Data recovery

[Jim Poor]

Over the past week, I've learned far more about it than I ever wanted to know.

Not just the PhotoRescue brand of data recovery (which is great, BTW) but full blown forensic tools on hard drives and broken RAID sets that have been erased and split.

Quite a few lessons learned.

1. Big CF cards are great, big hard drives, not so great when you need to do recovery.

2. Even with three levels of backup, if you're most recent work that hasn't been backed up yet gets compromised, you have to go through the WHOLE set of data on the original, so keep that to your most recent stuff only.

3. Going through 200K+ images from this year alone to recover 150 or so from the last two shoots SUCKS!

That said, I'm confident I could go into the recover business now.

[mshockley]

Jim it does not sound like you've had a good week! But it does sound like you were able to recover what you needed to? What the heck happened?

[Izzy]

This is the very reason I have my file server set in raid so that nothing can be lost. The whole machine is fault tolerant. Even if I lose 2 drives at once I will not lose any data. If a drive dies it sends me an email and tells me which drive to replace. This is also hot swappable so the machine sees no downtime. I built this machine from a big box Compaq that used to be my wifes machine. I think it cost about $400 total with the drives.

[Jim Poor]

Originally Posted by Izzy

This is the very reason I have my file server set in raid so that nothing can be lost. The whole machine is fault tolerant. Even if I lose 2 drives at once I will not lose any data. If a drive dies it sends me an email and tells me which drive to replace. This is also hot swappable so the machine sees no downtime. I built this machine from a big box Compaq that used to be my wifes machine. I think it cost about $400 total with the drives.

Note that my main drive was RAID as well. Not all RAID arrays are equal however.

As for what happened - UGH.

First, my laptop HD crashed in the middle of an event. About half a day of photos (3k or so) suddenly were not accessible. Of course, those hadn't been backed up yet. Easily recovered from the flash cards though.

Then, my main machine crashed. Main image RAID and backup RAID. Then, I did a stupid thin and erased my archive (3TB RAID) when I thought I was initializing a new 3TB disc. Anything older than 2011 is on two more levels of backup, but all of 2011 was in jeopardy.

Started running PhotoRescue on all my flash cards and recovered images all the way back to 2008 amazingly. Not everything, but I was still shocked to see those pop up.

I'm in the process of recovering photos from the RAID archive now. Looks like I'll get back 90% or more of this year, but the ONE session I REALLY need has yet to turn up.

[ishootRAW]

Dang sorry to here. At least it was not physical damage last year while moving my web servers physical location, the moving guy dropped them while they where running. Fragile 7200 RPM Barracuda server hard disk + six inch drop = no data. The data recov people could not get a single byte of the dam things. To make it worse, I had them set up to back up internally

Enough of me feeling sorry for myself. Do you know why both disk failed at the same time? It just seems wired to me that 3 (counting the laptop) disks would fail on the same day

[Jim Poor]

Originally Posted by ishootRAW

Dang sorry to here. At least it was not physical damage last year while moving my web servers physical location, the moving guy dropped them six inches while they where running. Fragile 7200 RPM Barracuda server hard disk drop = no data. The data recov people could not get a single byte of the dam things. To make it worse, I had them set up to back up internally

Enough of me feeling sorry for myself. Do you know why both disk failed at the same time? It just seems wired to me that 3 (counting the laptop) disks would fail on the same dat

The laptop was physical failure. I've managed to pull some things off of it, but that has been with many, many different methods since last Friday. Once I'm sure I've got all the important stuff in one location or another an that I've gotten all I can get in "gentle" ways, I'm going to resort to methods usually reserved for clean rooms just to see if I can do it.

[Jim Poor]

Oh, only 365 hours left on a block by block scan/clone of the laptop 500GB drive.

The one good thing to come out of it is that my laptop now runs on an SSD and has a second 750GB drive in the optical bay thanks to an OptiBay kit.

[ishootRAW]

Originally Posted by Jim Poor

Once I'm sure I've got all the important stuff in one location or another an that I've gotten all I can get in "gentle" ways, I'm going to resort to methods usually reserved for clean rooms just to see if I can do it.

Sounds like fun, at lest the drive is in one peice. I have a pic somewhere that the data recov ppl sent me from when they opened my discs. The platters literally shattered.

What is the extent of the damage to the RAIDs on the workstation? Are you just getting no I/O? Or is the disk not even responding?

[Mike367]

FWIW. I have recovered some data off of a dead drive by putting it in a plastic bag and sticking it in the freezer overnite. Sometimes you can transfer files until it warms up again.

[SwissJon]

Mikes suggestion is a good one.. But a last resort.. Freezing the drive will most likely physically damage it.. If you do this, you will hae only one shot at it.. I suggest you get a long sata and power cable and work on it while it's IN the freezer.. The process of warming up is the thing that kills it.

Off line backups to external drives are a good idea.. Most computer magazines come with freeware backup programs, that's all you need.. An incremental backup every time you log onto your computer, a full backup once a week and hey presto, everything is there for you. I have my back up run 9am every morning, it only backs up my pictures and lightroom catalogues, but that's all I need.

By the way.. There's a LOT of money to be made in data recovery..