Unofficial Tex Murphy

Here's a little true story that will make you laugh, cry and cringe with horror. Enjoy:


I was using my PC yesterday afternoon, browsing the web, checking my email, and enjoying my back-from-work relaxation moments. Then, all of a sudden the screen freezes. *pop* *pop* *pop* *weeeeezzzzeeee* comes out of the speakers as the screen sits as still as a frozen lake.

"No worries" I tell myself "It's just the occasional lockup, must be video driver related, right?" I reassure myself that this popping noise is a common occurrence in the event of a lock-up. So I press down on the reset button and that's the end of that... or so I thought.

The computer reboots much like it did 1,486 times before. Only this time I notice one of my Hard Drives had failed to initialise.

"Hmm" I mutter aloud, "Let's go check BIOS to ensure the RAID settings have not reset"... this has happened before, however a few switches here and there and all is right with the world. I mean; it has worked before right?

Nada.

Still no sign of the phantom Hard Drives. Reboot twice, reboot thrice... still no results. Reboot again, Huzzah! We're back in business... only this time, it has managed only to let me know that the HDD has officially failed. The cold yellow text shines back at me "RAID Disk initialization, failed"... would I like to know more?

My fingers hover over Ctrl + G (the now PC equivalent of a salute to the deceased), but I hesitate to push... I feel like I am about to lift the sheet to identify a dead relative...

...sure enough, there is was... 1TB worth of my current and most important video projects... GONE!

The End.


And the worst part... The Australian Broadcasting Commission just agreed to buy one of my video projects to air on National TV for $8,000... and now its all gone!

Here's a list of what was lost:

The 2 hour concert I was editing for the ABC
All the Sydney Flash Mob Footage
Latest Version of my 'Masque' film (mind you, I DO have 2 backups of this thank god)
Other smaller, yet equally as important video projects.

How?...

My 1,000GB RAID-0 hard disk array died yesterday afternoon. For those of you who are like "who raided what now"; basically a RAID array is a method of combining multiple hard drives for increased capacity, performance and reliability. However, the RAID-0 model (which is the one I used) is probably the least stable becuase, despite the increased speed and capacity, if one drive in the array fails, the whole thing goes kaput!

However, I need Raid-0 for increased bandwidth for editing HD video footage. So what's the solution to a potentially unstable RAID-0 array.... backup of course!


So why did I not backup this drive?

1. It's not cheap to backup 1TB worth of Data on a regular basis.

2. I usually don't keep projects on this drive, unless they are currently being worked on, for speed and efficiency... but becuase I've been so busy, I've rarely had time (nor the capacity) to move them off the drive when I am not working on them.

2. I usually do a fill backup of a project after it is finished, however being my 'current projects' drive it was kind of silly to do it that way.

3. Each project is over 300GB in size, thus making the backup process very, very time consuming.

However, in true irony, all of the above expenses are about to be shelled out anyway in order to take the drives to a data recovery lab. I've had some zingers in my computer woes over the years but this has to take the cake as the most consequential of them all. Lets hope these lab guys can recover the data. The good news is, the drives are not totally mechanically dead. They will sometimes show up in windows, and I can see the files... but when I attempt to copy them off it will lock up the machine.

Wish me luck!

-Cub. =o)

After 3 hard drive failures in 2 years I thought I had seen a beacon of hope with the RAID technology...


...only to have it shattered tonight by your horrible misadventure.

I think even Obama can't bring me hope now

Best of luck with the lab though!

Fingers, toes and all other extremities crossed for a safe data recovery!!

Good luck, I hope they can fix you!

Hugs!
Jen

I agree with Jen, I hope you're able to get your Data off it... Machines can be replaced, but the Data we keep on them is another story...

Best Of Luck Cub...

Dude . . . that sucks! I feel your pain brutha. I know exactly what it's like to lose massive amounts of data. ESPECIALLY something that can generate cash. *Shudder* I don't even know if it's recoverable. I don't know much about RAID but all I know is that 0 basically doubles your chances of an F up for little pay off. It was why my business partner avoided it when we went HD. Why did you go that route anyway? Regardless though, best of luck to ya. If it is recoverable you'll have to let me know how you did it in case I ever encounter the same thing down the road.

That was terribly painful to read Cub... all I can think to say is...something I'm not going to say...

I used to use RAID 0 until I had a similar problem. Now all my RAID arrays are of the redundant variety. So if one drive fails I have my ass covered.

Yes, it hurts the speed for which editing occurs. It however saves your data. As you mentioned the data is too large for routine backup. 300GB projects routinely backed up would be a hassle.

I feel for you. Over 90% of my data was saved by the Data Recovery specialist I went to. I'm sure you'll have the same luck.

Harsh lesson to learn about RAID.

I hope it all works out well, Cub. That was rough to read...that's a horrible loss. There are just no guarantees when it comes to hard drives and data.

I also feel your pain this week my 250gb usb drive crashed which held my backup images files.

In fact this week I had 3 different things go, fortunately all under warranty, well I hope they will cover them any way.

I've heard some horror stories in my time, but that one is way up there.

One tip: If you suspect a bad drive and are likely to need data recovery, it's best not to keep trying to access the drive because of the possibility of damaging more data on the disk. Disable the drive immediately and you improve your chances of recovering more data.

By the way, how much are they going to charge you? Data recovery can get pretty expensive.

As someone who recently lost lots of precious data (half a years' worth of priceless pics/vids of my kids) due to mechanical hard drive failure, unrecoverable by data recovery specialists (whom I still had to pay), I feel no small part of your pain. Here's hoping!

Wow 1 Terabyte? That's a lot of memory.

Hahah thanks for the replies and well wishes gang!

The disks are being couriered to the Lab this morning for assessment. The company I have decided to go for is 'Data Detect'. They have a no-recovery, no charge policy which means if after assessment there is no chance of recovery they will not charge me a cent.

After speaking to them on the phone and detailing the circumstances they seem fairly confident that a recovery should be possible, but I will have to wait and see their assessment after analysing the drive.

Will keep everyone posted.

-Cub. =o)

Cubase wrote:The disks are being couriered to the Lab this morning for assessment. The company I have decided to go for is 'Data Detect'. They have a no-recovery, no charge policy which means if after assessment there is no chance of recovery they will not charge me a cent.

Well at least that's a bright side to the tragedy...

Cubase wrote:After speaking to them on the phone and detailing the circumstances they seem fairly confident that a recovery should be possible, but I will have to wait and see their assessment after analysing the drive.

And lets hope this is the outcome...

keep us in the loop about what they find.