Consider yourself warned.

[Pando]

One day a few weeks ago my one year old laptop just didn't start up as usual.
I hadn't done anything special that would've caused a possible malfunction and usually I can fix most the cpu related problems myself. But this time a blue screen flashed when the operating system was starting up and then, nothing.
Since I didn't even get into anything else than the boot menu, I thought I might aswell send it to repairs. It was in "repairs" for a few weeks and I was updated about the progress, a possible harddrive malfunction, reason unknown. But I was not to worry, they have means to save what's on the hard drive.

They didn't. I got the computer back today with a new hard drive and lost EVERYTHING I had on it in the process all school work, all work, photographs, 10000+ car pictures, loads of information, notes, reminders, everything.

Why? Probably a short circuit or something. It "shouldn't have happened" they said.
"Never think it could happen to you?" Well neither did I, so I didn't really have any backups or anything. Many times I though about it but, because i was "always updating" and just made sure my cpu stayed virus-free I never burned down anything "irreplacable" on disks. Sucks.

What's the point of this thread? Well hopefully no one else would have to go through this. Don't just use your disks to burn down movies and music. If there is something irreplacable, make sure it's indestructible.

[Guest]

ouch! i keep everything backed up to the schools computers, hich is then backed up every night and the tapes put in a fire-proof safe

[spi-ti-tout]

UCP is here to make sure you get a ****load of pictures again

Welcome back mate

[Pando]

UCP is here to make sure you get a ****load of pictures again

Welcome back mate

Yeah, thanks... I guess the car picture thing wasn't really the biggest problem, but still

[Lagonda]

Couldn't you just reintsall the damn OS without wiping the HD ? If that's even possible with windoze these days ?

Moral of the story: NEVER send in your machine without a backup of your date. 99% chance that they wipe your HD. And make backups anyway.

[Pando]

Well the problem was the HD was broken, and they couldn't retrieve the information.... I specifically told them not to eraze anything and I still have the broken HD with the "information" on it, although I don't think I'm competent enough to do anything with it. Re-installing the OS was the first thing that I tried, but the cpu refused to do it without formating the hd. Windows. :rollseyes: It probably wouldn't've worked anyway.

[BjD]

/me considers myself warned and finishes off my backup script

[RazaBlade]

Mate, been there and had that done. It was the WORST feeling in the world, partly because I lost a lot of irreplaceable and personally memorable photos, and partly because my dad had warned me generally to make backups. Now I have two hardrives, one solely to do a backup on, so if either decides to kick it, will have the other only a week old.
The worst part was I hadnt even done anything when it died, like you said it kept coming up with a blue screen. Thankfully I had one overall backup, but it was 6 months old. Now I try and copy everything weekly, so thats the most that I could miss out on. Just thinking about it again gives me that heavy sinking feeling....

[Matra et Alpine]

who's drive is it ?
Maxtor offer a data-recovery facility for crashed drives.
Third parties around do similar.

BUT it COSTS Do it comes back to how much hurt is there in what you lost

commiserations with you !!!

[magracer]

Same has happened to me quite a number of times, usually because of virus (the cost of using p2p). My solution was to once a month burn everything new, but when the files are huge it can be a long task and gets boring. My new solution was to buy an external HDD, which are cheap now days, and use it as your main storage.

I reckon it's not fool proof but virus usually infects OS files which are onboard while your important stuff is in the external one. Formats of the (main) HDD are a breeze that way.

Even if you are using an external HDD, I recommend burning CDs of your most important files regularly.

[GT F1]

The same thing happened to my dad's laptop. Whenever we turned it on a blue screen came up and then it turned off. We took it for repairs, but luckily we uploaded our pictures into a dvd. They replaced our hard drive, but it always made a weird noise when loading. So we just don't use it anymore.

[Lagonda]

Well the problem was the HD was broken, and they couldn't retrieve the information.... I specifically told them not to eraze anything and I still have the broken HD with the "information" on it, although I don't think I'm competent enough to do anything with it. Re-installing the OS was the first thing that I tried, but the cpu refused to do it without formating the hd. Windows. :rollseyes: It probably wouldn't've worked anyway.

If you have access to a normal desktop PC or a firewire (or USB) enclosure you should try to connect the HD and see if it mounts.

[Vindesh17]

I use my iPod as a HD to backup important stuff only.

[NuclearCrap]

I've never experienced it, but wouldn't partitions of HD help save parts of it?

I like to store stuffs somewhere else just in case.

[tmnt_ppn]

I've never experienced it, but wouldn't partitions of HD help save parts of it?

nope. it happened to me too several years ago. all my HD were partitioned. when a HD fails, both partition fails too.

this thread remind me about that accident... yeah i consider myself warned (again). i'll make backup now...