Kiss Your Data Good-Bye if Your Drive Fails without a Backup
, 2005.07.01
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This week, Michel Munger wrote a great article on hard disk maintenance, Mac Maintenance, Part 1: Protect Your Hard Drive and Data. It ties in perfectly with my article this week, which is about what happens when you don't keep backups and aren't careful about keeping your hard drive's activity to a minimum.
A neighbor of mine called me up the other day, asking if I could help her with her 867 MHz Quicksilver Power Mac. I'd helped her pick out the machine from the local CompUSA about two years ago. I'd since forgotten the specifications, but looking at it again reminded me that we'd upgraded the RAM to 1.2 GB and installed an AirPort card.
The hard drive that shipped with the machine was a 60 GB Maxtor, and it had failed completely and refused to spin up.
Her first question was, "I have my Christmas list of 250 people, my email address book, and all of the photo's that I'd scanned in and worked on in the past two years - how can I get them back?"
Generally, when a hard drive dies the only way to get the files back is to send the drive to a place that specializes in data recovery, such as DriveSavers. Sometimes, if the drive is just stuck, you can tap it against a tabletop and hope that it works just long enough to copy the data off of it.
In her case, unfortunately, the drive was completely gone, and it just wasn't worth it to send the drive out for data recovery.
The next question was how much it would it cost to replace the drive. Apple had wanted to charge her around $200 for a new drive, and she felt that it was too much for her to spend.
She'd get the computer back, sure, but she'd have to spend her time installing all of the software (including the operating system) that I had previously helped her install when we bought the system. She's at the level where she can use the software, but installing it is slightly beyond her capabilities.
I was a bit surprised that Apple wanted to charge her $200 for a replacement 60 GB hard drive, so we ended up going down to the local CompUSA where she had purchased the computer to see what they had to offer in terms of ATA hard drives. We quickly found a 120 GB Maxtor for $94 - it was a no-brainer which one she'd choose
Within a half-hour I had installed it and was installing Mac OS X.
The first change I noticed is that the machine boots up a little bit faster than I remembered it doing, but then again the last time I used it it had been running OS X 10.2, not 10.3, which she had me install for her (she hadn't been able to figure out how to do it). This might be due to the 7200 rpm speed of the drive vs. what was probably a 5400 rpm drive.
After a couple hours, I had reinstalled all of the software that she asked me to, including a few updates that she never bothered to deal with. Re-inputting her contacts, from her memory, was a difficult task, but the new version of Mail in OS X 10.3 (which I'd never used - I use webmail) made viewing and sorting her mailboxes slightly easier than the version I had initially had to set up for her.
She's still missing her Christmas card list (her response to that was along the lines of, "Oh, well, I hate sending out Christmas cards. Now I have an excuse"), and all of the photos that she took will have to be re-scanned. The digital photos are lost, since her digital camera had been stolen and she had no backups.
The moral of the story is back up your hard drive.
Or be like me - "'I can live without my data, I swear" - until
it actually happens. 
- Link: DriveSavers
- Link: A Damaged Hard Drive Can Ruin Your Whole Day - Hooray for Backups!
- Link: SilverKeeper: The Quintessential Free Backup Utility?
- Link: SuperDuper: Quick, Easy, Efficient Backup for $20
- Link: Low-Cost Backup Solutions
- Link: Backup Basics
- Link: Backing Up Your Mac, Mac Daniel
- Link: Backing Up Your Mac, Online Tech Journal
- Link: Home and Small Network Backup Solutions
Recent Apple Archive articles
- iPods, notebooks, and other modern electronics more readily replaced than repaired, 12.07. Whether it's an intermittent failure or a broken display cable, more often than not it's cheaper to replace a broken electronics device than repair it.
- Options for replacing your older iPod, 11.19. Whether you've run out of space on your old iPod or want features it doesn't have, here are your options in new and used iPods.
- Could the $200 'green' PC with gOS Linux become a threat to Apple?, 11.14. The low cost, low power Everex desktop comes with a customized version of Ubuntu Linux, has a Mac-like Dock, and sells for $400 less than the Mac mini.
- Leopard different, a bit buggy, but worth the upgrade, 11.02. Leopard on a Power Mac G4 and a MacBook Pro: It runs well on both computers, but each has some odd bugs, and some of the changes are a step backwards.
- More in the Apple Archive index.
Links for the Day
- Mac of the Day: 'Yikes!' Power Mac G4, Aug. 1999 - The only Power Mac G4 with PCI graphics was built on a modified G3 motherboard.
- Group of the Day: SuperMacs is for those using Umax SuperMac clones.
- November 21 in LEM history: 00: OS upgrades, downgrades - AltiVec vs. Pentium III - 01: Saved by the clones - Computer of the future - 02: Apple Education: Let's get to it - 03: Panther lets Macs and PCs work together, - Lombard SCSI bug - 05: 3 survivors from the 1970s - Real world battery life inadequate - Windows to Mac file transfer with Zip disks - $99 alternative to Microsoft Office - 06: Parallels 1.0 far more polished than beta
Recent Content on Low End Mac
- Just Right: Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear MacBooks, Charles W. Moore, 'Book Value, 11.20. Some people like small and light notebooks, others prefer huge desktop replacements, but the best value tends to be in the middle.
- Virtualization Shootout: VMWare Fusion 2 vs. Parallels Desktop 4, Kev Kitchens, Kitchens Sync, 11.20. Both programs do the same thing, but one runs Windows XP smoothly alongside Mac apps, while the other bogs down everything but Windows.
- Apple Caves to Hollywood with DRM on iTunes Videos, Frank Fox, Stop the Noiz, 11.20. HDCP on the new MacBooks means that you may never really own those videos you buy from the iTunes Store.
- Leopard Runs Very Nicely on PowerPC Macs, Simon Royal, Mac Spectrum, 11.19. Some claim that Mac OS X 10.5 is so optimized for Intel Macs that it runs poorly on PowerPC hardware. That's simply not the case.
- No High Definition iTunes Video for You, Dan Knight, Mac Musings, 11.19. The October 2008 MacBooks are preventing users from viewing some high-def iTunes content from being viewed on their external displays. Poor form!
- Every Working Computer Is Useful to Someone, Allison Payne, The Budget Mac, 11.19. Whether it's a PowerBook 1400, G3 iMac, or Power Mac G4, it could be all the computer someone needs.
- 3 WeatherBug Options for Apple Users, Charles W. Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 11.19. Have instant access to current local weather conditions with a Dashboard widget, iPhone app, or Firefox plugin.
- Anticipating Macworld: Nehalem, Snow Leopard, and Updated Desktops, Dan Knight, Mac Musings, 11.18. Intel's Core i7 CPU has to make it way into the next Mac Pro, nVidia GeForce graphics will drive the iMac and Mac mini, and 'Snow Tiger' will unleash the animal within.
- Love My Refurb MacBook Pro, Eudora Forever, and the Lightest AA Batteries, Charles W. Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 11.18. Also questions about nVidia GeForce 8600 problems in earlier MacBook Pro models and importing Eudora mailboxes into Eudora successors.
- More links in our archive.
Recent Deals
- Best Power Mac G4 and AGP Video Card Deals, 11.20. Used 400 MHz, $50; 733, $100; 800, $199; 1.25 GHz, $300; 800 MHz dual, $200, 867, $300; 1 GHz, $350; 1.42, $400.
- Best iBook G3 Deals, 11.20. Used 300 MHz clamshell, $150; 366, $199; 800 CD, $180; 600 CD-RW, $240; 700 Combo, $290; 900, $369; 14" 600, $360; 900, $449.
- Best Power Mac G3 and PCI Video Card Deals, 11.20. Used beige 300 MHz, $25; blue & white 350, $80; 400, $90; 450, $105; PCI video cards from $15; shipping additional.
- Best iMac G4 Deals, 11.18. Used 15" 700 MHz Combo, $243; 800 MHz, $280; 1 GHz, $380; 17" 1.25 GHz SuperDrive, $400; 20", $549.
- Best MacBook Air Deals, 11.18. New 1.6 80, $1,150 after rebate; 120, $1,744 a/r; 1.8 80, $1,794 a/r; 1.6 128 SSD, $2,150; used 1.8 64 SSD, $1,500; new, $2,200 a/r; 1.86, $2,398 a/r.
- Best Mac OS X 10.0-10.3 Deals, 11.18. Mac OS X 10.0.3, $30; 10.1, $20; 10.2, $60; 10.3 CD, DVD, $100; CD, $119; 10.1 Server, unlimited users, $58; 10.3 Server, unlimited, $150.
- Best iPod nano Deals, 11.17. Refurb 3G/4 GB, $79; new, $114; refurb 8 GB, $99; new, $125; 3G/8 GB, from $134; 16 GB, from $189. Prices include ground shipping.
- Best Titanium PowerBook G4 Deals, 11.17. Used 1 GHz with SuperDrive, $478 plus shipping.
- Best Xserve deals, 11.17. Used G4/1 GHz, $999; G5/2 GHz, $1,288; new 2.0 4-core Xeon, $1,900; refurb 3.0 4-core, $2,599; 2.8 GHz, $2,499; 3.0 8-core, $3,499.
- More deals in our archive.
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