Jump to content

Welcome to Geeks to Go - Register now for FREE

Need help with your computer or device? Want to learn new tech skills? You're in the right place!
Geeks to Go is a friendly community of tech experts who can solve any problem you have. Just create a free account and post your question. Our volunteers will reply quickly and guide you through the steps. Don't let tech troubles stop you. Join Geeks to Go now and get the support you need!

How it Works Create Account
Photo

External harddrive lost


  • Please log in to reply

#1
jburd1800

jburd1800

    Member

  • Member
  • PipPip
  • 13 posts
I'm not looking for any help. The reason for this post is to provide some guidance to those using JUST an external drive as a backup.

My son-in-law had 8 years of photos backed up on a Western Digital harddrive. Most we're of his 2 daughters as they grew up. To give you an idea of how many pictures we are talking about, they took 1700 when they we're on a 7 day Disney Cruise last year.
The harddrive crashed about 3 months ago. He had all backed up onto the external and deleted them from his desktop to make more room. The harddrive would show on the desk top but never showed any files. After trying several computers with the same results, he brought the external to me. I removed the hdd from the external case and mounted it into my desktop. It showed nothing.
He ended up taking it in locally and they could see nothing. They sent it to a company in California and after 2 months and $1400 he had 75% of his files back. They told him the problem was in the hardware used in the external, not the disc itself.
We learned a lesson from this. Those precious photos can be backed up on a external harddrive, but also need to be on another media. I have my photos on the desktop, an external drive, and will either put them to disc or mount a 2nd hdd in my computer. Which ever way I go, I'll have double redundancy...........

The sad thing is I've been reading this site for about 2 years. Those that make this site what it is have preached over and over about this same issue, and it took this experience to bring it home for me. I'm a slow learner, but I have learned............ Thank you for what you do.
  • 0

Advertisements


#2
makai

makai

    Portlock - Oahu

  • Member
  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • 2,793 posts
Hello,

Sorry to hear about this. Unfortunate occurrence, no doubt! I'm amazed, (but not really surprised), that the company charged that much money if there wasn't a problem with the disk itself. However, the disk being eight years old, I wouldn't trust it if/when you get it back.

Yah, redundant backups are so necessary but people don't realize it. I have important data stored not only on my desktop, but on two laptops, two external eSata drives, and on DVD... not to mention in Acronis images. For some people this might seem like overkill, and it probably is, but given the outcome if I didn't have these back ups... well... you know what that is first hand!

Thanks for sharing your experience. Now, perhaps, more people might take action and back up their stuff! :)

makai
  • 0






Similar Topics

0 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users

As Featured On:

Microsoft Yahoo BBC MSN PC Magazine Washington Post HP