Hi. My name is Chanel, and I abuse hard drives.
September 27th, 2007 Let me tell you a story tragedy.
Once upon a time there was a girl who had a portable external hard drive. It was her back up hard drive, because previous to it, she had been foolish enough to almost loose her data TWICE when her laptop’s hard drives failed (and were replaced) twice on two separate occasions.
One day, this girl was watching an episode of my wife and kids, happily laughing along. Without realizing it, she placed her elbow on the small portable external hard drive, and placed some of her weight on it as she leaned over to get something. The TV show, which was playing from the external drive, froze. Then the drive made a “click” sound. She immediately unplugged the drive and then plugged it back in, only to find that the drive did not start spinning, but instead emitted a series of very scary warning beeps.
She has now fallen into deep depression as this back up drive contained all her travelling photos from Europe, Egypt and Israel as well as numerous other very important data.
I’m calling WeRecoverData.com tomorrow and getting a free quote to evaluate the damage, all whilst praying the quote isn’t above $500. How could I have been so stupid? I hate the feeling of utter helplessness I have over hardware problems. I can usually fix software issues, but when it comes to hardware issues, I’m screwed. I know nothing. I’m just the silly girl who was stupid enough to PUT HER WEIGHT ON A SMALL PLASTIC BOX CONTAINING HER LIFE.
I was discussing this situation with my mother today and she suggested I take a class on hardware repair so that I can fix (or at least know what to do) when it comes to situations like this. I think I just might. I am so angry at both myself and just the world in general (hehe, emo!) for the simple fact that HARD DRIVE PROBLEMS ALWAYS HAPPEN TO ME.
Not only that, but technology hates me. It really does. Why just the other day month, the UV Glass Lens cover on my [very expensive] digital SLR shattered when my someone picked up the case not knowing the cover wasn’t zipped shut - my fault, of course. Needless to say, my camera DROPPED ON THE FLOOR and the protective lens shattered. However, while the lens and the camera itself was fine, the rim of the lens cover was bent in the drop and remained on the lens. Now, I can’t unscrew it because it’s bent and I can’t put the lens cap on my camera properly because the rim is bent. I’ve been meaning to figure out a way to get the rim off but I’ve just been so damn busy lately, barely leaving time to sleep, eat, and breath.
Three hard drives, destroyed? Check. Two A/C adapters overheated? Check. One portable external hard drive possibly destroyed? Check. Case in point? I should not be allowed to own anything expensive. They should lock me away in a cell far, far away from technology because I am the careless asshole who ruins everything.
Pray for my hard drive. Srsly.
They don’t need to lock you up, they just gotta keep the goods far, far away from you ;)
Once, my hard drive was on the floor (don’t ask how it got there) and a friend stepped on it and effectively ruined it. It was really devastating as it contained the only copy of the first amateur movie my friends and I produced together.
I hope you’re able to get your data back! A trip to Egypt sounds amazing — and I’m not just saying that because I’m Egyptian :P
Reply: Yikes, that’s terrible. It really, really sucks to lose important data, especially if it has sentimental connections, which my back up hard drive does. And the trip to Egypt WAS amazing. :)
September 27th, 2007 at 8:22 pmOh, ouch. One or two hard drive failures in my past are why I’m so neurotic about backing everything up now. Pray to the computer gods and promise you’ll burn all your important data to back up CDs when you get it fixed. :) Good luck.
Reply: Thanks. :) Even though I’ve been opposed to backing up via CDs (For starters, do you know how long it would take me to put at least 50 gigs of photos onto CDs?), I’m starting to see that they may just be the safest route, even if some of the CDs in my possession end up scratched or cracked. *sighs*
September 27th, 2007 at 8:34 pmOh my, that’s awful! I really hope they can fix it! I was thinking about what I would do if my laptop crashed and I lost the photos from my last year earlier today. I’ve decided to promptly back them up to DVDs, which I will then stick on my shelf and NOT TOUCH. Luckily for me, though, if I ever do lose them there are 9 other people in the world with copies.
Please, please, please, oh Gods of computer hardware, let Chanel’s hard drive be okay!
Reply: Thanks for the good thoughts. :) You’re very smart to back up your photos to DVDs!
September 27th, 2007 at 9:09 pmThe problem with external hard drives is that they’re terribly fragile. I backed up things from my laptop on to my external HD when the computer began to act crazy. To make a long story short: my laptop got fixed but I lost everything and before I could copy the files from the external drive back over - the external HD died. I got another external HD - it lasted a few months before it managed to kill itself. It died after falling a miserable foot.
I’ve also had an iPod die. :( My DSLR is kept safe, though (even though my cat once knocked it and its case to the floor).
Reply: Geesh, that’s terrible! To be honest, I never knew external hard drives were so fragile. =\ It’s so shitty how it seems like technology has advanced so much and yet stupid little hard drive crashes like this can wipe out all our work without a reason in the blink of an eye.
September 27th, 2007 at 11:11 pmEvery 3 months i go through all my files and put them all onto a DVD and make 2 copies, I put one away and I have the other on my desk for accessing my files (I basically remove everything off my laptop so all files are empty). Then 3 months down the track my files have stuff everywhere and then I burn another 2 DVD’s again and it goes on and on. I am really wary of losing files as I once had everything on my harddrive and lost it all (3 years worth of stuff) and ever since then I am meticulous about backing up. I also have an external harddrive which I have a lot if not all of my files-but I still have the extra copies on disc.
September 27th, 2007 at 11:35 pmWow. Can you break an external hard drive so easily? My box is metal and it certainly looks strong enough. But I’ve been breaking things myself as well. My old laptop, I fell asleep in bed with it on my lap and in the middle of the night when I turned my body it flew across the room, hit the wall and fell down. :P Later on I tipped fanta in the same laptop and the keys started bubbling and fizzing. :D
But you know, I never back-up my files anywhere. Important assignments and essays I send them to my email so I can get it anywhere but if my computer crashes… That’s big shit. Hope you get your drive fixed soon.
September 28th, 2007 at 1:22 amMan, I really hope you get that worked out =/
September 28th, 2007 at 4:02 amI’m just terrible with anything technology related that isn’t the internet. Regardless, I hope it gets fixed soon so you can access everything. :)
September 28th, 2007 at 1:34 pmGracious, that doesn’t sound like a lot of fun at all :( I hope you can recover that data!
I’ve never destroyed a hard drive, but I destroyed my 4th Gen 40 GB iPod at the gym about a year ago. I was on the treadmill, saw someone I knew, and waved. I forgot that I had placed the iPod in front me on the tray so that when I lifted my arm to wave, I lifted the iPod right up off the tray. It went soaring above and behind me, landed on the moving treadmill, then zipped off the end and hit the wall behind me with a loud thunk. Totally ruined it. That was a GREAT day.
September 29th, 2007 at 2:24 amSmall external hard drives are just laptop hard drives in an enclosure. They’re just as fragile as a laptop drive — a two-foot drop while it’s running will usually be enough to kill it. The mechanics and precision required in something like a laptop hard drive is something to be appreciated — and it’s also why they’re so easily affected by shock.
Anyway, if it’s just the motor that’s been damaged (as I suspect), they’ll probably open up the drive in a clean-room environment, and transplant the platters onto a new motor assembly. You should get your stuff back, but at a price. :-P
September 30th, 2007 at 11:49 pmHope everything turns out alright.
The clicking of a hard drive is one of the most horrible sounds ever.
One of my (internal) hard drives died too recently (my third one). (see also here: http://www.inspirelight.net/?p=1199 ).
October 2nd, 2007 at 1:33 am[…] Regardless, I think it might be time to make the switch. I’ve had my beloved Windows laptop for years and we’ve been through a lot; 1 pair of hinges, two internal hard drivers, and three A/C adapters, not to mention the brutal murder of its sidekick, the external hard drive.) […]
December 6th, 2007 at 2:56 pmI hope you didn’t call WeRecoverData.com - THEY SUCK!
I had a similar thing happen and I took it to them because I thought they were local. Turns out they send everything out of the country to be worked on and my quote that I was hoping would be $500 was $1700.
When I told them I didnt want them fixing it, they got really angry with me and hung up.
GOOD NEWS! I ended up finding someone else LOCAL to look at it and it was a minor issue with the USB casing. Ended up costing less than $300.
Hope you experienced a full recovery!
January 11th, 2008 at 4:20 pmBrian, You are so correct about WeRecoverData.com. THEY ARE A FRAUD as far as I’m concerned. They promised to recover my data but after almost TWO WEEKS, they couldn’t do it. I now have my drive back. They have waisted my time but I plan to let the world know that WeRecoverData is NO GOOD. I’m also looking for another local data recovery shop. I have every hope that my data will be recovered.
January 16th, 2008 at 10:15 amChanel, don’t be surprised if WeRecoverData does nothing with your drive. As far as I’m concerned all they do is recover money—not data.
Best of luck with your data recovery.