T&T: Scrambled Drive

[Mike Maurice]

> Hi Mike,
> 
> It might be interesting for the folks to learn several things about
> your hard drive dilemma:
> 
> 1.) What were the symptoms of the bad drive. 2.) What do you think
> caused it. 3.) What is meant by "external" to Windows.  I guess you
> mean the hard drive was removed from the computer and plugged into a
> USB port via the cable, after booting up on another internal hard
> drive that was already loaded with Windows or other OS. 3.) What
> software you used to unscramble it, and recover the data. (I should
> think having the cable isn't of much use without the means to use it
> via the software!)
> 
> I have had several hard drives fail in the past, with none of the 
> data being recoverable.  This was mainly because the hard drives 
> themselves were either mechanically or electrically, dead.  Years of
> hard work and precious files were lost forever.  Funny thing was, I
> had two duplicate brand drives in the computer, with one being the
> working drive and the other the back-up drive.  The second one, the
> back-up drive, failed shortly after the main drive failed, thus 
> losing everything.
> 
> Almost made me want to go back to using a file drawer and a Rolodex.
> 
> I look forward to your sharing the above info on the forum, and
> thanks for taking the time to do so.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Bob
> 
The drive got scrambled while I was attempting to change the partition 
size with Partition Magic.

There was no mechanical trouble with the drive and it is back in use.
The drive was so scrambled that Windows would NOT boot up with it 
installed on an IDE cable.
I used NTFSreader and TestDisk and Xcopy to recover the files(all free). 
Once I had the drive on the adapter cable, recover was a snap and I got 
about 80% of the files and all the critical stuff without mishap.

Backup is a really hard problem with huge disks and files. If I had to 
define a cheap but usable solution for being at sea I would get the 
adapter cable or one of the "docking stations" that you can just drop a 
drive into and use the cheap refurbished drives as a backup medium.

200 gig drives are available for $40, refurbished but you can buy brand 
new for only about twice as much. I can backup all my critical stuff on 
200 gigs. By the time I need to backup a terabyte such a drive should be 
about $50.

I cannot recall ever having a drive fail from mechanical reasons within 
the past 20 years or more, but I have been careful with the selection of 
manufacturer and I don't turn the machine off very often, certainly not 
every day. I have seen drives that failed, but head crashes are really 
rare these days, it is usually the electronics that get flacky or the 
disk surface.

The best solution is very dependent on your specific situation. Here at 
the house I now backup to a 320 gig drive that is on my networked 
machine. And backup my wifes files to it as well.

For a cruiser, there are two parts to the problem. Recovery from a loss 
of files, which I would prevent by installing an extra, large drive to 
backup to(on an internal cable or using the adapter and USB). And 
secondly recovery from a major disk failure or machine failure. This 
last gets really tricky as you may not be able to reinstall Windows and 
get going while at sea.

Due to the difficulty of recovering while at sea and out of high speed 
internet connections I think the only workable solution is to have a 
second machine and fall back on it.

The details of all this are beyond the scope of this forum. However, the 
general tactics for coping while being in a foreign country or on the 
high seas are peculiar to our forum and are legitimate topics. My 
concern is that the discussion can spiral down into one that is simply 
Windows or Linux or whatever.

Fact is I don't have any easy way to even distribute the pieces of 
software and instructions that would clarify this to the extent that 
someone else could easily follow it while at sea and never having done 
it before. Sometimes, I HATE computers.


Mike

_____________________________________
Capt. Mike Maurice
Tigard Oregon(Near Portland)