Hello I'm in the video business and every month I seem to lose a hard drive with valuable info on it . I do back everything up
, but it's time consuming putting it all together again .
Is there a company that sells a set of tools , manuals how to's ? where someone could teach himself ?

Thanks
Jim

Best tool is a good backup. Invest in a raid mirror solution.

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Buy your friends Toshiba\Hitachi and your enemies Seagate.

I've never been big on mirrored RAID arrays. If you get some sort of anomaly in one drive(s) it usually propagates over to the other drive and brings the whole RAID down if it is significant enough. The best solution is always something redundant (a backup of your backup if you will, with the backup devices stored in two different locations). As far as making it easy on you, there is always backup software that will automate the process. The first backup may take a while, but after that it will only backup files that are added or changed. You may look into some sort of cloud storage solution as one form of your backup process, with a local server or storage device as your second backup.

If you loose a drive every month because you drop it, revise the way you treat equipment or buy rugged equipment (I don't think at CNN or on video business they go out with - let's say - a MyBook connected thru USB) made for this purpose (and there is... the trouble is that cost a lot).

If you loose a drive every month because you use 30$ cheap drives, then revise your policy or business model. The more you spend the more you get.

If you loose a drive every month because the problem is in the controller or RAID subsystem or something like that, revise your IT infrastructure or equipment.

If the problem is elsewhere, you need to pay (Ouch !! NOOOO!!) a decent, skilled consultant to analyze the criticities of your equipment / infrastructure / failure incidents and tell you what is the real problem.

Between my customers and contacts, there are broadcast and video production - not "garage level" companies, and for them the downtime or failure is a thing to be avoided AT EVERY COST so - beside the incident that can happen anyway anytime - they ask for auditing , analysis and prevention plan. The eventual data recovery must be "una tantum" (once in a time, for non-latin). Video, audio and broadcast are bad beasts....

Thanks for the insight but that's the budget 1 computer attached to 20 sata hard drives thats' it no raid or mirrors ,
We're using seagate sata drives .
back to original post ......are there any tools or books to read to help me once in awhile retrieve data from a failed disk not a dropped disk or thrown against the wall disk just the standard clicking sound .dead drive

thanks

Clikcing sound can be caused by many reasons.
The only safe way is the proper diagnose wich need professional and expensive equipments.
This is why you need to decide in these 2 options:
1. pay for a professional service
2. you want to learn(spend endless time with hard night googling, and reading)/experience/have fun with may attempts but you have almost 0 % chance for success in the first some hundred drives.

This is your decision.

Janos

results-the-yourself-solutions-t11912.html

(read this)

How do the pros do it ? Where do you buy this expensive equipment ? I'm rich ...
Do you have a list of companies that sell such expensive products

jim

Are you sure you are rich ?

Jim,

Perhaps your money would be better spent investing in a local data recovery lab who already has the tools and years of experience needed to successfully recover the data from these drives.

_________________
Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

agree with Luke.

Anyway, you can check Acelab for tools, and some info, but this is only the top of the ICE....

Janos

So basically all of you clowns are data recovery specialists or companies who don't wanna share any secrets
with their competition, I'll figure it out .. how hard can it be

You're basically showing up at the auto mechanic and saying "hey, every time I put sugar in the gasoline tank my engine breaks. can you teach me for free how to fix it when that happens?" and the mechanic is saying "hmm, maybe you should stop putting sugar in the gasoline" and then you're getting upset. Have fun with that.

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

No comment.

Don't you wanna go and do human operating, because you have ever a knife in your hands?
If you know anything, why asking here?
Have a fun, and render your drives to unrecoverable alone...

Janos

Like pepe post some years ago " where can i buy years of experience ..." ?

He will find the place after years of experience too

Jim, I am lost on a couple of points.

1: (quote)Thanks for the insight but that's the budget 1 computer attached to 20 sata hard drives thats' it no raid or mirrors ,

2:(quote)Where do you buy this expensive equipment ? I'm rich ...

You say your budget seems low (as you have no raid) But you then say you are rich

Prevention is better than cure and I would say unless you want to take up data recovery as a job it is better to invest in a proper backup/mirror solution. Data Recovery is not a nice job, it can be anoying, you can waste hours on one drive and it will still fail....

I would also say bin the Seagates and go for a WD RE2 type drive
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I would rather go into the video business On another subject:-

What kit and setup are you using? Can you point me to any good suppliers of the kit you use along with models of HD Camera, software etc?

Thanks

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All went well until I plugged the drive in.

If you're going to spend in excess of 20k and the rest to repair your failing drives why not spent 10k on a decent raid 6 hotswap storage device instead? Prenention is better than cure

You already joined the clown club then :



And then the masterpieces (from seagate-1tb-noise-and-not-recognizable-heeeelp-please-t13634.html)



With the last drop of respect remaining, DON'T SHIT WHERE YOU EAT as you could get (with some humbleness, I think now it's too late) some info about the industry standard tools used for DIAGNOSE and eventually access to data, and don't pretend. The pros here are all adult and we have something more interesting to do rather than answering to forum troublemakers and being pissed off for free. I suggest you to go to some russian forums with the same attitude, you'll miss this "stupid" forum badly in a microsecond.

P.S. as I have "some" experience on broadcast and co. , would you please tell us how could you edit MAJOR MOVIES with a single PC (and being on a tight budget, also).
The simplest decent video editing station used on BROADCAST (not a garage TV, I mean FULL broadcast so we are not talking about cinema format (MAJOR MOVIES....) that has 100 times requirement for band, power and storage) - was a little monster of technology and didn't use common 30$ SATA drives. Hope that some sense was lost during translation when you posted

P.P.S.

I still don't get why the need to edit porn... you can start watching it at every point or in a random sequence of the scenes, I don't see "that" difference... LOL

I don't know about others, but I get insulted when someone says the types of things we hear all of the time. Why I get insulted? Because I spend years, nights and many many weekends (almost 7 years now I study DR) and still I struggle daily to solve many cases. I spend as much money as some people spend for a house of several vehicles on equipment, cleanroom, etc. I have a strong background in Chemical and Computer Engineering with degree. I work with PhD computer scientist (partner) and we struggle. We love Data Recovery BECAUSE it is the MOST CHALLENGING thing we ever did before. Very interesting, very complex on different levels. It is a passionate love affair. I have strong electronics, and mechanics and computer background. I have very good coordination, dexterity, etc., yet I struggle sometimes. I feel some surgeries in the hospital are easier than my work at times.... Then, someone treats my job like a joke. Like it is some trivial and easy thing.

surely, there are some easy cases. TVS, or simple Seagate FW issue....but most jobs require head and/or platter transplants, and more. At any rate, I feel there is a lack of respect for what is actually required and done. I surely would not go into another forum for an equally complex field of study and say such things. It would also be much like going to a famous musician's concert(o) and thinking I could just learn it easily and next day I could sing and play all the instruments...then ask WHY NOT? Surely if you can sing it and play it, so can I , right?

I have seen very smart people that cannot do heads swaps....only because their hands shake too much from smoking too much....sad...but true...there is much more required than just intellect or just mechanical skills...also, it is too much to explain in a forum.

ANyone who is SERIOUSLY interested, I can offer you a Laminar Flow Bench from Baker and some platter exchangers and some read/write head tools, etc. to get you started. Then, you can buy your own PC-3000 UDMA, SD tools, etc. This would prove your interest and your would have many manuals to read and study and all the tech support you need/want. That would be my recommendation.