My Laptop died, lost most all my Pictures, Need some help

[A383Wing]

My 12 year old laptop died, most all of my pictures I had saved for my Daytona "trunk lid-Vega plug" conversion were on there.

Some I found in this forum, some of you were kind enough to send some to me in an email, I ask for your help again. Need pics of trunk gutter, trunk hinge and trunk lid modification, Vega plug install

You can post pics here, of send to my email at A383Wing@aol.com

Thanks, Bryan

[Arnie Cunningham]

Don't give up on your old hard drive.  Rarely are the files not recoverable to another system.  Even if it is the hard drive that is failing.  Ask around for a quality computer shop in your area.  They can probably save most of the files.

[A383Wing]

Trust me, the hard drive is toast. I even took it apart, the reading arm was bent and dug a groove in the disk, plus it was scratched up where the arm came in contact with the disc

[farm966]

Sorry to hear that. I would agree though, a good computer shop may still be able to recover some, but it sounds like your hard drive took a good hit. Maybe Chop Cut Rebuild can do a rebody on it and call it a Daytona on the other end. Sorry, bad joke.

[alfaitalia]

Do you know anyone in the Police?.....over here data can be recovered from even the most deliberately damaged hard drive to use as evidence.......In sure the cops over there will have the same abilities! If not there will be a local expert who can retrieve some if not all of the data....every town has at least one of these geeks!!! LOL!

[Chargen69]

I used a data recovery company on a hard drive that died, they will tell you not all hard drives can be recovered to protect themselves, but most can be recovered.

it was expensive, like $2,000, but pics of my kids as babies was priceless

EVERYONE needs to get a usb backup drive and back up their stuff, expensive lesson I learned

[alfaitalia]

....who would buy anything other than an SSD drive these days. Mechanical Disc type HDs are ancient history IMO!

http://uk.pcmag.com/storage-devices-reviews/8061/feature/ssd-vs-hdd-whats-the-difference

[Troy]

....who would buy anything other than an SSD drive these days. Mechanical Disc type HDs are ancient history!

And how, exactly, would that solve this problem? I still buy lots of spinning drives.

I may have some of those pictures Brian - but probably only ones that were posted here any way. Maybe I can help find the threads instead?

Troy

[alfaitalia]

True.....obviously it would not solve this particular problem....but It would stop it happening again or for someone else. My PC is old enough that it only had HDD rather than a SSD.....but it automatically backs up to my 1TB SSD evertyime I close the PC down. My PC is too old to be worth upgrading to SDD (must be 10 years plus....took work and hardwear just to get it to run Windows 10 LOL!)  ....but when its dies the replacement will be.

[Troy]

True.....obviously it would not solve this particular problem....but It would stop it happening again or for someone else. My PC is old enough that it only had HDD rather than a SSD.....but it automatically backs up to my 1TB SSD evertyime I close the PC down. My PC is too old to be worth upgrading to SDD (must be 10 years plus....took work and hardwear just to get it to run Windows 10 LOL!)  ....but when its dies the replacement will be.

How would it stop it from happening again? SSDs die often in my experience. (I leave my stuff on 24/7 if that matters.) Backing up the data no matter what type of hard drive it sits on is the best solution - but the drives will still fail eventually.

Troy

[alfaitalia]

Statistically not the case....SSD have no moving parts...that alone makes them far more reliable. Just don't buy cheap....as in cheap Chinese ! I'm not completely sure why but the IT guy at our work says we should turn our PCs off completely at least once every 48 hrs...or at least reboot.....?

[Troy]

Oh dear Lord...

This was in the top 5 when I did a Google search:
http://www.zdnet.com/article/ssd-reliability-in-the-real-world-googles-experience/

Does your IT guy at work have to support any servers? NAS? SAN? How often to they get rebooted? Hard drives fail. If SSDs lasted even 5 times longer than spinning discs the value comparison would be a "no brainer".

Troy

[birdsandbees]

Bet ya can't turn that SSD with a pencil eraser and get my data back !!  

Your IT guy needs a lesson in the real world. I never shut my computer off, unless it gets stupid and needs a restart.

As for the OP.. someone should be able to recover all his files from the drive. Dead laptop or not..  

[Troy]

Bet ya can't turn that SSD with a pencil eraser and get my data back !! 

Your IT guy needs a lesson in the real world. I never shut my computer off, unless it gets stupid and needs a restart.

As for the OP.. someone should be able to recover all his files from the drive. Dead laptop or not.. 

Did you see this part?

Trust me, the hard drive is toast. I even took it apart, the reading arm was bent and dug a groove in the disk, plus it was scratched up where the arm came in contact with the disc

Troy

[birdsandbees]

Missed that, but wouldn't have me give up on it. I'd have the Computer Engineer IT son up all night cleaning that and trying to recover stuff. He was part of the code writing / Project Committee that wrote Apache Spamassassin, that most providers use for free to filter your email Spam.

[A383Wing]

I have a stand alone 1TB hard drive connected up to my desktop computer that I use as a backup for files and pictures for all my computers......I just got lazy and didn't send the pictures on my laptop to the stand alone backup drive system.

I still may be able to recover the pics and files yet from the dead hard drive.....I bought another used hard drive off eBay...when it arrives, I will take the 2 discs that were inside my dead drive and put them in the used hard drive that I'm getting....then install that back in the laptop or connect it to my universal USB SATA/IDE enclosure and see if I can get the pics from there.....

will see what happens when I get the used drive here this coming weekend

[Troy]

That sounds like a decent plan. A lot of work though!

Have you tried using an online backup like Mozy that automatically saves file changes? I do what you do - but I am (mostly) anal about copying to the other drive(s) as soon as I save a new file or change an old one. But I also have automated backups that run once per day. Realistically you don't need to back up the entire hard drive - just the data that can't be recreated be installing Windows and all your programs again. I have 8 TB of pictures and video files so online backups can get pricey.

Troy

[A383Wing]

My 1TB backup drive that is connected to my desktop is automatic.....whenever I save some picture or document to the desktop computer, it automatically saves it to the external backup drive also

[Homerr]

If you data was important you'd be backing it up off-site, which these days mostly means the cloud.

Gotta protect against:

• Hardware failure
• Theft
• Fire
• Water
• Malicious attack

If you aren't covered on all you're half-assing it.   

I use Crashplan but there are others out there.  $60/yr single plan, they have family plans to for multiple computers.

[A383Wing]

I won't have anything to do with that "cloud crap". Have heard way too many people having security issues

[Chargen69]

I have a stand alone 1TB hard drive connected up to my desktop computer that I use as a backup for files and pictures for all my computers......I just got lazy and didn't send the pictures on my laptop to the stand alone backup drive system.

I still may be able to recover the pics and files yet from the dead hard drive.....I bought another used hard drive off eBay...when it arrives, I will take the 2 discs that were inside my dead drive and put them in the used hard drive that I'm getting....then install that back in the laptop or connect it to my universal USB SATA/IDE enclosure and see if I can get the pics from there.....

will see what happens when I get the used drive here this coming weekend

yep, i tried that too, bought a drive on ebay and did exactly that. no luck for me, maybe yours has a different problem than mine had

[Troy]

I won't have anything to do with that "cloud crap". Have heard way too many people having security issues

You mean people who use "password" for their password? We have some extremely sensitive stuff at work and have had a "no outside storage" rule for years - yet, here we are, moving everything to the cloud. We have implemented a lot of security so it's a giant pain.

Honestly, I am not a fan of moving all of my personal files to the cloud. Buuuuut, are you really worried about someone hacking your family and car pictures? You don't need to put everything up there (tax returns, medical history, etc.) but it's incredibly handy to have instant copies of things you would be bummed about losing. It's nice that I don't have to copy a bunch of files to my phone but if someone asks to see progress on my cars I can access it from anywhere. My garage doesn't have any internet service (but my phone does) and it's very handy to pull up disassembly pictures and videos. Used to I had to copy all my files to my laptop and remember to take it to the garage (and hope I didn't break it or fill it with dust).

Troy

[alfaitalia]

"You mean people who use "password" for their password?"

Lol...I would never be that stupid..I use the word "incorrect" as my password. That way if I forget it or type it in wrong I get a nice little reminder. "Your password is incorrect"!

[Troy]

 

Troy

[Homerr]

I won't have anything to do with that "cloud crap". Have heard way too many people having security issues

Crashplan (and others backup software) encrypts your data before it uploads it to their servers.  So even if Crashplan were to be hacked the hackers wouldn't see anything.  'Security issues' are usually what Troy is talking about - user error or foolishness.

My house could burn to the ground and I'd be able to get everything back in a few days.  Meanwhile - a hardware hiccup and you've lost your data.

Automatic backup services like Crashplan are close to user-proof, they just work in the background.  The old way is to rotate a second external backup drive off-site to somewhere you trust, with someone you trust.  And then you're only as good as your last drive rotated off-site.  Plenty of room for user laziness!