EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEk

Dell Laptop Bad
2nd massive hard drive failure in < 1 yr
bsod
diagnostics dst short ststus test failed error code 1000-0142
data go byby
me jump from bridge

Poor guy… I feel ya
Now THAT’s why I own a USB external drive (1 gig) for all I really don’t wanna lose

once bitten twice shy…twice bitten really pissed. How much should I expect to pay for 1gb usb ext?

Expect to pay like 70$.
Seriously depends, though.
But It’s saved my butt twice already :smiley:
And it sucks having to rewrite a book, believe me

You can get a 1GB usb device for about ÂŁ30-40, you can get external 200GB harddrives for about ÂŁ70-100 (Depending).

I feel for you, I had a harddrive that the reader head broke but was still workable but screwed up my data slowly but surely, that even my backups where screwed. :frowning:

If you have a bunch of files u wanna keeps but don’t change it alot then I suggest a temporary solution to burn the files into to a CD. I’m prepping my computer to dualboot window and ubuntu soon so I went and deleted all of the crap last night (reduced my personal files from 7.09 GB to 484 MB 0_0 I had no Idea that I had that much junks on my computer!). Then sorted the files I wanna to keep into one folder then finally burn that folder to a CD. I’ve used it to burn several stuffs like 2 naruto movie I have saved and a bunch of family pictures and stuffs.

Just a idea for basic files save.

What kind of hard drive failure? Depending on the cause, it’s been known that putting a hard drive in the freezer, inside a sealed, platic bag of course for a day or so… Then letting it “defrost” and pluging it back in actuall works…

Which is shortly followed with backing the data up like a whore :slight_smile:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820609009

People should never rely on Hard drives or even USB drives for critical back ups. These are volatile media that degrade and can produce faults at any time. The only reliable solution is CD/DVD. If you don’t want to constantly burn discs, get a RW disc.

I personally have an internal drive, an external Firewire hard drive that has a clone of my internal drive so I can boot from it in the event of a failure and I back up to DVD every week or so.

DVDs and extra hard drives are dirt cheap these days. You can get a DVD-RW drive for ÂŁ20, discs for 20-30 pence each and 250GB external HDs for about ÂŁ80.

I wouldn’t say they were that reliable. Their surface can degrade over time (scratches etc), certain types (cheap ones where the writable part is like a film ontop of the plastic disk rather than a metal disk incased in plastic) can easily be ruined by water, and of course, scratches which cant be reversed like the other type ^…

I also find that CDs/DVDs often wont burn properly especially at high speeds, fastest usally bein the defult. I know linux iso are one thing that usally get messed up from writting at high speeds instead of x1 so you have to spend x50 time longer to burn things and be somewhat guaranteed it burns…

If you go anywhere these days though, where they do alot of backing up. Say datacenters (pick any real webhost i.e. ones that have their own data center) and they will tell you they back up with a Tape medium. When I went to the university of bristol, this is what they used.

You can actually buy back up drives and basically, it can read those types of tapes :slight_smile: but I’ve yet to seen anything else sold as a “back up” device. Not CDs, not hard drives. I know hard drive are used to back up, but I believe the tapes are supposed to be really reliable.

Thanks Everyone,

I had a dual boot at one time on my laptop, but I rely so much on sw not ported to linux, and that I payed for. I stopped using linux (suse) after my first hard drive failure. Dell sent a travelstar as a replacement the first time, I will wait to see what they send the second time. So far, I think the product sucks a little, but honestly their support was very good.

In any case, I will surely come up with a viable backup option, and I’m sure it will involve 1) a usb external drive and 2) another os (Suse for dual boot so I will at least have some hope for data recovery.

Never heard of the freezer trick, but hey, if I aint gonna get the data anyway what do I care if its frozen, deep fried or microwaved.

Thanks again!!!

Holy cow, that thing is cheap! I’m getting one next chance I get. osxrules, CDs actually do degrade over time as well. It’s called CD rot.

OBI_Ron, too bad RAID arrays don’t work in laptops…

It Might void any guarantee if any damage is noticed from doing it, which is why putting it in a sealed plastic bag is important to stop it damaging the device from water when you thaw it out… If the guarantee /warranty is gone then yes, who cares…

Flash drives are ok for transporting files. I wouldnt trust them as a back up medium… The high end ones have an extream low write capability (especially compared to hard drives), so the cheap ones have half to less than that…

Now, their life are prolonged by writing files to differernt sectors, equalising the ammount each sector gets written to - but in the end, if you doing a lot of backing up you will probabily be dissapointed with flash mediums as they are pretty much guaranteed to die before your hard drive assuming equal use.

yeah CDRs and DVDRs are not the way to go either. really, I keep everything in multiple external NOT FLASH hard drives. that way even if two fail you can still recover data from at LEAST one of them. you can get deleted files off damaged drives, burned drives etc after almost any drive crashes. for a price at least (could be over $2000). but at least it’s there. flash is unpredictable and DVDs only last 10-15 years, less if you got a shitty brand.

I am positive you can find such drives for $50 to $100 US of maybe 60 or 80 gigs. google froogle is good for that stuff

Ok sure, CDs/DVDs wear out but as mentioned, we are talking over the course of quite a number of years. How many years do you think a hard drive lasts? The average is 3-5 years.

CDs/DVDs are affected by water -> hard drives even more so.
CDs/DVDs are affected by scratches -> try dropping a hard drive.

What I’m saying is that weighing up the options, I’d say that CDs/DVDs, though not perfect are currently the most reliable form of cheap storage. Tape drives are way too slow and the ribbon can snap. Industrial ones are probably better but >£1000.

Another good thing about CDs/DVDs is you never run out of storage, you buy another disc for about 30 pence.

They are also the cheapest:

250GB HD ~ ÂŁ80
250GB DVD = 250/4.4 = 57 discs @ 30 pence ~ ÂŁ20

Using multiple hard drives is a good idea but just to be safe, I use both options. I also burn all my DVDs at 4x and CDs at 24x just to be safe.

Depends really. I have a 7-8 year (i think) old hard drive (6GB) that still works perfectly fine. Of couse, one of the reasons it probabily still works is the fact that its not in use all the time, thus as a back-up medium I would say their life expentancy is a lot higher than that due to the low access.

CDs/DVDs are affected by water -> hard drives even more so.
CDs/DVDs are affected by scratches -> try dropping a hard drive.
Hard drive’s electronics are affected by water - however I am unsure wether or not the actuall disk holding the data is affected by water. Additionally, water kills cheap CDs cause it get under the foil and bubles it off and it can just be a small spill or some damp. I would say a better argument would be “put a magnet near it” :wink:

Now, My PC used to be water cooled and yeh it leaked, it leaked on my CD drive and on my hardrives. They both still work perfectly because the housing offers quite good protection. Of course, not fool proof and the electronics can even survive being damp for quite a while because it wont necessarily corrode it all away.

As to dropping hard drives, I have a minture HD (20GB) in a mp3 player… Guess how many time ive droppde it, thrown in and god-knows-what-it.

Of course your points are valid, but I would say hard drives are a little more hardwearing than you make out.

What I’m saying is that weighing up the options, I’d say that CDs/DVDs, though not perfect are currently the most reliable form of cheap storage. Tape drives are way too slow and the ribbon can snap. Industrial ones are probably better but >£1000.
The ones used for backup are supposed to be very reliable. And as a backup means, it doesnt have to be perticularily fast… To back up alot of data onto a fast CD takes up alot of processing… So nice and slow is good because you don’t bomb out the server backing up 200GB of data and have it crash on you.

The uni does dayily backups with them. They shove erm in and leave it and then tomorrow they take it out and replace it with a differernt one and I dont think their “that” slow… but cause data is constantly being added to the server I think they leave it in to constantly write to it…

Another good thing about CDs/DVDs is you never run out of storage, you buy another disc for about 30 pence.
but cheap one have low ammounts of space plus they cant be written to multiple times. A backup tape cost’s a fair bit but their GB’s big and can be written to for years.

They are also the cheapest:

250GB HD ~ ÂŁ80
250GB DVD = 250/4.4 = 57 discs @ 30 pence ~ ÂŁ20

Using multiple hard drives is a good idea but just to be safe, I use both options. I also burn all my DVDs at 4x and CDs at 24x just to be safe.
As i said ealier, you can’t rewrite to as many times. So the cost of CD’s mount up fast. and say the data is bigger than 4.4gb? you have to somehow split the data up whereas a harddrive can keep it all rather native…

I personally back up data on CD… But i also know that having them around in my room ment they’ve got scratched up so ive actually burn them multiple times and i have 3 disk with the same data one. And whats more of a waste, say I burn 1GB of data on a 4GB disk? Ive just wasted 3GB!

oh btw, where an you get 4.4gb sized disks for 30pence? ^^

He might mean if you buy a set of 10-20 dvds, because usually buying in bulk is cheaper per item.

Hello Everyone,

All valid points, and I will give them all due considerations.

I had a woodshop teacher in high school that gave the best piece of advice ever.

“You must learn from the mistakes of others, you wont live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Bottom line here is that any backup strategy is better than none. So, if you haven’t already learned this lesson from someone else, please learn it from me!

Thanks to all!

OMG,

I just thawed it out and its starting to work. Backing up now, will reply with results!!

Hello Everyone,

It is I OBI_Ron, coming to you via a laptop that was bought back from the dead. Yes indeed…I removed the hard drive, then removed it from its case, put in a plastic sandwich bag and into the freezer for 1 hour. I removed it, and let it sit for about 1/2 half hour, then re-installed and…

IT REALLY WORKS!!!

I am furiously backing up to cd as we type, and am forulating a strategy to recover from this type of event without household appliances and / or jumping off bridges.

lukus - Thanks dude!!!