Computer problem
Almost all data is recoverable even if your HDD appears to be dead. I would advise in future that you use an external NAS drive with two large disks and always configure them mirrored. That way if a disk dies the other still contains all your data.
If you cannot get your data back give me a shout
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans" (John Lennon)
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1. Striping, which scatters your data across both drives but if one drive fails you lose all your data, on the plus side it is faster access.
2. Mirroring, with this method you add two identical size drives and what you copy to one is mirrored to the other automatically that way if one drive fails the other still contains your data. Slow read/write but much more secure.
3. JBOD, (believe it or not) just a bunch of disks files will be written to a single drive and once this drive is full it will spill over to the second but you see it as a single drive letter in Windows Explorer. This way if you lose a drive you only lose what was on the one drive unlike striping where you lose all data if one drive fails.
Mirroring is definitely the way to go with such precious items as photographs as they can never be replaced.
You attach it to your home network and run software on you PC that will find it an then set it up how you want it.
Here are some examples
link
I have an LG NAS drive to store my pictures and it is configured with a mirrored set of 500GB drives I.e. two 500GB drives. Even though there are two I only see 500GB of space in Windows Explorer. This configuration really does give you peace of mind.
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans" (John Lennon)
PS An NAS can be a single drive, or multiple drives in a RAID array.
AF - Pentax K5, Sigma 10-20/4-5.6, Tamron 17-50/2.8, Sigma 30/1.4, Sigma 70-200/2.8, Tamron 70-300/4-5.6
MF - Vivitar CF 28/2.8, Tamron AD2 90/2.5, MTO 1000/11
Stuff - Metz 58 AF1, Cactus v4, Nikon SB24, Raynox 150, Sigma 1.4x TC, Sigma 2x TC, Kenko 2x macro TC, Redsnapper 283 tripod, iMac 27”, Macbook Pro 17”, iPad, iPhone 3G
Flickr • Fluidr • PPG • Street • Portfolio site
Feel free to edit any of my posted photos! If I post a photo for critique, I want brutal honesty. If you don't like it, please say so and tell me why!
Most desktop computers are set something like this:
Boot Priority
1) Optical Disk Drive
2) External USB device
3) Internal Hard Drive
What should happen is, you computer turns on, completes it's Power On Self Test (POST) and then looks for something to load in the order it's told too. If it doesn't find something it can load from, it moves down the list. Often External USB drive confuse the computer as they don't respond properly to the "Can I load from you" request, so the computer sits there doing nothing. USB printers with memory card slots used to be notorious for this.
If your PC boots to Windows with the drive unplugged, and then reads the drive fine once it's plugged back in, there's nothing to worry about, either get into the habit of leaving the drive unplugged when you first turn on the PC, or get someone to show you how to change the Boot Order.
If however you computer doesn't work at all when your drive is attached, then it's likely a problem with the external drive, and hopefully is only going to probelm with the USB -> Hard drive circuit board in the external box itself. Any decent computer shop should be able to swap the drive into a new case.
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Does the HDD works on a different computer? Is the HDD Casing maybe faulty and not the HDD itself (that's why connecting the HDD itself to the MoBo)?
There is some software that may get your HDD going again, I will dig it out on Monday (I got a job tomorrow, sorry) its free download and has helped me with some of similar problems.
I got my HDD's now on a RAID 6 setting which means I can have up to two HDD fail on me and still be able to recover the data. May be an idea for the future but it may not come cheap.
Let me know how you get on in here and we may be able to fix it for you.
SmutjeUK
It's nice to be nice!
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If it is the drive come back for further advice.
I would forget about NAS & RAID stuff for the time being.All I would say is keep two copies of files on two different drives or DVD's
John
When you say 'Your computer won't work when the external drive is attached', do you mean that it won't boot? If so, most likely cause is the boot order setting in your BIOS.
Most desktop computers are set something like this:
Boot Priority
1) Optical Disk Drive
2) External USB device
3) Internal Hard Drive
What should happen is, you computer turns on, completes it's Power On Self Test (POST) and then looks for something to load in the order it's told too. If it doesn't find something it can load from, it moves down the list. Often External USB drive confuse the computer as they don't respond properly to the "Can I load from you" request, so the computer sits there doing nothing. USB printers with memory card slots used to be notorious for this.
If your PC boots to Windows with the drive unplugged, and then reads the drive fine once it's plugged back in, there's nothing to worry about, either get into the habit of leaving the drive unplugged when you first turn on the PC, or get someone to show you how to change the Boot Order.
If however you computer doesn't work at all when your drive is attached, then it's likely a problem with the external drive, and hopefully is only going to probelm with the USB -> Hard drive circuit board in the external box itself. Any decent computer shop should be able to swap the drive into a new case.
What a good precise response to the problem
John
I was doing PC Technical Support, and I'm now a Technical Trainer for a PC, TV and AV repair lab.
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