My external hard drive stopped responding last night. The computer didn`t recognize it any more and kept telling me :"The structure of your hard disk is corrupt".
My hard disk is full of video clips, photos and other raw material for my website. All the important stuff, altogether 250 GB of material.
I went through all kinds of computer forums, checked Google and tried out various progs & tools to recover my drive. Nothing worked. It was pretty frustrating, to say the least. I actually thought my hd was broken mechanically and I was going to open it with a screwdriver, when I went into MS-Dos modus and tried out "chkdsk/F f:" (more as a joke, I was sure this wouldn´t work) and BINGO!, the drive is back to running 100%.
I don`t know why but I don`t care.
Long live MS-Dos!
-Hal-
Posted by ledaemon (Member # 198) on :
Lucky devil you! My computer's internal hard drive had to be replaced TWICE in the course of a year. All clips and pics that I never backed up lost forever. Not quite the size of your's but 80 gigs worth... erp!
Posted by Calico Jack (Member # 2299) on :
quote:Originally posted by Hal: I just lived through a computer nightmare.
My external hard drive stopped responding last night.
Dave: "Recognize my hard drive, please, Hal." HAL9000: "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."
LOL... That's definitely what it reminded me of for a second there, especially since you switched over to that avatar, Hal. (Incidentally I used to use that exact same image as my avatar for a while on other forums back during the '90s). I hope your problem is sorted out now for good, but I'd advise caution as you move forward because I had a similar problem a couple of years ago involving one of my internal hard drives which intermittently failed to be recognized by my machine. It was, then it wasn't, then it was again, then it wasn't again... That served as something of a warning sign until its funtionality ultimately disintegrated like Hal singing "Daisy". I eventually ended up having to replace one corrupt-ass 80Gb drive, but hopefully you'll have better luck over there.
Calico Jack
Posted by Hal (Member # 3484) on :
Thanks for your replies, guys. Never had hard disk trouble before but reading what happened to you two I think I should get a second back-up drive.
quote:Dave: "Recognize my hard drive, please, Hal." HAL9000: "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."
Haha!
-Hal 9000-
Posted by Ben Del Amitri (Member # 2724) on :
Hello Hal -
Thank HEAVENS you got that straightened out!!!!! You might want to start burning some of that precious material to some DVDs. If you can burn the DL-DVDs you can get almost nine megs per disc.
I keep two separate external hard drives, one is a backup to the other. Once a month or so I burn addended material to DVDs / CDs. With what most of us have to lose in case of a hard drive failure, I can't imagine how much precious material would be lost on yours!
Posted by Hal (Member # 3484) on :
quote: I keep two separate external hard drives, one is a backup to the other.
Ben, I think that`s what I´m going to do as well, because I don`t have a DL-dvd burner. Some of my raw .avi files are more than 5GB large, they don`t fit onto a normal DVD any more.
-Hal-
Posted by Gimme (Member # 6872) on :
Back up your stuff every 4.7 GB! Burn in discs to have them for at least 50 years. It's a shame to lose priceless stuff that cant be found anywhere else.
Ever since I got hit by "intruders" in the Windows-95 and 98 eras (thanks to Bill for that) and who deleted many of my things plus that hardware failure is always a present risk.... I m backing everything on CDs and DVDs.
I know that you would end up creating a mini DVD rental club with all those discs but it's better to safe than sorry in the end!
Good luck!
Gimme.
Posted by Gimme (Member # 6872) on :
quote:Originally posted by Hal:
quote: I keep two separate external hard drives, one is a backup to the other.
Ben, I think that`s what I´m going to do as well, because I don`t have a DL-dvd burner. Some of my raw .avi files are more than 5GB large, they don`t fit onto a normal DVD any more.
-Hal-
Try WinDV Hal! An excellent, light windows GUI interface programme which records via firewire everything from your camera. I m using this now for the past 2 years and I m happy 100%.
It can break down the scenes.. i.e. every clip separately and so creating clips according to your miniDV tape recording.
Give it try... cause a 5 or an 8 or a 10 GB AVI is a nightmare to edit Trust me.. I know!
Gimme.
Posted by soles&toes (Member # 29104) on :
If you have Vista, take advantage of the backup feature, it's a big ass ZIP folder (20gb+, depending on how much it needs to back up) I'd buy an external drive and use it to backup, if not, google for a piece of backup software
Posted by Drunk_24-7 (Member # 21781) on :
Does anyone know if there's any chance this would solve my problem described in the other thread? How would I do it? Like get to the dos area even just to wing it and try?
Posted by feetluvr (Member # 1570) on :
I strongly recommend a product called Spin-Rite. It can warn you of a declining/struggling drive and rescue many that have seemingly "bit the dust". I've not used it for recovery yet- but have heard many incredible testimonials about it's abilities. (And no- I have no affiliation with the company).
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