sbgrace Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 (edited) We had a hard drive crash. I lost my self created lesson plans for this year and lots of other "stuff". But, most horrible, I lost pictures. We made back ups of all pictures until November of 2009 and then back ups from December of 2010 to present. So I'm missing a year. I have no idea how/why but we just didn't back them up I guess. That would include Christmas 2009 and birthday 2009. I think family very likely have pictures of the birthday and we'll have family events from Christmas but not our "at home" pictures opening presents here. I've got vacation pictures from that year because we forgot our camera and used a disposable and they are on CD. I don't know what else would have been taken that year because I wasn't great about day to day pictures. We've got two rough quotes to get the files off the hard drive which apparently requires a "clean room" and high tech stuff. One was $1200 and the other estimated $600 to $1000. Neither will know for sure how much until they figure out how complicated/long it's likely to take. We're going to call a few other places but I expect that $600 to $1000 to be the least expensive. Would you pay that much for a year's photos?? I'm so sad about this and feel like an idiot for not being more careful about backing things up. Edited January 6, 2012 by sbgrace Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bang!Zoom! Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 That is highly unreasonable. Highly. Call the local college or on craigslist. It's just hooking up one computer to another is all and transferring files over. Takes about a half hour. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cjzimmer1 Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 For a year's worth of pictures, no I wouldn't but then again I only take maybe 15-20 pictures a year. On the other hand, I likely WOULD spend the money to retrieve lessons plans because for me that would be hours if not weeks worth of work to recreate and retype. All that is assuming I had the money to spend. If we were living paycheck to paycheck or my husband had an unstable job, even then I might have to say no. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cjzimmer1 Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 That is highly unreasonable. Highly. Call the local college or on craigslist. It's just hooking up one computer to another is all and transferring files over. Takes about a half hour. Not necessarily. There are different types of hard drive crashes. Yes some can just be hooked up and copied over, but other types require opening the drive and removing the inner disk. That is what requires the clean static free environment and the big bucks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joannqn Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 Sometimes it is possible for a knowledgeable person to get information off a crashed hard drive without that kind of money. It involves opening up the case to get to the actual drive inside and a few other tricks that sometimes work. DH recently looked at a hard drive for someone who lost several years worth of photos. Dh evaluated for free and would have charge a couple hundred, at the most, if he was successful. It was the worst case he's seen, and he wasn't able to get anything off it. Based on the condition of the hard drive, he was able to save her $1500 because he knew those guys wouldn't be able to get it either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joannqn Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 Not necessarily. There are different types of hard drive crashes. Yes some can just be hooked up and copied over, but other types require opening the drive and removing the inner disk. That is what requires the clean static free environment and the big bucks. And even that doesn't always work if the drive is in bad enough condition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tex-mex Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 (edited) Long story, but had 2 PCs crash and die on us -- one in 2008 and the other one this past summer. Lost a lot of info, lesson plans, homeschooling files, business, and photos also. Never did recover them. However, nowadays, with our Mac we BACKUP all data onto sticks and Apple Time Machine. I do not trust computers to permanently save files or photos. Edited January 6, 2012 by tex-mex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LND1218 Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 I had this happen with my computer. 2 computer guys told me it was hopeless without a lot of $$. Neither of them could do it, so they weren't trying to sell me anything. I found a way (thank you Google!) to run a free program and retrieve all the data. Try looking on line for solutions before you spend the money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sara in AZ Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 Perhaps it is embarrassing to admit this....but a few years back we paid DataDoctors $2000 to retrieve info off of our dead hard drive, mostly for the photos. I think it was worth it. I can't remember exactly, but I think it was several years worth of photos. We are better about backing up now. ;) Such a crummy thing to have happen. So sorry!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mama Geek Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 Are you sure the hard drive is fried as opposed to problems with the motherboard or something else. I spilled tea on our old mac and was told by Mac's tech support there was nothing they could do. We bought a hard drive case and then removed the hard drive from the old Mac, put it in the case and hooked it up to the new Mac. All of our files transferred over and we now have a spare hard drive. The motherboard was fried not the hard drive. The case cost about 20 dollars. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
praisefor3 Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 I know this doesn't help much this time but for next time...I love love love Carbonite. Losing my pics was always one of my greatest fears. Even with a computer programmer dh we never backed up like we should have. We've had Carbonite for 3 years ($55 a year or something like that) and I love the peace of mind it gives me. I haven't had a hard drive crash since getting it but when we bought a new computer it transfered all my files from the old computer to the new one very easily so that was nice. I'm sure there are other similar programs out there but this is the only one with which I have any personal experience. For me the annual cost with daily backup is well worth it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
olan719 Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 Our hard drive crashed about a year ago. We used the Geek Squad Services at Best Buy. It cost about $150 to retrieve the data on my computer which included photos, documents, downloads, music, etc. I think it's worth checking them out. I agree with others that the cost you were quoted is very high, but your hard drive problem may be more in-depth. Good luck! I know how sad you feel. I was willing to pay more than I did to get my pics back. I am much better at backing up now, and am looking into online data storage as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thescrappyhomeschooler Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 I had an external hard drive on my old computer with all my photos. I knocked it over and it literally "crashed". I had similar estimates, and chose not to get the photos. I was pretty upset about it for quite a while, but time does heal most wounds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tigger Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 We've got two rough quotes to get the files off the hard drive which apparently requires a "clean room" and high tech stuff. One was $1200 and the other estimated $600 to $1000. Neither will know for sure how much until they figure out how complicated/long it's likely to take. We're going to call a few other places but I expect that $600 to $1000 to be the least expensive. Those numbers are outrageous and way over the top - I recently had a total hard drive failure with a number of the platters stuck to each other (complicates getting the data off those) and thought the $175 I had to pay was a lot.....and for mine it took days to retrieve the data (a machine doing a lot of the work once hooked up to it). They couldn't get all of my documents and stuff, but were able to get all my pictures, which was the reason I had to retrieve data. Now I back-up routinely! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LMA Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 What kind of hard disk problem? My external hard drive did not spin up anymore and I had important work docs on it. For that type of problem, I put the disk in the freezer (I have a freezer at 0 degrees) overnight and then the disk worked. I was able to get my stuff off. I got this tip off a website. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Night Elf Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 No, I wouldn't pay that much. But I should admit that pictures aren't that important to us. I would be much more upset at losing school stuff. But thanks for the reminder to back up our computers. I haven't done it in a couple of months and it would be a nightmare to lose all of that and have to do it all again. Yikes! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KS_ Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 That is highly unreasonable. Highly. Call the local college or on craigslist. It's just hooking up one computer to another is all and transferring files over. Takes about a half hour. I agree. My dh does this for people and we'd be rich if he charged that much - lol. He has a friends and family rate and charges a very reasonable per hour fee. If the harddrive has completely failed, there is a trick to put it in the freezer for a period of time (Google it and see what you find) - but I think it's very rare that he isn't able to recover stuff off the harddrives he's given. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LMA Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 I agree. My dh does this for people and we'd be rich if he charged that much - lol. He has a friends and family rate and charges a very reasonable per hour fee. If the harddrive has completely failed, there is a trick to put it in the freezer for a period of time (Google it and see what you find) - but I think it's very rare that he isn't able to recover stuff off the harddrives he's given. I did the freezer trick (see my previous post) first before calling for people to get the stuff off the disk and it worked. You have to plug in the hard drive and get the stuff off fast before the disk starts to thaw. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sbgrace Posted January 6, 2012 Author Share Posted January 6, 2012 I hadn't heard of the freezer thing. This is an external hard drive. It made clicking sounds and then when my husband powered down and tried to restart it won't spin up or do anything. We let it rest and tried again multiple times--nothing. Huh. How do I get a freezer to 0 and will it hurt the food in there? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kari C in SC Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 My mom paid $80 to retrieve photos once. I have no idea how involved it was. If I had to pay it after a few opinions - I would pay it. The photos are priceless to me. Now I want to go get a second external hard drive to back up my external hard drive. Or maybe I should upload my entire external hard drive to my unlimited photobucket account. This so stresses me out - the thought of losing pictures. Ugh! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ananda Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 Our data drive died about a year ago, without warning. It was our newest, nicest drive which is why it had the honor of holding the "data." We lost almost everything: our engagement photos, all of the photos & video we had taken since we had gotten married including those of the first year of my only child's life, all of the papers & programming projects we had from college. It was devastating. We looked into data recovery, but the quotes we received were impossible for us to justify. Both my husband and I are still discovering things that are gone forever, but many things we got back. We got a ton of baby pictures from grandparents & aunts. We also were able to retrieve a bunch from data cards & thumb drives. We had paper copies of many of our most of our financial information. So, short answer no, I wouldn't pay to retrieve the photos. Especially considering you can pay all that money and still not have your photos. Instead I suggest asking other people what they might be able to share with you from that time period. I am truly sorry for your loss. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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