Today--my hard drive died

[ali8780]

This morning it was working just fine, and then later I tried to wake it up from standby mode, and it never woke up I took it into the mac store, and was promptly informed that the clicking sound I had heard meant that my hard drive had died (that's the technical term mind you ) and that I would lose anything that I hadn't backed up. Which by the way was everything. Ironically, I had been thinking for the last couple of weeks that I should really back up my hard drive, because my whole life is on my computer!

When I think of all of the pictures of my kids that I will never see again, it makes me sick.

Anyway, my real purpose here was not to complain, but to save my friends from such an awful fate.

So if you haven't done so already, please back up your hard drive, because it comes on fast and without warning. Especially back up your pictures, because those are precious and priceless.

In the mean time, I'll be posting via my husband's laptop...

[Arlen]

I feel your pain. It's a shame it was a Mac. Even terribly corrupted PC hard drives can usually be data rescued.
I hope you have better luck in the future.

For what it's worth, I recently saved a bunch of stuff to my wife's old MP3 player to get more room on my computer. It promptly broke.
My stuff is still safe on there; I just can't get to it.

[CMcG]

The problem with a clicking drive is usually a hardware failure and not simply corrupted. Whether it was running Mac OS, Windows, or Linux, data recovery from a physically broken drive is sometimes possible but usually very expensive!

Regular backup to a couple of different drives is smart and one of them should be stored in a different location than the computer... I had a buddy get his computer stolen, along with the backup drive that was sitting right next to it.

ali8780 I'm sorry for your loss

[Farlander]

Ouch, NOT good!

It may well be possible to recover things without going to overly extreme measures. The clicking sound that you describe may be something truly catastrophic, but surprisingly, often not. I find that I can recover well over half the drives that have the symptoms that you describe. If you have a computer person that you trust, you could have them try recovering the drive with GRC's SpinRite. I do note though that the cost of doing this may well be more than the price of a new drive.

[Rex_Tremende]

Oh, Ali -

I know exactly what you are going through. I went without a personal computer for about three years after my Dell hard drive crashed, and having spent a career in IT, I certainly should have known better than to not back up. There's no way to forget that pit in the stomach feeling when you realize that everything electronic that you valued may be lost for good. I looked into recovery, but I wasn't really willing to spend the $8000 to do it, or the $800 to find out what could actually be recovered. I don't know, but that business seems like a gouge that preys on people's emotions. It may take some time and effort, but you may be able to recover some of your files with what you might have saved to a jump drive, or emailed to people.

Anyway, when I finally replaced me personal stuff with an iMac, I also bought a Time Machine wireless router and back-up system. It was so easy to set up and put into use. I keep it separated from my mac to minimize certain risks, and am even thinking about getting a second one to rotate while I keep the spare in the safe.

Yes, folks, it could happen to *you*, and if you are not backing up, you should start today!

Regards,
Rex.

[NewEnglander]

Gah! Sorry to hear about your Clicking Sound of Doom! That's how we refer to it in my house ever since my girlfriend heard it coming from her Mac and then lost years of photos, music and writing. Two data recovery places couldn't get anything off the hard drive and she's starting all over.
I've been using Mozy, a web-based backup company, for a couple years now. For around $50 a year it automatically backs up your hard drive daily and stores it on their servers. When my hard drive died this past fall I didn't worry (other than the cost of the new machine). I just logged on and downloaded all of my data and I was back up and running.
I know this doesn't help now, but I thought I'd share a way of keeping peace of mind that I use.
Good luck!

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Backing up your hard drive is one of those things that everyone knows they ought to do, but very few of us actually do it regularly. I know I sure don't.

My wife is generally pretty good about at least backing up our pictures. Every couple of months she burns a new CD and we keep those stored in a fire box along with all our other important documents, just in case.

I hate that you lost your pictures, Ali. At least you still have those from your blog. Did you have any online web albums?

[sanddog28]

That truly is one of the worst sounds to hear coming from your computer... so sorry to hear about the crash. While the online backup systems are very convenient just call me paranoid, as I don’t want someone else in control of my data. A good place to start is out using DVD’s to back up pictures and music as its the simplest way and once you schedule them in your backup software and you get the big annoying message on the screen all you have to do is throw in blank DVD’s and off you go. For a few more dollars I would suggest an external backup drive that as long as your computer is powered on the backup runs without you needing to touch anything just be sure to get something larger than your internal drive... Seeing sales lately of external usb drives in the 1TB range for 160 and for around 200 you could get a external 1tb that has raid which is really the best way to go then your back up is backing itself up. As I and my better half are both computer professionals of different flavors we have been down this road quite a few times ourselves, hope this is some helpful info to protect you in the future.

[auld argonian]

Sanddog has the right idea...those "side drives", as we call them in my household, are now WAY cheaper than they once were. Once they were a luxury; now they are a necessity.

I also counsel folks that they ought to seriously consider backing up their data AND OS and replacing the internal drive of the computer at some point...you sort of know that you're living on borrowed time after a while and, again, drives are cheap these days so it ought to be considered a sort of routine maintenance. I usually manage to wrench at least five or six years out of a Mac without any problems. Right now I'm on an eMac that's going on six years old with no hardware problems or crashes ever...so I got that goin' for me, which is nice. I'm about to do a "hard drive transplant" and memory upgrade on this one so I can eke a couple more years out of it.

Hard drive recovery is also less expensive than it used to be but it's still costly.

Whenever you're not sure about backing up your files...especially the photographs...just remember the last words of Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) from Blade Runner...

"...all those memories gone...like tears in the rain..."

Best

AA

[Mael Coluim]

I feel your pain, Ali. A warning to most of us.