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[daveofficer]

please please please don't post anything like "oh, you should really backup all your files regularly" or any of that shit as it's not going to be helpful!

ok, my pc speaker fell off a shelf and hit my wife's external hard drive and it seems to be fucked. it makes horrible noises now and doesn't show up on my computer.

it had the only footage from our wedding on it. and our honeymoon. and my wife's entire digital life.

this is quite possibly one of the worst things that's ever happened to me.

does anyone have any clues as to what i can do or the number of a good data recovery expert?

also, any recommendations for backup greatly appreciated as i need to backup all my shit pronto and have never done it before.

[idol_wild]

Oh fucksticks! I can't offer much more than some sympathy, dude. Hope you get it sorted soon - keep us informed.

Stick it in the fridge for 20 minutes to an hour

I'm being serious, i read this on a usenet post in the 90s and tried everything to get a hard disk to work for over a year.

I did this and it worked, the hard disk was making clicking noises to begin with, a cow had trodden on it

otherwise your looking at a data recovery company or try taking out the hdd and putting it in a caddy

for backup get 3 external hard drives, label them in numerical order, have everything stored on all 3 and replace at least one of them every two years starting with the lowest number first - sad i know

[MattJimF]

Data recovery if the hard drive is damaged runs into the thousands due to having to open the drive, remove the platters to ensure there is no damage to them, then putting the platters into a new case to hopefully recover the data stored on the platters.

One thing you could try is to place the drive in an airtight plastic bag, place in the freezer overnight then try it in the morning. The coldness should shrink the platters of the drive so the read arm can access the data, but you won't have long if it works so you'll have to be quick with moving the data.

[Cloud]

If you haven't got in touch with a data recovery expert yet, the best thing you could do right now is to take a picture of the damage and post it on here. It's quite possible that it's not actually fucked at all, but just some of the internals have got damaged, especially if it's USB powered.

Whatever you do, don't try and make it work any more - every time it tries to power up, it could be destroying data. There are ways of recovering drives, and to be honest, it would be really terrible luck if it was that badly damaged that you couldn't recover the data. But the fact that it's able to power on is encouraging - and it does point at the drive not being terribly damaged.

I'd certainly avoid the suggestions of freezing the drive - mainly because it may do more damage than good. It's fine and well if it's just a broken drive, but where irreplacable data is concerned, it's better not to fuck with 'man in the pub' cures.

If you can't afford the services of data recovery experts - then you could have a look at GRC?|?Hard drive data recovery software?? . It could do the trick, and there are plenty of testimonials about it. But I'd strongly suggest not considering it unless you really have no other alternatives. Whatever you do, don't let anyone touch it who doesn't clearly know what they're doing - although I've fixed a broken drive before, you don't want people who can repair things near the drive, you want people that can get the data intact from the drive.

As for recommendations for backup - it's a tough subject. I'd suggest having a read of this - Long-term backup [dive into mark] - and then deciding from there. CD/DVD based backup isn't the best in terms of life, although I imagine making three DVD backups using different media should be a fairly reliable method. It goes without saying that you should always keep one copy 'off-site' too.

From what little I know about backups, you should always try to ensure that the files are kept in an open source format too. I was reading something a while ago about the problems with older software, because the files generated were in a non-open format and thus it was difficult to actually read and convert the files in question.

You could also subscribe to an online service to backup the most important things too.

Hope it turns out fine

[Bigsby]

Any joy with this? Fingers crossed for you.

[Cloud]

Originally Posted by Bigsby

Any joy with this? Fingers crossed for you.

Me too. Wouldn't wish it on anyone.

[DJ Jo-D]

fingers crossed for you !! reminded me to do a fresh back up tho!

freezer thing sounds like a winner - hope you get it sorted

[daveofficer]

thanks guys. we put into tech rescue today who are gonna take a look and give us a quote. fingers crossed!

[John W]

I still liked the fridge idea, shame your wife didn't.
Although what do they know about computers, most of them can't even seem to figure out how to post on here