Nnnnnoooooooo!!!!! Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!!!

[punkncat]

Before I could install my video card and memory into the desktop I had to move my portable hard drive. I picked up, forgot to turn it off and it just so happened to start spinning. The disks and readers slammed into each other so hard that it litterally jerked out of my hand.
I just lost almost 500G of backup, program files, music, most of my pictures, all of my video, all of my restore info for my computers. It was an irreplacable loss on a good portion of it.

I had for a long time kept a backup of the most critical of this information on another disk. When my daughters HD crashed in her computer I used the backup disk and had neglected to make a new one. Now its ALL gone.

Where is a time machine when you need one.

[chafnerjr]

Before I could install my video card and memory into the desktop I had to move my portable hard drive. I picked up, forgot to turn it off and it just so happened to start spinning. The disks and readers slammed into each other so hard that it litterally jerked out of my hand.
I just lost almost 500G of backup, program files, music, most of my pictures, all of my video, all of my restore info for my computers. It was an irreplacable loss on a good portion of it.

I had for a long time kept a backup of the most critical of this information on another disk. When my daughters HD crashed in her computer I used the backup disk and had neglected to make a new one. Now its ALL gone.

Where is a time machine when you need one.

Um.... what? Maybe you were just rushing through the details... what happened exactly? What have you tried... I have some background in this and I doubt that your read/write heads bounced off the platters because you picked them up.

[KevinA]

I feel your pain, the same thing happend to me, only it wasn't a portable HD, and I didn't move it. I got a virus on the desk top, and couldn't get rid of it, windows wouldn't even boot when this thing was done. That was all my most recent music, and wedding pictures. So I went to the laptop while working on the desktop, and it just decided to crash on me too. I have since learned that having a back up HD is really something I should have looked into a long time ago.

[Swiss Cheeze]

Sorry to hear your misfortune. It's only after it happens that we...hindsight...should have had it backed up. Been there done that.

Also with the size of hard drives now we just keep filling them up and never think that it will happen to us. I feel your pain.

I started putting all pictures aka stuff you don't ever want to lose, on multiple discs for backup and/or put them online so they will always be available.

I feel your pain, the same thing happend to me, only it wasn't a portable HD, and I didn't move it. I got a virus on the desk top, and couldn't get rid of it, windows wouldn't even boot when this thing was done. That was all my most recent music, and wedding pictures. So I went to the laptop while working on the desktop, and it just decided to crash on me too. I have since learned that having a back up HD is really something I should have looked into a long time ago.

[punkncat]

Um.... what? Maybe you were just rushing through the details... what happened exactly? What have you tried... I have some background in this and I doubt that your read/write heads bounced off the platters because you picked them up.

I really am not sure there is more to say about it. It was powered up and not spinning. The only light to indicate power when its not spinning is on the back of it, and I forgot to turn it off. Right as I picked it up to move it, the platters started spinning. I felt the thing twist in my hand from the gyro action and then it jerked/slammed and came out of my hand to the carpeted floor which was about 8-12 inches below at that time.
Right after that it started making a strange noise and will not spin or detect as connected.

[spwz99]

I dropped an external hard drive this summer and it ruined it. Thankfully the only things i didnt have backed up were movies and tv shows i had downloaded (pronounced "pirated") from my college network.

[KevinA]

They were only downloaded for research right? I think that makes it ok...

[bornl33t]

I'm a big believer in raid arrays for this reason. I also use HD hot swap docks. Altho I never installed what it takes to make them "hot swapable" I can turn off my computer and pull any HD and replace it with a new one in seconds. It's like 500G floppys!!

[KevinA]

nice