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External hard drive failure.

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  1. #11

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    No jgl, I am NOT taking the piss. Had the same problem with a Seagate drive, except it also beeped. It was not getting enough power - had two USB cables linked due to inaccessibility of input. Fixed it using one cable. It's a problem others have had too.

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  2. #12

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    If it's a power problem you can try your PCs rear USB sockets, they have usually a higher power, or use a wall plug type USB adapter to supply power.

    Last edited by flameproof; 17-12-2012 at 01:23 PM.
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  3. #13

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    Might be worth trying the drive with a different USB to SATA/IDE adapter, with any luck it will be the USB interface and not a physical HD problem.

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  4. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by jgl:
    What're you using for the frontend? Have you found anything that does unattended backups besides Cloudberry?

    Glacier is pretty good, but I think that it's not ideally suited to the tech-indifferent because of the restore lag.
    I actually use a Synology NAS, which has automatic backups to Amazon S3. Inside S3 there is a new option in the lifecycle policies to set a storage class of 'Glacier', so basically S3 and Glacier are one system now. There are no need to create separate 'Vaults' just for using Glacier anymore.

    But if I didnt have a NAS, maybe something like FastGlacier will do what you are asking: http://fastglacier.com/

    You are right about the restore lag, and also the restore can be expensive if you need the data back quickly, but its only family photos and stuff so I can wait for these. Also its just as a backup of a backup (since my NAS already has RAID configuration) it really is only a disaster recovery option in case my building burns down or the NAS totally gets destroyed.
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  5. #15

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    Fastglacier is user-interactive, I don't think that it does scheduled backups. Cloudberry is the only app that I've found for scheduled backups (not a bad thing, it's got quite a slick UI and is dead easy to use).

    You might know this already but it's worth mentioning just in case: I'm not sure how the Synology backup works, but it'd be worth checking the retention policy on deleted data... if data is deleted within 90 days from Glacier, then you are charged for the full three months of storage anyway. So if you are storing rapidly changing data that gets deleted out of the vault fairly quickly, your costs could be a bit higher than expected.

    I haven't done a cost estimate for a full restore in case of catastrophic data loss... I just kind of assume that transfer costs are going to be the least of my worries if both my live data and primary backup become unavailable.

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  6. #16

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    For backup I use Crashplan+ for offsite backup. There are often voucher codes floating around for the service.

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  7. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by anthro:
    It beeps once when i switch it on and then spins quietly. not sure if it's power problem since when i detach the usb/power adapter from teh hard drive, the adapter shows the light on but when i attach the adapter back onto the hard drive, there's no light on.
    Do you hear the head moving inside...if possible listen to the sound closely, if u can hear anything in addition to the spinning sound...

    After you plugin, please goto the device manager to see if there is any device connected under the usb lists....
    Last edited by shafiq; 17-12-2012 at 05:13 PM.
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  8. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by Stoob:
    Might be worth trying the drive with a different USB to SATA/IDE adapter, with any luck it will be the USB interface and not a physical HD problem.
    I was just going to suggest the same, had a problem with my external disk before and replaced the housing (includes the adapter) and now it works fine again. Upgraded it to USB3.0 actually, so it's faster now, too.
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  9. #19

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    I got it checked from a comp store and he said only way to recover data is to open it and get it.

    Does anyone know any affordable 3rd party data recovery places in HK? And after recovering data is it possible to revive the hard drive and get it working again or will it just die then and there? Will the recovery people be at to get it working again?

    Thanks.


  10. #20

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    Quote Originally Posted by anthro:
    I got it checked from a comp store and he said only way to recover data is to open it and get it.

    Does anyone know any affordable 3rd party data recovery places in HK? And after recovering data is it possible to revive the hard drive and get it working again or will it just die then and there? Will the recovery people be at to get it working again?

    Thanks.
    You possibly have a physical error on a hard drive and you're even considering using it again?
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