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Apple Archive

Kiss Your Data Good-Bye if Your Drive Fails without a Backup

, 2005.07.01

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: 17" MacBook Pro Core Duo, Apr. 2006 - The top-end MacBook Pro includes a 1680 x 1050, 2.16 GHz Core Duo CPU, and supports Apple 30" Cinema Display.
Group of the Day: G4 List is for those using Power Mac G4s or G4 upgrades.
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Best iPod nano Deals, 11.25. Refurb 8 GB 4G nano, $99; new, $126; refurb 16 GB, $129; new, $150; new 5G/8 GB, $134.60; 16 GB, $161.12. Shipping included.
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Best 15" PowerBook G4 Deals, 11.25. Used 1 GHz Combo, $400; 1.5 GHz SuperDrive, $449; 1.67 GHz hi-res, $600.
Best G4 iMac Deals, 11.24. Used 15" 700 MHz CD-RW, $150; 800 MHz Combo, $229; 1 GHz, $289; 17" 1.25 GHz, $200; 20" 1.25 GHz, $509.
Best MacBook Air Deals, 11.24. Used from $899; refurb from $1,099; new 1.6 GHz/120 HD, $1,150 after rebate; 1.8/64 SSD, $1,150 a/r; 1.86/128 SSD, $1,350 a/r; 2.13/128 SSD, $1,694 a/r.
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Best 12" PowerBook G4 Deals, 11.23. Used 867 MHz SuperDrive, $348; 1 GHz Combo, $379; SD, $519; 1.33 GHz, $529; 1.5 GHz Combo, $549; SuperDrive, $609.
Best Mac Pro Deals, 11.23. Used 2.66 GHz 4-core, $1,300; 3.0 4-core. $1,919; refurb 2.66 4-core Nehalem, $2,149; 2.93, $2,549; 2.93 8-core, $4,999; new 2.26 8-core, $2,290.
Best Time Capsule and AirPort Deals, 11.23. Used 802.11g AirPort Extreme, $49; 500 GB Time Capsule, $150; new, $190; 1 TB dual-band, $280; 2 TB, $469; 802.11n AirPort Extreme, $170.
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