A series of ridiculously unfortunate events/HELP!

[NewEnglands_KyoSa]

Well if you feel bad about yourself...listen to this...

I was having a hard time with my computer the other day. So i shut it off, and then upon restarting it wouldnt, and it gave me an error message. So i called my technical support company...Dell. Well of course i got someone who speaks little to no english...awesome. Well after FOUR HOURS of waiting and phone calls to even more people that don't speak english i got an answer...

I FRIED MY HARD DRIVE.

now, for those of you who aren't technically inclined, let me give you the short and simple of it... hard drives contain everything, it is where all your information is stored for example:

all programs and everything that's within them, pictures, word documents, music...anything you can imagine.

Now here's the problem with this...

if this was my personal computer i'd take the hit but my entire Karate school's website is on Microsoft FrontPage, all the websites pictures, documents, everything. and on top of it, im the studio's publications expert, every flier, schedule, testing form, pretesting form, application, and rule we ever had is gone.also all video clips are gone.

and on top of it, all my personal stuff is gone as well.

i have a brand new hard drive and that's how im on the computer right now, but i have nothing i once had.

So, in closing, this was just a rant so i could pretend like this is going to help and rant to anyone who was willing to listen, and also to make anyone else who's having a rough time feel alittle better, and most importantly, if anyone's ever had this problem, or knows anything that could help PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD LET ME KNOW. But, i doubt it.

[Patrick]

Hey NewEnglands_KyoSa,

I'm sorry to hear this. I know how frustrating this can be as it's happened to me at least twice. Get something to drink because this turned into an epic post right in front of my eyes.

First and foremost, I would take this as a lesson and learn from it and do what you can to make sure it never happens again. A couple of years ago, I almost lost all of my files. My business files, my personal files (lots of pictures), etc. I wanted the data so much I sent it the drive to a recovery firm where the price would have been like $2k - $5k if they were able to recover it.

After they looked at it, they told me they couldn't recover it. Sheesh. They can recover hard drives that have been in floods and fire, but my hard drive sitting in my computer in my room is damaged beyond any recovery? Is there paranormal activity in my room?

Anyway, if the data on your HD is that important, as it was to me, then you may want to look into a data recovery firm. Take the hard drive, put it somewhere safe and do a Google search and find a recovery firm that looks good. This probably won't make sense in your case, but I wanted to mention it.

What happened to me was I lucked out. I had put the data on a second hard drive a month or two or three ago and then deleted it. But, when you simply delete something from a hard drive, it's not actually deleted. So, I was able to recover, I would say, 80% of my files from that. To say I was overjoyed would be an understatement.

However, I took it as a lesson and a wake up call. I would never put myself in that vulnerable position again, to lose everything I had worked on and created. I set myself up a backup system. For under $250, you can get yourself set up with an awesome, well running backup system. I highly recommend you do so. Assuming you run Windows, I recommend you do three things:

1. Buy the book, "Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, Better". There are good instructions in this book about setting up a backup system that you'll appreciate. Plus, it contains TONS of other tips, as well, for doing more and doing it more efficiently online. Awesome book.

http://www.amazon.com/Upgrade-Your-Life-Lifehacker-Working/dp/0470238364

2. Buy yourself an external hard drive. Figure out how much data you have on your computer that you want to backup and try to multiply that by 4-5, if you can, then buy an HD that size. You can get an all-in-one solution that has the actual HD plus what is called an enclosure, that holds the HD and allows it to interact with your computer. I have this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-WDG1U7500N-Essential-External/dp/B000RY2PLG/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1209137778&sr=8-1

But, there are others, just do a search on Amazon and you'll find them in various size increments.

3. Purchase SyncBackSE. This is affordable, powerful, but pretty easy to configure, backup software.

http://www.2brightsparks.com/syncback/syncback-hub.html

These three items cost $249.78 (whoa, just made it under than $250, totally by accident, lol) if you elect to have SyncBack sent to you on a CD.

The HD stores your backup files, the software puts them there automatically. As you'll read in the Lifehacker book, your backup system must work on it's own. If you have to do something, it will eventually fail to get done and that will be the moment your PC fails. An efficient backup system is one that works by itself and notifies you when something goes wrong.

At the very least, you want it to run nightly when the computer is not being used and then have your computer shut itself down (which is easy enough to set up, as well). That's what I have mine do.

Know this, though: all hard drives fail. There will come a point where your current one does. This is why you cannot entrust your data to just one hard drive. If you have two, the likelihood of both of those dying at the same time is relatively unlikely. So, when the eventual happens - when one of them dies, you'll have the other. And then you can replace the one that died (make sure you do).

The one issue is that they are both in the same location, so if you have a fire or flood... well, that's obviously not good. But, at the same time, having this small box with your latest files on it makes it easier for you to simply grab it as you leave the house in such an emergency. If you aren't there, then it's pretty much lost. But, that's an emergency scenario.

I do, eventually, hope to plan for it, though. I found the Sentry Safe QE5541, which is a USB safe that is both fire and water resistant. You can put the HD in there, but still have it interact with the computer. So, that's pretty cool.

Hopefully all of this helps.

One other note. I had an HD issue recently where I could not get the hard drive to run. A friend of mine mentioned a program called SpinRite to me. If you use XP, you may want to give it a look. It's not really cheap - $89, but after allowing it to run for a long time (like 12 hours or so), I was actually able to boot the HD and get the most recent versions of files, which was pretty awesome. It's not a bad program to have a copy of, either, even if it doesn't work in this particular instance.

Anyway, good luck!

Patrick

[NewEnglands_KyoSa]

Hey NewEnglands_KyoSa,

I'm sorry to hear this. I know how frustrating this can be as it's happened to me at least twice. Get something to drink because this turned into an epic post right in front of my eyes.

First and foremost, I would take this as a lesson and learn from it and do what you can to make sure it never happens again. A couple of years ago, I almost lost all of my files. My business files, my personal files (lots of pictures), etc. I wanted the data so much I sent it the drive to a recovery firm where the price would have been like $2k - $5k if they were able to recover it.

After they looked at it, they told me they couldn't recover it. Sheesh. They can recover hard drives that have been in floods and fire, but my hard drive sitting in my computer in my room is damaged beyond any recovery? Is there paranormal activity in my room?

Anyway, if the data on your HD is that important, as it was to me, then you may want to look into a data recovery firm. Take the hard drive, put it somewhere safe and do a Google search and find a recovery firm that looks good. This probably won't make sense in your case, but I wanted to mention it.

What happened to me was I lucked out. I had put the data on a second hard drive a month or two or three ago and then deleted it. But, when you simply delete something from a hard drive, it's not actually deleted. So, I was able to recover, I would say, 80% of my files from that. To say I was overjoyed would be an understatement.

However, I took it as a lesson and a wake up call. I would never put myself in that vulnerable position again, to lose everything I had worked on and created. I set myself up a backup system. For under $250, you can get yourself set up with an awesome, well running backup system. I highly recommend you do so. Assuming you run Windows, I recommend you do three things:

1. Buy the book, "Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, Better". There are good instructions in this book about setting up a backup system that you'll appreciate. Plus, it contains TONS of other tips, as well, for doing more and doing it more efficiently online. Awesome book.

http://www.amazon.com/Upgrade-Your-Life-Lifehacker-Working/dp/0470238364

2. Buy yourself an external hard drive. Figure out how much data you have on your computer that you want to backup and try to multiply that by 4-5, if you can, then buy an HD that size. You can get an all-in-one solution that has the actual HD plus what is called an enclosure, that holds the HD and allows it to interact with your computer. I have this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-WDG1U7500N-Essential-External/dp/B000RY2PLG/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1209137778&sr=8-1

But, there are others, just do a search on Amazon and you'll find them in various size increments.

3. Purchase SyncBackSE. This is affordable, powerful, but pretty easy to configure, backup software.

http://www.2brightsparks.com/syncback/syncback-hub.html

These three items cost $249.78 (whoa, just made it under than $250, totally by accident, lol) if you elect to have SyncBack sent to you on a CD.

The HD stores your backup files, the software puts them there automatically. As you'll read in the Lifehacker book, your backup system must work on it's own. If you have to do something, it will eventually fail to get done and that will be the moment your PC fails. An efficient backup system is one that works by itself and notifies you when something goes wrong.

At the very least, you want it to run nightly when the computer is not being used and then have your computer shut itself down (which is easy enough to set up, as well). That's what I have mine do.

Know this, though: all hard drives fail. There will come a point where your current one does. This is why you cannot entrust your data to just one hard drive. If you have two, the likelihood of both of those dying at the same time is relatively unlikely. So, when the eventual happens - when one of them dies, you'll have the other. And then you can replace the one that died (make sure you do).

The one issue is that they are both in the same location, so if you have a fire or flood... well, that's obviously not good. But, at the same time, having this small box with your latest files on it makes it easier for you to simply grab it as you leave the house in such an emergency. If you aren't there, then it's pretty much lost. But, that's an emergency scenario.

I do, eventually, hope to plan for it, though. I found the Sentry Safe QE5541, which is a USB safe that is both fire and water resistant. You can put the HD in there, but still have it interact with the computer. So, that's pretty cool.

Hopefully all of this helps.

One other note. I had an HD issue recently where I could not get the hard drive to run. A friend of mine mentioned a program called SpinRite to me. If you use XP, you may want to give it a look. It's not really cheap - $89, but after allowing it to run for a long time (like 12 hours or so), I was actually able to boot the HD and get the most recent versions of files, which was pretty awesome. It's not a bad program to have a copy of, either, even if it doesn't work in this particular instance.

Anyway, good luck!

Patrick

Patrick thank you so much. Im particularly interested in what you said last, because it may save my life. Im favoriting this post so i a can have the rest of the great information you gave me at my fingertips in case what im planning doesnt work.

You see, what exactly happened to my HD was due to the fact that i recently got reconstructive surgery in may ankle so for the past week my laptops been glued to my thighs. and the computer buddy i had check it out said i fried it because the fan wasnt able to cool it enough i guess. so electrically, it's broke. he tried running tests on it and stuff, kinda jumping it i guess and he said he couldnt get it to 'spin' whatever that means. i guess thats its electric quality that gets it spinning like a CD or dvd but anyway. so do you think that SpinRite is what im looking for, because i'll pay 90 bucks, faster than you'd know. from what you said, it sounds like its what im looking for, without paying big bucks for one of those companies to try and do it. Let me know, and you've been such a great help!

[Patrick]

Hey NewEnglands_KyoSa,

No problem, glad to help. Unfortunately, after talking with a friend, SpinRite isn't going to fix electrical problems. Sorry.

Thanks,

Patrick

[NewEnglands_KyoSa]

Yikes.

looks like im going to have to look into some of those companies.

Thanks again.

[KarateEd]

As patrick mentioned, you can get an external hard drive and back up your computer's hard drive on it. They sell some now that are as large as one terabyte.

You also mentioned a web page stored on your now-deceased hard drive. Whoever is hosting your website will have all your web page files on their server. You should be able to use an ftp program and copy them from the web host's server back to your computer, once you get a new one. I use Fire FTP, an add on for the Mozilla Firefox web browser for transferring files to and from my web page.

Ed

[NewEnglands_KyoSa]

As patrick mentioned, you can get an external hard drive and back up your computer's hard drive on it. They sell some now that are as large as one terabyte.

You also mentioned a web page stored on your now-deceased hard drive. Whoever is hosting your website will have all your web page files on their server. You should be able to use an ftp program and copy them from the web host's server back to your computer, once you get a new one. I use Fire FTP, an add on for the Mozilla Firefox web browser for transferring files to and from my web page.

Ed

Yea, a friend told me that SpinRite program might work, im so desperate im going to give it a try...it's guaranteed to if it doesnt work i get to send it back.

But yes, i have an FTP capability set up so i should be able to get everything back, but it's going to take a while to put everything back on FrontPage...yay me . Im definately going to back up what i have once i get what i need back...im not making this mistake again...no way, this stinks.

[KarateEd]

The index.html, and any other .html pages for that matter, should retain all the frontpage specific encoding if you transfer it to your computer from the host's server. You shouldn't have to spend much time rebuilding it. What is the URL for your website? I'd like to take a look at the source.

Ed

[NewEnglands_KyoSa]

The index.html, and any other .html pages for that matter, should retain all the frontpage specific encoding if you transfer it to your computer from the host's server. You shouldn't have to spend much time rebuilding it. What is the URL for your website? I'd like to take a look at the source.

Ed

It's https://www.chmacdermott-tsd.org

[KarateEd]

Thanks for the link. I'll give it a look over the weekend or next week.