Posted by Joe Paratore on November 18, 2010 at 12:10 PM
I haven’t participated in NPN since late spring when I received a virus that posed itself
as McAfee. It had its logo shield and said my computer was infected. I may have panic and hit the wrong tab but I thought for sure I had deleted it properly. I then started a total bath DIY remodel that I thought would take three me weeks but ended up 3 months, so I wasn’t on the computer much just to read emails, It didn’t seem
to bad at first but got progressively worse till it locked up my computer.
I called a friend who recommended his computer tech... I hired the tech he tried everything but couldn’t get rid of the virus. He recommended that I just buy a new hard drive to replace the 250 Gb that was my boot drive. Didn’t think that was bad idea because the price of hard drives are fairly reasonable .Beginning the first of this year I made a promise to myself and my friend who has been after me for years I would back up all my images? Even though I never had one computer
issue I felt this gnawing in my gut to this done, that time may be running out and I have been living on the edge way to long. So I had bought a one TB internal hard drive and moved all images files to that drive. I also have a 250Mg Maxtor external hard drive that I used as second backup but I had filled that up only with some processed images not raw files they where on the 1TB internal drive. So I stop the project to work on my bathroom.
Here’s where it gets ugly and really sad. In the process of reformatting the
new hard drive the tech somehow erased everything that was on the 1TB hard drive. He could not figure out how it happened. He said he has done this procedure for GM hundreds of times. Every raw file I had saved over the past 5 years lost.. Thousands and thousands of images and some of my best work. He was ill and I was stunned. He sent the hard drive out to a couple of data recovery companies in our area. One was a police forensic data
recovery company. "A few bits of data were recovered but the most important raw files were not.
I am embarrassed on having been so foolish in letting this happen and to come forward with this. I try to live by the Creed. “A smart man learns by his mistakes, but a wise man learns from others”.
Boy!! Did I not live by that creed this time, and have I learned a real valuable and painful lesson.Even though I started the backup process I didn’t do it right and I didn’t complete
it.
If you have not done a proper back up yet. I encourage you to get started right
away and stick with till it’s done. I hope my tragedy can be of help to someone.
Posted by Jim Erhardt on November 18, 2010 at 1:03 PM
Joe, sorry to hear this! What a horrible loss....
Posted by Tony Colvin on November 18, 2010 at 1:52 PM
Real sorry to hear that Joe. I am heading out to get another external hard drive this weekend.
Posted by Jim DeWitt on November 18, 2010 at 1:58 PM
Ouch. Some lessons are too painful.
Posted by Tom Nevesely on November 18, 2010 at 2:19 PM
Joe, all good lessons for us to learn. So very sorry that you lost so much of your work. This was always a concern for me, and even though I'm not technically inclined, I have two external hard drives, a flash drive in my safe deposit box and I also use Carbonite online backup.
Thanks for sharing your story and thanks to all the others who have shared their stories. Back-up, back-up, back-up!
Oh my god, I am so sorry to hear this. This just should not happen. I will back-up everything I have this coming weekend.
Posted by Mark Zemmin on November 18, 2010 at 8:58 PM
I am so sorry to hear this. I am super paranoid about losing my images. I have been taking digital photos for almost 15 years. The lives of my three children are preserved in the these images, not to mention my nature photography. I have mirrored hard drives, nightly automatic backups and do a quarterly offsite backup in my friends fireproof safe.
As a rule, I try to do all my backups through an automated process. It is too easy to forget a manual process
Horrible story--I can't imagine what it would be like to lose my entire collection of images.
I have a ridiculously overprotective backup system in place. I have seven copies of all my RAW files and five copies of all of my processed files. Three sets of RAWs and two sets of processed files reside in each of two locations, roughly 200 miles apart, all represented by a different external hard drive. The remaining set (which contains a full set of both RAW and processed files) travels with me and is used as the master list. None of my external drives has ever failed, but I guess it would be fair to say that I'm covered in case one does.
Yes, it's an absurd level of overkill, but it's hard to put a value on peace of mind.
Posted by David Rogers on November 19, 2010 at 12:25 AM
Holy Crud! I had a drive that burned (seriously - it was burning - the board was blackened with soot). I lost many months of data. I can't imagine loosing a lifetime. I have two drives at home (one is a backup), and all data is routinely backed up to SmugMug (jpgs only) and BackBlaze (all files). Backblaze run every night at 1:00am. After the initial backup (which took several days), the daily backups are minutes (unless there are a large number of photos - then it takes no more than an hour).
Posted by Barbara Graham on November 19, 2010 at 12:51 AM
Joe, I'm so sorry that happened. :(
Posted by Paul DeCesare on November 19, 2010 at 2:05 AM
Joe, where is the 1TB drive, do you still have it? PLEASE don't reformat it or try to save anything to it, as long as that thing still spins there's a chance of recovering SOMETHING. Unless a Level 4 Government-grade data wipe that turns every bit to a zero has been applied to that drive, data may be recoverable regardless of "police forensic data recovery" companies. If the drive is dead in your eyes, I'd be more than happy to have a go and recovery, been in the IT world for many years and there are a lot of ways to get data back. I'm not guaranteeing it of course, but as Yogi Berra said, "It ain't over until it's over." So if you are out of options, please please feel free to shoot me a message and I'll do whatever I can to get some part of your world back.
Paul
Posted by Jim Bullard on November 19, 2010 at 8:26 AM
If you are running Windows (I don't know about MAC) you should periodically set a "restore point". Do it when things are working properly. Do it after any new install and verifying that the new install is working correctly. I had a Trojan hit my system recently because I went to an innocuous looking self learning forum. All the on-line forum discussion of this trojan (I had use another computer to check) said the only solution was to wipe the HD and start over with a fresh install of the OS and all programs. NOT! I had recently installed an update to LR3 and it had set a restore point before installing. All I did was a system restore to the state prior to the LR3 update. Result: Trojan gone (verified with a system scan) and all I lost was the LR3 update which I simply reinstalled. Then I set a new restore point.
Not every computer tech is truly savvy about dealing with these situations. Sometimes a person who has a reputation as a computer tech is just someone who knows a little more than the average user and "a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing". When you are advised to wipe the drive or buy a new one, see if you can't find someone who knows more than a little more than you.
Posted by Kent Staubus on November 19, 2010 at 9:07 AM
My own thinking is that any digital storage is inherently ephemeral. All my very best shots are printed to archival 8x10 and saved that way. Lucky for me, I only get about 12 great shots a year so the expense isn't that much. Faimly photos get highest priority.
I'll bet a dollar to a doughnut you are on the Windoze platform.
I met you at North Chagrin when you were doing the wood duck thing.
Prosoft Engineering makes a program called Data Rescue III. It is well worth the money and could/may find those files on those drives for you.
I think they have a separate product for PC's.
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/
Judy came down the next week to take the ducks with her girl friends.
If you contact me I may be able to help you.
Joe
Posted by Beth Wold on November 19, 2010 at 11:52 AM
As has been already mentioned if you still have that drive don't give up on the files. It's not that easy to completely remove data. At my day job we have to use special software to fully wipe our drives, and remove data before we can get rid of harddrives. Most hard drive "wiping" simply removes the alocation table telling the operating system where to find the data, so specialized software can get it back. I've seen data recovered after the operating system has been re-installed twice. If the sectors on the hard drive haven't been rewritten they should be recoverable. Now it's not cheap, but if it's your life's images it should be worth it.
Now, I don't know the names of companies/software that can rescue images, but a few have been mentioned already. I just wanted to re-iterate that you shouldn't give up on the drive, yet. Unless you've re-written over the entire drive you should be able to get at least some of it back.
I've heard these stories. That's why I have 4 internal and 3 external drives. And I backup raws and processes images on DVD, stored offsite. Every image file is on at least 3 drives.
Posted by Paul DeCesare on November 27, 2010 at 11:24 PM
Every raw file I had saved over the past 5 years lost
Folks, Joe sent me his hard drive, arrived today. I hooked it up and Windows wanted to format it, naturally... certainly something that would make someone give up at that point. Anyway, it was very easy to find his data... took 4 hours, but all of his thousands of RAW files have been recovered, only a few dozen were damaged and they may be copies anyway. He doesn't even know yet, he'll probably see this in the morning. My point is this: PLEASE don't ever assume a drive is unrecoverable because some "computer tech" said so... please please please post your issue on this NPN site. There are several of us who, if I may be so bold, know what we're doing with PCs and have been doing this for YEARS. Let us help you, because us resident NPN geeks have a very strong interest to help our fellow photographers... we certainly know the value of our image data. Can you imagine losing all of your work? I hit the roof when I saw Joe's post, and that bit about "police forensic data recovery" that the tech mentioned, puh-lease... Didn't buy that for a moment. I felt sick for Joe to have supposedly lost all his work and then be told there was no chance. You should see the enormous amount of gorgeous bird images Joe has gotten, my jaw has dropped numerous times as the files were getting restored! I am so happy his work is recovered regardless of WHO got it back for him (and I am not looking for any recognition with this post at ALL, any one of us can use what we know to help our peers, this time it just happened to be me). So for those who replied or maybe just read Joe's post, know that a fellow photog on here has NOT lost his life's work, this one has a happy ending!
Posted by David Rogers on November 27, 2010 at 11:40 PM
That's fantastic! Good on 'ya for helping out.
Now, about "police forensic data recovery company" and the others from the OP's post --> I would like their names so as to avoid them in the future. Of course, my backups should obviate that need.
Discussion
19 repliesas McAfee. It had its logo shield and said my computer was infected. I may have panic and hit the wrong tab but I thought for sure I had deleted it properly. I then started a total bath DIY remodel that I thought would take three me weeks but ended up 3 months, so I wasn’t on the computer much just to read emails, It didn’t seem
to bad at first but got progressively worse till it locked up my computer.
I called a friend who recommended his computer tech... I hired the tech he tried everything but couldn’t get rid of the virus. He recommended that I just buy a new hard drive to replace the 250 Gb that was my boot drive. Didn’t think that was bad idea because the price of hard drives are fairly reasonable .Beginning the first of this year I made a promise to myself and my friend who has been after me for years I would back up all my images? Even though I never had one computer
issue I felt this gnawing in my gut to this done, that time may be running out and I have been living on the edge way to long. So I had bought a one TB internal hard drive and moved all images files to that drive. I also have a 250Mg Maxtor external hard drive that I used as second backup but I had filled that up only with some processed images not raw files they where on the 1TB internal drive. So I stop the project to work on my bathroom.
Here’s where it gets ugly and really sad. In the process of reformatting the
new hard drive the tech somehow erased everything that was on the 1TB hard drive. He could not figure out how it happened. He said he has done this procedure for GM hundreds of times. Every raw file I had saved over the past 5 years lost.. Thousands and thousands of images and some of my best work. He was ill and I was stunned. He sent the hard drive out to a couple of data recovery companies in our area. One was a police forensic data
recovery company. "A few bits of data were recovered but the most important raw files were not.
I am embarrassed on having been so foolish in letting this happen and to come forward with this. I try to live by the Creed. “A smart man learns by his mistakes, but a wise man learns from others”.
Boy!! Did I not live by that creed this time, and have I learned a real valuable and painful lesson.Even though I started the backup process I didn’t do it right and I didn’t complete
it.
If you have not done a proper back up yet. I encourage you to get started right
away and stick with till it’s done. I hope my tragedy can be of help to someone.
Thanks for sharing your story and thanks to all the others who have shared their stories. Back-up, back-up, back-up!
As a rule, I try to do all my backups through an automated process. It is too easy to forget a manual process
I have a ridiculously overprotective backup system in place. I have seven copies of all my RAW files and five copies of all of my processed files. Three sets of RAWs and two sets of processed files reside in each of two locations, roughly 200 miles apart, all represented by a different external hard drive. The remaining set (which contains a full set of both RAW and processed files) travels with me and is used as the master list. None of my external drives has ever failed, but I guess it would be fair to say that I'm covered in case one does.
Yes, it's an absurd level of overkill, but it's hard to put a value on peace of mind.
Paul
Not every computer tech is truly savvy about dealing with these situations. Sometimes a person who has a reputation as a computer tech is just someone who knows a little more than the average user and "a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing". When you are advised to wipe the drive or buy a new one, see if you can't find someone who knows more than a little more than you.
Kent in SD
I'll bet a dollar to a doughnut you are on the Windoze platform.
I met you at North Chagrin when you were doing the wood duck thing.
Prosoft Engineering makes a program called Data Rescue III. It is well worth the money and could/may find those files on those drives for you.
I think they have a separate product for PC's.
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/
Judy came down the next week to take the ducks with her girl friends.
If you contact me I may be able to help you.
Joe
Now, I don't know the names of companies/software that can rescue images, but a few have been mentioned already. I just wanted to re-iterate that you shouldn't give up on the drive, yet. Unless you've re-written over the entire drive you should be able to get at least some of it back.
I've heard these stories. That's why I have 4 internal and 3 external drives. And I backup raws and processes images on DVD, stored offsite. Every image file is on at least 3 drives.
Folks, Joe sent me his hard drive, arrived today. I hooked it up and Windows wanted to format it, naturally... certainly something that would make someone give up at that point. Anyway, it was very easy to find his data... took 4 hours, but all of his thousands of RAW files have been recovered, only a few dozen were damaged and they may be copies anyway. He doesn't even know yet, he'll probably see this in the morning. My point is this: PLEASE don't ever assume a drive is unrecoverable because some "computer tech" said so... please please please post your issue on this NPN site. There are several of us who, if I may be so bold, know what we're doing with PCs and have been doing this for YEARS. Let us help you, because us resident NPN geeks have a very strong interest to help our fellow photographers... we certainly know the value of our image data. Can you imagine losing all of your work? I hit the roof when I saw Joe's post, and that bit about "police forensic data recovery" that the tech mentioned, puh-lease... Didn't buy that for a moment. I felt sick for Joe to have supposedly lost all his work and then be told there was no chance. You should see the enormous amount of gorgeous bird images Joe has gotten, my jaw has dropped numerous times as the files were getting restored! I am so happy his work is recovered regardless of WHO got it back for him (and I am not looking for any recognition with this post at ALL, any one of us can use what we know to help our peers, this time it just happened to be me). So for those who replied or maybe just read Joe's post, know that a fellow photog on here has NOT lost his life's work, this one has a happy ending!
Now, about "police forensic data recovery company" and the others from the OP's post --> I would like their names so as to avoid them in the future. Of course, my backups should obviate that need.
and I hope we all learn from it.
Sandy