10 Years Of Work...Up In Smoke.

Suffice to say I would recommend that all internet/design/writing/computer-literate people spend a moment, and a few bucks and back up their drive. I would further suggest asking yourself the following list of questions. I will answer them here, but please play along at home.

1) My hard drive capacity is? // Well, mine is a 250GB....that's a lot but it's only 1/4th full.

2) Are there things on my hard drive that I find important to have, like photos, emails, work etc? // Well, let's see....I work in the internet and design. I don't remember the last time I didn't use a computer for anything I do outside of eating, pooping and lovin...so yeah, I'd say there are some important files on the computer that I would like to maintain.

3) When was the last time you backed up your drive? // Hmm...well I would say several weeks ago. But I back up regularly.

If you answers were similar to mine, then you are in good stead. You know what you want, and you know what you need to do...now do it!

My cautionary tale is one of sweat, tears and overall calm, all at the same time.

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It was a Friday like any other. Humid, but nothing to complain over. I decided to run out to get a bite to eat. So I put my favorite backup up program to task and had it start a full back up of my internal hard drive. Nothing new.

When I returned half an hour later, it seems that my software had had an error in the duplicating process. Due to the specifics of my duping software, the destination drive was, for all intensive purposes, blank. So I repaired my permissions and started again. -- Again....error.

Thinking this was a software issue, I downloaded another recommended piece of backup software and began running it. It ran for 30 minutes and then stalled....stalled and stalled some more. I decided to force quit it. Mistake? I don't know. Three weeks later...I still don't know.

Things were running sluggish at this point, so I decide to reboot. Mistake? I'm not sure. Three weeks later, I'm still not sure.

Apple comes up. Spinny things a'spinnin. But nothing. Spin Spin Spin....nothing. The disk won't mount. F@#k.

Fortunately I have a copy of OS 10.4 in my cupboard. I bust that sh!t out and enter Disk Utility. I see the drive, and I begin to repair. Error after error, red line after read line. Keys out of order. Catalogue B-Tree Error - drive cannot be repaired. F@#k.

Now, for some strange reason, the drive is grayed out in Disk Utility. Double F@#k.

On top of that, as I mentioned earlier, the destination drive was basically blank, but mountable. So, I erase and install a system on it. Mistake? I'm pretty sure it was, but it's spilt milk now.

I boot up from that disk and try again to repair the unmountable internal drive. Nothing. F@#k.

Well, where do I go from here? Data Recovery.

Data Recovery is an expensive service, and the cost goes by the size of the drive, not necessarily the amount of data on said drive. So for me, I'm about to break the bank.

TekServe is New York's premier Mac shop and they offer non-evasive data recovery. Their deal is pretty good. If they get it back, you pay, if not, you don't. Can't really go wrong there.

I bring it in. They ask a bunch of questions -- drive contents, important folders, what have you. I give them all the 411 I can think of, and put down my 100% deposit. That's $1700 up front! A few days later a client, who is concerned about his files puts the scare into me and I go back to TekServe to put wings on that order. Another $650 and they are on their way.

So instead of waiting until Saturday to find out I'm f@#ked, I found out on Thursday that I was, in fact, f@#ked.

Double fortunate for me is that I'm not even in town so I can't pick up the drive. It just sits on a shelf. When I go to pick it up, TekServe informs me that the clicking I heard is a mechanical problem and my last chance is a company in California - Drive Savers.

I should say that I called Drive Savers before I brought the drive into TekServe, however, Drive Savers deal on no-results isn't as good, so I had nothing to lose with TekServe. Drive Savers did say however that Disk Warrior, which I have left running for over 20 hours was doing more damage than good on my drive. So that information was helpful, albeit a bit late.

Drive Savers give me a quote - $2700 for a 5-7 day turnaround. If they get nothing it would be $500. Luckily, TekServe gave me a coupon code for 20% off. Yatzee!

Three days later, after FedExing my drive and a destination drive, I get the call. I'm thinking I'm f@#ked times 3.

The Drive is Dead. Long Live The Drive.

Drive Savers takes the platters out of the drive, gets the data off them and returns the drive as I sent it. And they did that. In spades. I got a 99% data recovery, and with my discount, it came to $2200 shipped.

Well worth 10 years of work, wouldn't you say?

Crisis averted. Clients calmed. Sleep returned. It was a good day.

To avert this problem in the future, here's what I'm doing. It might be overkill, but f@#kit.

1) I'm running a RAID Array 1 in my CPU with two Hitachi 250 Drives [Thanks Eusuf and Brian]
2) I'm Backing up using Dantz Retrospect every other day.
3) I'm burning dead and long running client projects to DVD.
4) I'm going to house an outside back up once a month in case of acts of G_d on my apartment. [Thanks Stephen]

I know it can't be bullet proof, but I'd like to make my digital life as bullet resistant as possible. You should too.

P.S. Pardon any typos. I'm exhausted.

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