Am I F****D?

Anyone know how much I should be paying as well so I don't get robbed? That said if they can recover all the data, they can rob me, steal the puppy and make love to Andrea !

 

re boot laptop and re connect

get the basics out of the way

 

Andy a few in Leeds

http://www.goldfieldltd.com/data.html
We now offer free diagnosis with a no-recovery no-fee policy.

might be worth getting a quote

I would imagine a few hundred quid and upwards

 

Jeez, heaven forbid, but what would you give to recover your BEF disk?
Back it up now and save that pup.

 

Buying two more hard drives tomorrow to back up BEF stuff.

I've swapped cables, tried another lap top and switched everything off and started again from scratch...It's still empty.

 

Sorry to hear of your problem. What a calamity! As far as I know all the stored electronic data should recoverable by a reputable computer shop that deals with this. Best thing might be to ask around which are the best firms in your area. Hope it works out OK.

 

I've been considering the smaller standalone RAID drives for a while as they ought to be a bit more reliable that a plain external drive - if one of the two mirrored drives fails, you simply replace it and the magic box recreates its backup (that's the theory, anyway). Might be worth canvassing some opinions before you upgrade.

 

The mirroring RAID drives are good for exactly these sort of situations and worth the extra money. (Although not so useful in the case of fire or theft.)

 

Hmm, You formatted a disc drive and now your portable hard drive is now empty. One obvious hypothesis is that you inadvertently formatted the wrong drive. If this is the cause of the problem, all may not be lost. According to Google there are several software services and applications which claim to recover data from reformatted drives.

 

Wished I could help you Drew. I have some software and hardware that might recover it.

A word to wise, NEVER store your data in just one place if it is irreplaceable. Never. Ever.

Ever.

But I guess you know that now.

 

Yep. I just three days ago realised the risk, and shelled out for a subscription to Dropbox. I felt better immediately. Shame that wouldn't work for Andy.

All the best

Andreas

 

If you did inadvertently format the wrong disk, this software has saved my bacon - best $$ I have ever spent:

Stellar Phoenix http://www.stellarinfo.com/disk-recovery.htm

As others have also suggested, taking it to be recovered would also be an excellent option.
Guess you have 2 choices:

• Use SP and see if it helps you out if not, take it to the big guns
• Take it to the big guns and tinker with the software at a later date

I replaced the HDD in my laptop, and decided to give SP a real workout with the old one - it recovered some stuff I hadn't seen for quite a while, which was *very* surprising!

Hope you get it all back - have had a HDD crash on me (think loads and loads of client photoshoots), and I was devastated. Thankfully I had other backups on DVD, but there was stuff I just couldn't retrieve (personal stuff). (That's when I invested in SP and double backups on 2 different types of drives.) Also have my digital techs keep copies as well - Murphy's Law and digital photography, are great buddies!!!

 

If you have accidentally formatted your external HD, then this may be of some help and its free.

http://www.icare-recovery.com/free/unformat-drive-format-recovery-free.html

Hope it helps

Gus

 

Andy,

I wish you well with the recovery.

I had my Computer hard drive fail several years ago and took it to a local Computer shop where they recovered the Information and photographs that were not backed up.

If the programmes offered do not work, there are Computer People around who can help. Just a matter of asking around the area where you live.

Leeds University IT Dept may be a good place to ask.

Regards
Tom

 

I've heard many miracle recovery stories about this software. It's $89 dollars.
The guy who wrote it is named Stever Gibson and he seems pretty darn brilliant to me.
I haven't used it but it is what I would try if I was desperate

https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

 

Hard Drive is now with Computer geeks. They have told me I formatted the drive when in fact I was attempting to format a DVD to copy some war diaries on! The good news is they seem to think they can recover most of the 1.5TB of data but because I added a photo to the drive afterwards (I did it to see if it worked ) I may have completely lost some of the data forever.

Worst case scenario if they can't recover anything they can send it away for £800 to have the data removed forensically....Looks like the baby may be waiting sometime for a pram if that happens

The members I copied files for last week I will ship them before the end of the week assuming they are still on the hard drive. If they have gone I have provisionally booked three days off work this week to rush down to the National Archives and copy them all again for you.

I'll keep you all posted and keep ya fingers crossed