nightmare hard drive failure all lost

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micksmuse
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nightmare hard drive failure all lost

Post by micksmuse » Wed Oct 26, 2016 7:14 pm

yesterday had a power outage and turned computer on and hard-drive failure. can't even see disc with diagnostic booting from discs.

my great concern is my 4 years of ableton work.
i thought i was being diligent and backing up what i thought were the necessary files but now i am not so sure.

i have all my songs in a file called "test project 1"
it contains my ALS files, WAV files from rendered songs that i use to burn cd's
and a folder called "SAMPLES"

what i am asking is are there other files not there (i do all midi work which i am sure is in ALS files but all my live vocals and guitar recordings on the tracks are samples i would think. are there other files i am missing?

any advice is greatly appreciated. (please no lectures on backing up- i have beat myself up enough over it :)

Pitch Black
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Re: nightmare hard drive failure all lost

Post by Pitch Black » Wed Oct 26, 2016 8:48 pm

Sorry to hear about your loss. Are you on Mac/PC? What OS etc?
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micksmuse
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Re: nightmare hard drive failure all lost

Post by micksmuse » Wed Oct 26, 2016 9:31 pm

hi, thanks for checking in. on dell inspiron 660 windows 10

H20nly
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Re: nightmare hard drive failure all lost

Post by H20nly » Wed Oct 26, 2016 10:42 pm

is the hard drive the one you had the OS on?
or is it a drive you were using for additional storage?


the purpose of my question is that if it was an OS drive, maybe it would still work if you put it in an enclosure and plugged it in via USB or SATA. then you could browse to your files.

to put it another way, are you sure the drive is dead?

micksmuse
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Re: nightmare hard drive failure all lost

Post by micksmuse » Wed Oct 26, 2016 11:12 pm

yeah, i booted from a diagnostic disc (several different ones) and the drive was not being recognized or seen by any of the tools. there is only one drive on the computer and everything is on that, op system and all files. it is not an external drive.

H20nly
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Re: nightmare hard drive failure all lost

Post by H20nly » Wed Oct 26, 2016 11:19 pm

if it was mine... i would take it out and try it in an external enclosure.
one trick a co-worker of mine (we're in I.T.) has used a lot is to wrap a failing drive in cling wrap (Saran Wrap) really well... and then place it in the freezer for about a half hour. when you pull it out and plug it into the enclosure, the drive will spin for a little while and you can pluck files off until it seizes up again. rinse/repeat.

the problem with that trick is you might only have a few minutes/seconds to grab what ever files you can

if you can't get the platter to spin on the drive at all, your only hope is a data recovery service... they can be expensive though, so find one that does not charge (or does not charge much) if they cannot recover your data.

Angstrom
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Re: nightmare hard drive failure all lost

Post by Angstrom » Wed Oct 26, 2016 11:22 pm

Assuming its a platter HDD Is it even spinning up? Does it make a clicking noise?

Sometimes the weirdest things can be a fix. If its not spinning it could be power to the drive.

However, the oldest trick in the book is to freeze it. Google the technique. If it works you will get perhaps 30 mins to extract data off it before it dies forever. So, in that case a new drive with an OS at the ready, then freeze the okd drive, connect it and spin up and quickly copy the essential files only.

micksmuse
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Re: nightmare hard drive failure all lost

Post by micksmuse » Wed Oct 26, 2016 11:29 pm

sounds risky only because if i have to i will try a recovery place and don't want to do damage that would limit their chance of getting things off it.
i take it the saran wrap is to keep moisture out of it.
can it do any harm to the computer i stick it into?
most of the files i wanna grab seem like it would take more than 1/2 to get off.

does anyone out there know which are the files that are saved for each song you do in ableton.
can't even open ableton or i would see if i could find out.
are all the files needed contained in the project folder? thanks

Tarekith
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Re: nightmare hard drive failure all lost

Post by Tarekith » Thu Oct 27, 2016 6:52 am

If you were doing collect all and save they should all be in the project folder. If not, they could be all over your HD depending on how you organize everything. Personally I'd try the freezer trick before anything, a data recovery place is going to charge you LOTS of money to try and get that data back. I had one place quote me $2000 for an external HD that died on me a couple years ago.
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micksmuse
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Re: nightmare hard drive failure all lost

Post by micksmuse » Thu Oct 27, 2016 2:57 pm

Tarekith wrote:a data recovery place is going to charge you LOTS of money to try and get that data back. I had one place quote me $2000 for an external HD that died on me a couple years ago.
don't have that kind of green for sure. damn, looks like it is the freezer.

H20nly
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Re: nightmare hard drive failure all lost

Post by H20nly » Thu Oct 27, 2016 5:04 pm

just be sure and be generous with the Saran Wrap.

wrap it once - nice and tight...

wrap it twice.

then wrap it one more time for good measure.

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