[AT] OT: Computer crash and data loss

[David Bruce]

Dean,
One thing you could try - a software program called Spinrite from Gibson 
Research Corp.
<https://www.grc.com/intro.htm>
$89.00 to download.  Boots from the CD you create and works on all Intel 
based computers (Win, Mac or other).

Might be worth the $89.00 in a last ditch attempt to save the data.

David
NW NC

On 1/2/2014 5:22 PM, dean at vinsonfarm.net wrote:
> A few days before Christmas I was using my six- or seven-year-old desktop
> computer and went to open some particular file or other, but couldn't get to it
> because the "My Documents" folder was inaccessible.  The computer was otherwise
> working fine at the time, but okay, no big deal, some glitch or other, time to
> Restart.
>
> Upon restarting, I saw some error messages about disc sectors being corrupted,
> or something ominous like that, and the computer launched the CheckDisk
> program.  A few minutes later it was done and began to start up Windows like
> normal...but never made it.  Kept looping back and forth between the initial
> Dell screen and the Windows start screen, without ever really starting Windows.
> I was eventually able to boot up from a utility disc I'd kept from when I bought
> the computer years ago, but couldn't read anything on the C: drive.
>
> Two weeks and two visits to computer-repair places later, I'm resigned to my
> fate:  The hard drive simply crashed for some reason, and cannot be repaired.
> After some web searches and phone calls, it appears that data-recovery services
> involve big bucks:  Likely at least $1000, perhaps $1500 or $2000 depending on
> the nature of the problem.  I'm reluctantly concluding that there isn't anything
> on there that's worth $1000 to recover...but doggone it, after several years I
> had a bunch of stuff that I'm not happy to lose.  Financial planning documents,
> spreadsheets, web browser bookmarks annotated with password reminders, old
> emails I'd wanted to keep, address and phone number records for friends and
> family, photos, a whole series of periodic reminders entered into a calendar
> function, etc.
>
> The ironic part is that about a week before it crashed I ran across the external
> hard drive I'd purchased about four years ago specifically for data backup
> purposes, but which I'd quickly abandoned because its automatic-backup feature
> was a huge memory and CPU hog and bogged everything else down.  I did have the
> presence of mind and discipline to regularly back up my one most critical
> financial-records file, using a thumb drive, but everything else is just gone,
> out of reach.  Dag nab scagaraggit anyway.
>
> So, just a reminder to folks, don't forget to back up anything you don't want to
> lose.  I'm not a big fan of "cloud" backup services, but will be a lot more
> disciplined about using that external hard drive or making backup CDs or
> something.  Meanwhile, back to the drawing board...
>
> Dean Vinson
> Dayton, Ohio (soon to be Saint Paris, Ohio!)
>
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