Back up your hard drive

[Guest]

Last month my external iTunes library raid drive failed. i honestly thought this was the safest way to store my music library. Well I was wrong and now in the process of recopying 3000 CD's back onto a 'normal hard drive' with 3 extra backups. The only consolation is that my new library will be in lossless and have all the artwork. I am missing a lot of favourite proms recordings from the past 7 years, if anyone can help?

Also can anyone tell me the contents of BBC MM102 disc from the BBC music magazine? This is is the only disc I don't have.

[cloughie]

BRUCKNER:Sym 9 BBCPO Klee

[Dave2002]

Msg 1 - Commiserations. Are you sure the drive(s) are irrecoverable? Worth checking maybe, though probably not worth spending thousands on.

My own CD ripping has slowed up a lot recently, and actually seems less important now I have quite a number of box sets, which at least have an acceptable storage density. I may start again soon, if I have more time, and at least it's worth having some CDs ripped for the ease of access and choice. I'm not sure that I particularly want to rip everything I've got anyway. Perhaps a selective and organised approach would make more sense.

It is amazing how much one can get on a small drive - but it can all "go up in smoke" very quickly.

[amateur51]

BRUCKNER:Sym 9 BBCPO Klee

Are you auditioning for "Rain Man: The Musical", cloughie?

[MrGongGong]

Surely if it's a "raid array" then it will have 2 drives rather than one ?
All drives will fail eventually
the "problem" these days is that 1tb and up drives are so cheap that it's easy to
get seduced by the massive storage
then loose everything

but if it really is precious it probably IS recoverable but possibly expensive to do so

good luck

[Dave2002]

Is it possible even to "see" the drive? if so, then take a bit copy to another drive and use a tool such as Recuva to scan looking for useful fragments.

PS: I have read some strange, possibly silly things, to do with a "dead drive". One was to put it in the fridge for a while - maybe even a freezer, then as soon as it comes out of cold storage copy everything off to another good drive. The idea is to assume that it's going to be difficult and unreliable to repeatedly get the data off the failing drive, but you only need to get one reasonably good copy by whatever means possible to then be able to extract the files.

[Spatny]

BRUCKNER:Sym 9 BBCPO Klee

Hi many thanks for this. Just found one on eBay.

My raid had 4 drives and 2 failed in very quick succession. LaCie will only replace the drives and are not interested in any data recovery. I tried the fridge technique without success. I have spent many hours trying to rebuild the raid. I have had quotes of over £2000 for a data recovery, but if the drives don't spin or even seen when connected to a USB port, I think I will be wasting my money

[MrGongGong]

You are probably right
but surely if there are 4 drives they should be backups of each other ?
I've had dodgy LaCie drives before , they look pretty but aren't as stable as one would like
you could work out how many hours you think it will take and get a teenage geekwizard to do it ?

[amateur51]

You are probably right
but surely if there are 4 drives they should be backups of each other ?
I've had dodgy LaCie drives before , they look pretty but aren't as stable as one would like
you could work out how many hours you think it will take and get a teenage geekwizard to do it ?

There's an employment niche if ever I heard one

[Dave2002]

Hi many thanks for this. Just found one on eBay.

My raid had 4 drives and 2 failed in very quick succession. LaCie will only replace the drives and are not interested in any data recovery. I tried the fridge technique without success. I have spent many hours trying to rebuild the raid. I have had quotes of over £2000 for a data recovery, but if the drives don't spin or even seen when connected to a USB port, I think I will be wasting my money

Sounds like you've maybe tried all the obvious things. Presumably that also included testing each individual drive out with one of those caddy style units or enclosures which you can get at outlets such as Maplin? Usually these make a raw drive look like a USB drive. Maybe even better would be to try the drives directly inside a computer, with a direct bus connection.

Shame that you've not had much luck so far.

[french frank]

I've had dodgy LaCie drives before

Likewise. They replaced it under the guarantee but I didn't need any data recovery as I had a separate backup, and nothing on the LaCie that wasn't still on the computer anyway. Now, away to back up on my cheapo WD external...

[Padraig]

Now, away to back up on my cheapo WD external...

I feel a hit musical coming on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn0LuZaQ07A

[Flosshilde]

I always knew there is a good reason to stick (not literally) to CDs.

[amateur51]

I always knew there is a good reason to stick (not literally) to CDs.

[french frank]

I feel a hit musical coming on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn0LuZaQ07A

Or even a soliloquy:

If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well
It were done quickly.

It has been done ...