful with dvd's. unless you get good quality ones with taiyo yuden dye you'll find in years to come the dvd's will be useless.

[Just call me Al]

Originally Posted by bubble502

be careful with dvd's. unless you get good quality ones with taiyo yuden dye you'll find in years to come the dvd's will be useless.

I always burn mine to DVDs with the taiyo yuden dye. I will reburn onto fresh discs in about two years or onto Blu ray or whatever it's eq' is as & when they have cheaper burners.

[senu]

Originally Posted by lightpainter

Brammers I lost years of photos when I foolishly used a Maxtor external drive as my library, the drive went down!
I now have copy’s of all my photos on three separate drives, PC, Laptop, and External.

This is the single most useful method (in addition to burning to very good DVD media and storing them carefully) that I know.
My only concern with crucial Data on the same HDD as operating Systems is the occasional need to reformat them if there is a serious error from which windows will not recover or corruption of the Master boot record maybe de to a virus, electricity surge which can cause the HDD boot sector to become unreadable ( and it happens folks.. perhaps infrequently ). It may even be better to pit them on a separate partition if one doesn't have more than one HDD
Last year I lost 2X 300GB HDDs within 5 days of each other..literally in a puff of smoke
. One had Images Ide had since the year 2000 ( most of which I also fortunately had on DVDs) . and scans fom before that from film ect
These were SATA HDDs Id popped into in External cases .
The one thing Ive learn about external Hard drives is that the Branded ones in cases seem to be a bit more robust than just buying a bare drive and putting it in a case. The cooling and shock protection seems lacking