Limited Access
Posted: June 30, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 7 Comments
In other news, my desktop computer is kaput. I’ve ordered a new one (and am writing this from Annie’s old Macbook which has some sort of weird, intermittent video problem where the screen goes all snowy and unresponsive sometimes). Since the HP desktop I had been using was more than 6 years old and not so hot to begin with, I guess it was time, but now I have to engage in the pain-in-the-assery of trying to recover all my data from the old machine — mostly scans of artwork (and some of the artwork I don’t have anymore, so getting the scans is pretty important). I think the hard disk is OK, so I guess when I get the new machine I need to figure out how to set up the old one as an external drive and then just move the files.
Sorry to hear about the dead machine, but external drive kits are dead simple. You can get a kit for ~$40, pop the drive inside, and connect via USB. Just make sure you get a kit with the right HDD connectors (IDE or SATA – some have both). Good luck!
Thanks; I will look into that.
Nuts! I borrowed an external drive kit, hooked it up and was able to open the drive, which appeared to be 100% empty. I guess I will need to get some sort of recovery software and hope for the best.
I'm going to try to be a lot more disciplined in the future in terms of backing up, etc. Theres all kinds of music, photos, text, etc. on the drive I want back — as well as a ton of scans I want back.
Stupid question on my part, but if it's an IDE drive, do you have the master/slave switches set properly? Chances are you do (especially if it was the only HDD in your machine), but worth double-checking.
If the drive is recognized, then worst case scenario is that the file record section of the HDD is corrupt/unreadable. If so, your data may very well be intact – maybe Recuva (http://www.piriform.com/recuva) can get it back.
I think I have a SATA drive… AFAIK that means no switches. At least, there are no switches on the drive that I can see. Have you used 'Recuva'? How does it compare to 'Data Rescue'? (which I have used in the past for the Mac with great satisfaction). I like the idea of saving 50 bucks by using Recuva instead of Data Rescue.
I've had success with Recuva several times. It sorts deleted files by recovery ability (green for near-100% chance, amber for 'meh' chance, and red for 'SOL'), but I've been able to use the 'deep scan' mode in a pinch to recover the occasional red file. Only caveat: best to recover to a different drive, or you risk over-writing fragments of other files you might want to get back.
Good! Thanks for the sound advice.