My computer is dead. I have lost everything.

[Taxloss]

I am extremely upset.

My book was lost; I can retrieve earlier drafts from emails to my agent and the laptop I am now using, but a lot is gone. I've suffered that kind of loss before and lived.

But all my research is gone. Again, these things happen. I will survive.

What really hurts is the loss of the personality that my computer seemed to be; the loss of all my internet bookmarks, digital photographs, funny thing from the internet, saved computer games, bookmarked DU threads. I think of the time it will take to restore everything, re-install everything. And I know it is stupid and materialist and so on, but I genuinely feel like I want to cry.

[BlondieK143]

1. I am so sorry!

I can't imagine! That sucks sooo bad! :hug:

[ET Awful]

2. Dead in what way?

The data may very well be recoverable. What exactly happened?

[Taxloss]

4. Well, I turned it off on Sunday night and then turned it on on Monday

morning. The fan started, but nothing else happened. No boot beep, no sounds of hard drive activity. Just the fan. I tried again, the same happened, I unplugged it, left it for half an hour while I had a cup of coffee, and then tried again.

Nothing. The whirring fan beat the flames of total panic.

I tired again.

By lunchtime, I was a gibbering wreck. I am careful with computers. I have virus protection up to the eyeballs. I know about spyware, and have programs to remove it. I called my wife-to-be, whose brother runs tech support for a large company, and asked her to ask him to come round.

At 7pm he arrived, and we dismantled the computer. Result - motherboard fried, and hard drive possibly retrievable.

So we take the harddrive round to his (£9/$18 taxi fare), and he hooks it up in another enclosure. Nothing happens. Even when powered, not a sound emerges.

Long story short: It could probably have the data pulled off it by a professional firm if they remove the Hard disk itself from the drive casing and place it in another drive. That will cost, at a minimum, £250 (c. $450) and possibly £600 (c. $1100).

I can't afford that, especially since I now need to buy a new computer.

[GCP]

3. There's software which can help you recover lost data and files

I don't know much, but others on this board do. Don't do anything yet, wait for the advice to come in. And put a question on this board:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=242

[Taxloss]

5. It's a bit more fundamental than that, as you can read from ET Awful's

thread above.

[DS1]

6. Well, wait a sec

Did he hook it up to the other board as the sole drive, or as a slave, or on its on channel? Did he configure the BIOS to actually go look for that drive? Have you tried dropping it in the freezer for an hour or so before plugging it in (last resort, but it can unjam the read heads.

[Taxloss]

7. He hooked it up as a slave, an external drive.

BIOS configuration is beyond my technical knowledge, but he was working on it for hours, I only got back at midnight.

As for putting it in the freezer, I have never heard that before. I'll call him and ask about it.

[DS1]

9. poke around here

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=hard+drive+freezer+fix

[Taxloss]

17. This is what Mrs Taxloss has to say on that idea:

(Via Gmail)

"And re: freezing the drive: NO! Don't do it! 1) your trousers are in there and there is no room at the moment and 2) the freezing trick didn't work on the gum, I don't think it will work with AN EXTREMELY IMPORTANT PIECE OF COMPUTER HARDWARE. Jeepers Batman: it can't even make ice cubes very well, what makes you think it will FIX AN EXTREMELY IMPORTANT PIECE OF COMPUTER HARDWARE that currently holds ALL YOUR PRECIOUS WORK."

[DS1]

18. Fair enough

:shrug:

You didn't seem to be receptive to any of the other help offered here anyway, so :shrug:

[Taxloss]

20. I'm sorry if I've sounded ungrateful.

I'm really not. I've answered honestly to the full extent of my knowledge. It just feels dead. I know enough about computers to know a crash is not dead, but this is dead.

I'm sorry if you felt unappreciated, I really do value the suggestions and sympathy. And since it's no better than a hockey puck right now, I might drop the hard drive in the freezer anyway. Hell, it can't hurt.

I'm just a bit grumpy right now, that's all.

[lpbk2713]

8. Another thought.....

Check the battery on your mother board. I'll bet your problem will either be with this battery or with your power supply. You should at the very least get a beep code, but since you aren't these two things are very good possibilities why you don't get one. Check all your cable connections too.

[Taxloss]

16. Good thoughts.

The power supply was apparently fine, but the battery on the m'board I don't know about. However, my brother-in-law indicated that the motherboard had just fried out somehow; he said he thought it had been hit by a power surge. The cable connections at the back were all fine when we ran initial tests. Inside, I haven't a clue, but since my brother-in-law spends his entire day looking at that sort of thing, I take his word for it.

[GOPBasher]

10. That really sucks.

I'm sorry. :-(

[Redstone]

11. NOW will you start backing up your hard drive?

It's not expensive to get an external hard drive, and copy everything to it periodically. I do it twice a day - while I'm eating lunch, and at the end of the work day.

Also, if you shut off the external drive except when running backups, you don't have to worry as much if you do get a virus - just wipe out the infected drive and re-load the "clean system" from your last backup.

Redstone

[Taxloss]

14. I will in future. This has been a learning experience.

The funny thing is I knew all about that, and on a subconscious level I knew the risk I was running. I just thought it would never happen to me because I was so careful about viruses and maintained good Disk Hygiene.

[Redstone]

22. Disk Hygiene is fine, but you also have to remember

that sometimes hard drives just die stone cold dead, just like that.

The timing of this is a statistical thing, so it can happen to any drive, any time. But it is rare, so having two drives reduces the chance of having both of them die at the same time to almost nothing.

Redstone

[LynneSin]

21. Thank you, I was just going to post this myself

Backup systems can be the best insurance to prevent this in the future.

[ps1074]

12. That sucks but it's your fault too

But why don't you do weekly backups? You got a book there - why the hell you did not back it up?

I do weekly backups every Sunday. Everything I did during the week - I back it up.

Sorry to sound like an asshole but that should teach you to be more careful in the future.

[Taxloss]

13. Yes, it's been a learning experience.

As I said in my description of the problem, I have some ealier drafts, so it's not a total loss. I did some backing up. But I was not disciplined enough about it.

And believe me, I'm being punished.

[lateo]

15. What? No backup?

:)

[kilgore65]

19. DVD recorder

Next time get a DVD recorder and do regular backups of all your data.

[lateo]

26. I used Ghost 9.0

on a daily basis.

[fluffernutter]

23. my laptop died recently too.

i did back up some files, but your last paragraph is how i feel too - the loss of everything you were used to having right there is all gone.

:hug: i'm sorry.

[asthmaticeog]

24. That sucks.

I've never suffered irretrieveable data loss, so I can't commiserate, but I'll refrain from joining in the "you shoulda backed it up" chorus.

[InvisibleTouch]

25. Happened to me a couple of years ago too.

A whole hard drive full of stuff that I absolutely couldn't afford to lose. Turns out it was a cheap drive that was programmed to die as soon as the warranty ran out. But I managed to have the data recovered - at a cost of several hundred dollars, but I really had no alternative.

It taught me to do my backups, too. Or at least, mostly. I'm still not super-conscientious about it, I have to admit - but better than I was.

Look into data recovery. Prices vary widely, depending on where you go and who you know.