Who is willing to admit to using a microdrive and lost the data?

[Asher Kelman]

Why I even put my 4GB Hitachi microdrive in my pockeet, I really don't know! However, in the middle of a shoot I used the damn thing and when I came home the drive decided to fail! It now will not appear on the desktop nor in the Mac Profiler or Disk Utility! I tried my MacBook Pro and also my G5 tower!

No software can see the drive!

It does spin! Anyone know a company that can recover from these little things for a reasonable price?

Asher

[Scott B. Hughes]

Sorry to hear you're having a problem. Check out Scott Tallyn at http://www.tallyns.com/content/start.htm

I'm happy to report that I've had a problem that would have benefited by a trip to Tallyn's, but they have quite the positive reputation. Give them a call.

Best of luck!

[Nicolas Claris]

Hi Asher
were the Microdrive in its box while in your pocket?
If not, one may think that some dust or whatever came inside the pin holes...

Also: have you tried with a different reader? and a different computer?

Sorry to have those so obvious questions, but…

[Asher Kelman]

Hi Asher
were the Microdrive in its box while in your pocket?
If not, one may think that some dust or whatever came inside the pin holes...

Also: have you tried with a different reader? and a different computer?

Sorry to have those so obvious questions, but…

Yes, I tried my MacBook Pro and the Tower G5. Also both my 1DII and the 5D. Yes it was just in my pocket! I guess one should always use protection!

Asher

[Asher Kelman]

Sorry to hear you're having a problem. Check out Scott Tallyn at http://www.tallyns.com/content/start.htm

I'm happy to report that I've had a problem that would have benefited by a trip to Tallyn's, but they have quite the positive reputation. Give them a call.

Best of luck!

Thanks Scott,

I'll contact them!

Asher

[Nicolas Claris]

Yes it was just in my pocket! I guess one should always use protection!

Then I would try to clean the holes with some compressed air in can, or gently with a needle...

[Asher Kelman]

Thanks Nicolas,

The holes seem clean. Anyway I vacuumed it and the drive still does not appear. First quote I have id from Eco Data Recovary for $795 flat rate and $200 for return postage and the DVD!

Well, this is something!

Asher

[Nicolas Claris]

Thanks Nicolas,

The holes seem clean. Anyway I vacuumed it and the drive still does not appear. First quote I have id from Eco Data Recovary for $795 flat rate and $200 for return postage and the DVD!

Well, this is something!

Asher

It all depends of what you have on your card…

[Nicolas Claris]

Can the camera you used to shoot on this card read the card (can you see the pics on the camera LCD screen)?

[Asher Kelman]

No, Nicolas, the cameras cannot read the data, just says the camera cannot format this card!

Asher

[Nill Toulme]

Data loss can happen to any card. I've lost images on solid state cards before, but in approx 200k frames on microdrives I've never lost a single one. I've only shifted to solid state cards lately because the fast ones have gotten cheap.

Anyway, try downloading DataRescue PhotoRescue and see what it can do. In the meantime, don't do anything else that might cause a write to the card.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

[Asher Kelman]

Thanks Nill,

I have all the recovery software except for Spinrite and for that I have to find an old DOS machine, unfortunately, I gave all mine away!

I was trying to figure out how to damage the disks so I could test the rescue software options. Well I filled up one 4G microdrive at a charity event for the Museum of Contemporary Art and was going to try to corrupt the files after downloading them!

Irony!

The files were all there but I needed to first make room on my hard drive in my MacBook Pro so I took the Microdrive off the desktop, off-loaded other files to make room and to my surprise, the Toshiba Microdrive disk spins but no appearance at all. No software sees it!

I'm going to send it to http://werecoverdata.com and have them photograph the procedure!

I'm interested to see what they can do. I took a few pics that I want including a woman who just came back from the Congo documenting the strife there and also a Brazilian dancers who showed that all the laws of physics are put aside when girls gyrate!

Asher

[Edward Bussa]

Spinrite! I'm impressed - I always thought of Spinrite for PC-DOS techies, I figured you for a Mac softy! =D

The irony indeed! Hard to believe you're serious! Now you have your test, albeit with a little more at stake and a different recovery test.

[Asher Kelman]

I intend to get set up with Spinrite. This should allow one to test for the health of the surface and remap areas that might not be reliable. The moving of each test drive to a DOS machine could be a pain!

Asher

[Kathy Rappaport]

Can you use a PC running Windows 98 that has DOS emulation? I have an old laptop that has Win98 on it and it does have a Command Prompt

[Ray West]

Hi Kathy,

Spinrite works directly with the hdd, it don't want windows in the way. http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

It comes on a 3.5 inch disk, and you can boot direct from that. However, the hdd being 'spinrited' needs a direct connection to the ide interface. I think that will be tricky with the notebook, unless you have a cable that goes from 2.5inch to 3.5inch hdd eide - plenty go the other way i.e. let you stick a 2.5 inch drive in a 3.5 inch slot. If it is a 2.5inch drive that is flaky, then it should work fine. (You may need to get into the bios to tell it to boot from a floppy.)

hth.

Best wishes,

Ray

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

It comes on a 3.5 inch disk, and you can boot direct from that. However, the hdd being 'spinrited' needs a direct connection to the ide interface.

Small addition, Spinrite can also be booted from a CD (e.g. if there's no 3.5in 'floppy' station). Spinrite can create a bootable mirror-file, which should be written as a mirror-file to a CD.

Bart

[Asher Kelman]

Hi Kathy,

Spinrite works directly with the hdd, it don't want windows in the way. http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

It comes on a 3.5 inch disk, and you can boot direct from that. However, the hdd being 'spinrited' needs a direct connection to the ide interface. I think that will be tricky with the notebook, unless you have a cable that goes from 2.5inch to 3.5inch hdd eide - plenty go the other way i.e. let you stick a 2.5 inch drive in a 3.5 inch slot. If it is a 2.5inch drive that is flaky, then it should work fine. (You may need to get into the bios to tell it to boot from a floppy.)You may also need bios for USB connection then it can be external, I believe!
Small addition, Spinrite can also be booted from a CD (e.g. if there's no 3.5in 'floppy' station). Spinrite can create a bootable mirror-file, which should be written as a mirror-file to a CD.In this case, then one is losing the ability to actually remap the poor sections of the drive.

Asher

[Kathy Rappaport]

Asher, I was thinking maybe you could reload dos on the laptop if you needed a machine that could run DOS. It's sitting in the garage waiting for a use.

[Asher Kelman]

Thanks Kathy, I may do that! However, first I may try my old Toshiba Laptom if it boots up! i'd then have to get it to read USB!

Asher

[Kathy Rappaport]

I will check and see if it has a USB Port. Alternative: I may have in my stockpile of old un-need computer things a Serial to USB converter.

[Ray West]

Please, Asher & Kathy, et al,

Read the following two links, or at least the requirements/incompatibilities, sections.

Do this before you drag out your old laptops, and worry about usb drivers for dos, etc.

http://www.grc.com/files/technote.pdf

http://www.grc.com/files/sr5_manual.pdf

Best wishes,

Ray

PS Steve Gibson is a well respected guy from way back, but it does require some precise understanding of what his software can and can not do, and it requires some technical expertise, and patience (particularly with modern drives of more than a few megabytes in size.)

pps - Asher, you have completely mis-understood what Bart and I were saying. ;-) we assumed too much, I guess. ;-)

[Asher Kelman]

PS Steve Gibson is a well respected guy from way back, but it does require some precise understanding of what his software can and can not do, and it requires some technical expertise, and patience (particularly with modern drives of more than a few megabytes in size.)
Hi Ray, I'm quite familiar with Steve's work.

One can kiss one's computer goodbye for many hours during the testing process!

Asher

[Kathy Rappaport]

I am not that technical. I just read the thread and thought if there was a hardware need, perhaps I could help - just like a Boy Scout!

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

In this case, then one is losing the ability to actually remap the poor sections of the drive.

Not necessarily, as long as the physical drive is physically connected to the IDE interface. All Spinrite needs is for the BIOS to recognize that there is a drive on the IDE interface. This often will exclude external drives, because many will only be mounted by the OS, which Spinrite bypasses because it works at the lowest hardware level (IDE interface). Therefore one needs to hook-up the drive to the physical IDE.

Spinrite itself will boot in its own OS (FreeDOS) and then communicates through the IDE interface with the drive you select (from the list of BIOS detected physical devices). It doesn't care if or what sort of OS is on that drive, because it bypasses it, and only works on sectors and bits as seen by the IDE interface.

Depending on hardware, it is sometimes possible for the BIOS/Spinrite to detect external devices through a universal driver that needs to be loaded as Spinrite's OS is booting. Non of my external drives can be accessed that way, only the internal ones. That's why Ray explained that one needs to physically connect the drive to the internal IDE bus, which is often easier in a tower model than a laptop PC.

Bart

[Asher Kelman]

In this case, then one is losing the ability to actually remap the poor sections of the drive.Not necessarily, as long as the physical drive is physically connected to the IDE interface. All Spinrite needs is for the BIOS to recognize that there is a drive on the IDE interface. This often will exclude external drives, because many will only be mounted by the OS, which Spinrite bypasses because it works at the lowest hardware level (IDE interface). Therefore one needs to hook-up the drive to the physical IDE.

Bart,

I was merely referring to the use of a CD with an image of the HD, not the HD meeded to be repaired!

Asher

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

I was merely referring to the use of a CD with an image of the HD, not the HD meeded to be repaired!

I now understand, but that's not the image file Spinrite creates. Spinrite can create an image for a bootable CD (or creates a floppy directly), and then works with the Harddisk's hardware to lift information from the surface by employing various techniques, and re-write it to a well readable tested sector.

Bart

[Eric Hiss]

Hi Asher,
Sorry to hear of your problem with the drives. I have used quite a few microdrives in the past but last year had two go down. Both were 4Gb Hitachi drives. You might see a post of mine here on OPF regarding those drives. There is a warrantee where you can get a new one up to 1 year and all you need is the serial from the back. I was able to get about 50% of the files off of one drive using drive genius software by prosoft. The other drive started to fail but did not fail completely. The symptom on both was a few corrupted images on each use for about a half dozen shoots, then bonk!
Good luck with yours,
Eric

[Asher Kelman]

Hi guys,

Thanks for your ideas. I just got my estimate for clean room recovery, $3800! :)

No, there is no error in the number of zeros. Three thousand diollars and then also after that another 800 smacker

I'd like to write a review on how it's done. Lets see what happens. If this was a wedding, majot fashion or Dubai Skyscraper shoot, then there's enough seriosu Dollars/Euros /Yen or whatever invested that one would go for it if that the best route.

Staggering cost otherwise!!

Asher