" I beg you take courage;
the brave soul can mend even disaster."Catherine the Great
This is a tale of a disaster that looks as it may have be rescued. During the process to transfer my files from a smaller external drive to a much larger capacity one, the process crashed. The crash caused the older external drive to cease being recognised by Windows. The files were rendered at the time "lost". After trying various rescue attempts, with the help of my Brother-in-Law at one stage, it looked liked a hopeless case.
Off to the local computer guru, who confirmed it was a hopeless case, unless I chose to go for the forensic lab approach and pay 500-1000 EURO for an attempted but possible useless indepth rescue. No guarantee it would work. I paid the 36 EURO service fee and left, feeling rather despondent as well as weighing up my options. Surrender was not one of them.
Not one to allow something like this to make me more miserable than I already was, as this was the drive that help over 10 years of digital photos among other things, I decided to go for broke. I had nothing to lose, as I had already "lost" as I was told, all the files. Undertaking a little research and testing some software, I found a number of options, including a program called iCare.
Testing the iCare program seems to have paid off for me. The lost drive was recognised as having files and not as a device, which is how it now appears in Windows. Investing in the basic program for a grand total of 70.74 EURO, I am now recovering the files, albeit slowly. It was a gamble, but when I think of the forensic computer lab costs, this is a bargain.
My second option from my research, which was something to consider, if iCare didn't work, was using the ubuntu OS from a DVD to boot my system. Of course, I am hoping that it wouldn't come to that point. According to the forums I explored, ubuntu more often recognises drives that Windows and Mac cease to, when those little and MAJOR (as my case) disasters happen. Maybe the ubuntu solution would have been quicker, but even while this girlie is tech savvy enough for this rescue, I am still struggling with trying to figure out exactly how to boot this OS from a DVD. Studying up on it now.
So even if this solution doesn't work for you, do some research, even if like me you aren't that tech savvy. I won't guarantee you will find a solution for your particular "disaster", but it is worth exploring the options, when the case looks dead in the water. You could save yourself a small fortune to boot.
Off to the local computer guru, who confirmed it was a hopeless case, unless I chose to go for the forensic lab approach and pay 500-1000 EURO for an attempted but possible useless indepth rescue. No guarantee it would work. I paid the 36 EURO service fee and left, feeling rather despondent as well as weighing up my options. Surrender was not one of them.
Not one to allow something like this to make me more miserable than I already was, as this was the drive that help over 10 years of digital photos among other things, I decided to go for broke. I had nothing to lose, as I had already "lost" as I was told, all the files. Undertaking a little research and testing some software, I found a number of options, including a program called iCare.
Testing the iCare program seems to have paid off for me. The lost drive was recognised as having files and not as a device, which is how it now appears in Windows. Investing in the basic program for a grand total of 70.74 EURO, I am now recovering the files, albeit slowly. It was a gamble, but when I think of the forensic computer lab costs, this is a bargain.
My second option from my research, which was something to consider, if iCare didn't work, was using the ubuntu OS from a DVD to boot my system. Of course, I am hoping that it wouldn't come to that point. According to the forums I explored, ubuntu more often recognises drives that Windows and Mac cease to, when those little and MAJOR (as my case) disasters happen. Maybe the ubuntu solution would have been quicker, but even while this girlie is tech savvy enough for this rescue, I am still struggling with trying to figure out exactly how to boot this OS from a DVD. Studying up on it now.
So even if this solution doesn't work for you, do some research, even if like me you aren't that tech savvy. I won't guarantee you will find a solution for your particular "disaster", but it is worth exploring the options, when the case looks dead in the water. You could save yourself a small fortune to boot.
This experience has lead me to the conclusion, I could have remained totally miserable like I was before and after the service check, thinking I had lost precious and sometimes miraculously awesome photos, along with other file types, but I decided to leave no stone unturned. Those files where just too important to me.
Additionally I have decided that another new external drive will happen and the double up of all the files will be the only option for the future. Now if anyone can tell me whether, I can format my "unhappy" crashed external drive to make it recognisable to Windows again, it would be appreciated. :)
On a final note, I CARE, that it seems I can save something so precious as my digital archive of the last 10 plus years. On a small aside, I also care that I am starting to put this poor abandoned blog to use again. Stay tuned for more blogs and photos. You can also catch my more "regular blog" here at The Celestial Poet. I can also be found on Facebook and Twitter under both blog titles.
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