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Saving LR previews...?

Michael Seltzer

New member
Hello,

I am not certain if this is the forum to post this in, but I'll try here first. If I should post elsewhere (DAM?) let me know and I'll re-post there.

My (fairly) new LaCie external hard drive has died. LaCie is going to replace it (they've been very good about helping me through this difficult time), and I've no complaints with them. But I had some recent shoots I hadn't backed up elsewhere (dumb, dumb, de-dumb dumb). And I can't afford what Drive Savers wants to perform the autopsy. So I have a question....
Lightroom, of course, still shows me the previews of the images. Is it possible to convert these previews to some usable file format (jpeg, say)?

Michael
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Hi Michael,

I have some 8 external drives from LaCie and never have had problems so far (touch wood). What is the problem in your case? Has the hard disk itself died, or is the electronics circuitry of the case? If the latter, you can take out the HD and attach it as a IDE drive or use another external case. If the HD itseld has passed away, is it a total black-out? Or is it a matter of some sectors going bad, thus preventing access to the drive (you'd typically hear some grinding or scratching noises). In that case, I have been very successful in recovering data by using the excellent program SpinRite (see http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm). It costs $ 89 but will recover almost any data on a crashed HD, as long as it is still spinning.

Good luck,

Cheers,
 
Or is it a matter of some sectors going bad, thus preventing access to the drive (you'd typically hear some grinding or scratching noises). In that case, I have been very successful in recovering data by using the excellent program SpinRite (see http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm). It costs $ 89 but will recover almost any data on a crashed HD, as long as it is still spinning.

Another (longtime) Spinrite user here. Spinrite can(!) work miracles on questionable harddisk sectors (or even bits), however the issue might as well be a logical error as a physical one. For physical errors, the current version of Spinrite requires the drive to be one of the 'internal' drives hooked up on the internal bus in most cases, not an external (USB/Firewire) drive. The next (6.1) version of Spinrite is supposed to bypass enough protocols to address add-on drives directly, but it still will have difficulty in reading physically damaged sectors.

Bart
 

Michael Seltzer

New member
Hello All,

Thanks for the replies. First, Michael. I know DNG files can imbed high quality jpegs within them, and they can be used as previews. I had hoped maybe Lightroom was doing something similar. If they are thumbnails, I'm not sure what quality they'd be if I got them out, though I might try. However, I don't know where to get them, as I think they are in the lrdb file, and I'm not certain how to get them out of there, which I'd need to do before I converted them.

As to the LaCie drive.... Glad to hear that others have had better luck with them, as I'll likely be getting another to replace this one. I am using a Macbook Pro, so Spinrite won't work on my system. My wife has a Thinkpad; however, the drive is formatted in Mac's HFS+ as a journaled drive, so I'm not sure if it is readable to a PC, or if that's an issue at the level that Spinrite works. At any rate, nothing I have--Disk Utility, Tech Tool Deluxe--can even find the drive. It doesn't mount on the desktop, and nothing seems to show that it is present.

As to whether it is still spinning: When I turn it on, it sounds to me like it is spinning up. there's an initial whir, anyway. At least one of the tech people I've spoken with thinks it's not, though I don't know why. Anyway, shortly after the "spinning up" whir it starts making clicking noises, kind of like a marble dropping into a slot. It will occasionally make a scratching noise, which worries me. Makes me afraid the disk surface is being scratched. It had worked perfectly right up until the moment it didn't, so I'm dubious that it is simply a bad sector, but I don't know, I'm not terribly hardware literate (and, of course, I might now have scratched the disk since the problem started by running the drive several time s, as LaCie asked me to do, to check it out). What is wrong I've no idea. LaCie has gone as far as they can (over the phone) and simply want me to return it to them for repair or replacement. Others I've talked to (some local tech people) seem to think this beyond any software they have, though none have actually taken a look. Drive Savers thinks it would need to go into the clean room.

I thank you for your suggestions. I've no way to hook the drive up as an IDE drive, that I can think of. I could try to take this out and put it in another external case. That would void the warranty of course. Might be worth it to get the data back, but the others I've spoken with all seem to be saying the drive is gone and there's nothing I can do. And it would be a bummer to void the warranty and find out that the drive is still inaccessible. Do you still think Spinrite (or another Mac-based program) might help, or that it is worth the try to put it into another external case?

Thanks,
Michael
 

John_Nevill

New member
Off topic:

Being a Lacie user as well, I decided to open up one of their d2 series boxes and low and behold the drive is a Samsung Spinpoint!

That's good news as the Raid i've just built uses two 500 Gb Spinpoints.
 

Michael Seltzer

New member
On John Nevill's off topic:

I'm curious, as next I'm going to set up a mirrored raid. Can I use drivews fromtwo different manufacturer's to set up a raid? I'm a little gun shy at the moment and may just get another LaCie D2 320GB, or I might go for something else (I hear Glyph are good drives, as are Avastor, though both are pricier, and Seagate's FreeAgent Pro looks interesting, and uses one of Seagates own Barracuda.10 drives, which I understand is a pretty good drive).

Michael
 

Andrew Rodney

New member
IF you build the DNG's with LR they are medium size JPEG. If using the external coverter, its whatever size you specified (Med or Large). If the files are not DNG, the previews are in the database and you're basically screwed. Of course you can rebuild the database by importing all the DNGs in the folder structure (assuming those files are not hosed).
 
Do you still think Spinrite (or another Mac-based program) might help, or that it is worth the try to put it into another external case?

According to Spinrite's (http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm) website: "SpinRite is able to operate on all Windows XP NTFS formats, all DOS FAT, all Linux file systems, Novell, Macintosh (if temporarily moved into a PC) or anything else".
The reason is that it's format 'agnostic', it doesn't care about logical structures, it just verifies/refreshes/moves sectors and bits (also before uncorrectable problems can evolve).

The program itself explains:"To obtain direct, low-level access to a system's mass storage drives, SpinRite runs under MS-DOS, or any MS-DOS compatible operating system. The open-source FreeDOS operating system has been incorporated into SpinRite and it will be automatically booted from any boot diskette, compact disc, diskette image, or other bootable media configured by this program".

Then Spinrite needs to 'see' the drive on the internal interface bus (a future 6.1 version is supposed to also read external drives, although some can already be read by loading some generic drivers, but my LaCies are not showing on my box).

That's not to say it can/can't salvage the data, there's just no telling untill the underlying issue is known. I had an IBM drive once that suddenly failed with a lot of clicking noises (I suspect lubricant on the platters). Spinrite still managed to salvage and relocate some sectors, but since I had backups of the important data I didn't want to wait many days for Spinrite doing its recovery magic, so I replaced the drive and re-installed everything from scratch.

Bart
 

Michael Seltzer

New member
Thanks again for the info.

Andrew.... I don't have many DNGs, I was just hoping that LR, being an Adobe product, might being doing something similar. Guess not. Most of my raw images are backed-up to DVD, so I'm okay there. It was only the last couple of (small) shoots and some editing I'd done that was lost. I can recreate the edits, it just takes time. None of the work I lost was in the DNG format. I had been converting my RAW files to DNG, but stopped awhile ago when I read in a forum that conversion to DNG might not be a good--that I was losing information and ending up with lower quality files than the original RAW.

Bart.... I've been emailing with SpinRite, they've been very helpful. I tried downloading some of the DOS USB drivers, but haven't been able to get my wife's Thinkpad to recognize the drive. SpinRite can't access it, I guess, if DOS can't see it. I've run into some other problems as well (like being unable to create a DOS boot CD--as we have no floppies on either of our systems). I've still no idea what the problem is, but the way it's been sounding that last couple of times, I'm not sure it is still spinning up. At least the whir sound is much quieter. Anyway, I think at this point I'l just take the hit and return the drive to LaCie.

Thanks everyone for your help.
Michael
 

Andrew Rodney

New member
I had been converting my RAW files to DNG, but stopped awhile ago when I read in a forum that conversion to DNG might not be a good--that I was losing information and ending up with lower quality files than the original RAW.
Michael

Not so. Its not a lower quality file. In fact, you could embed the entire original raw file in the DNG along with the DNG information and all the metadata plus a nice JPEG preview (a pretty large one at that).
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Hi Michael,

Just a brief reply for the moment. Is this LaCie actuallky composed of two drives inside the case? If so, they can probably be recovered separately with Data from Prosoft Rescue.

Spinrite is best operated by mounting the drive inside an older PC running DOS. You may need to have a particular diver according to the case, such aas a USB driver which DOS is normally ignorant of.

Let us know about the drive anatomy. I belong to the faction, former LaCie advocates, who now shun their drives because they use propreitory ways of spanning dual drives and have a tendency to fail. I recovered everything by mouning the drives in new cases.

Not easy, as I cycle beteeen a number of utilites to get the disks to appear on the desktop. On a Mac System I could have a try if you get stuck and the drive is important.

Drive savers is very good but it may cost $1000 to $2500.

If it is crashed, then any messing that you do could make the drive unrecoverable.

Sorry you have this trouble,

Asher
 

Dave New

Member
I tried downloading some of the DOS USB drivers, but haven't been able to get my wife's Thinkpad to recognize the drive. SpinRite can't access it, I guess, if DOS can't see it.

Michael

Probably wrong assumption. If SpinRite is doing what I think it is doing, it is accessing raw sectors on the drive, via the old DOS/BIOS Int calls. This means that it is up to SpinRite to interpret the file system on the drive (if any), not DOS.

So, whether or not DOS can mount the drive in this case would be immaterial.
 
Bart.... I've been emailing with SpinRite, they've been very helpful. I tried downloading some of the DOS USB drivers, but haven't been able to get my wife's Thinkpad to recognize the drive. SpinRite can't access it, I guess, if DOS can't see it.

Well, I'm also unable to access USB/Firewire drives on my main box (despite trying various DOS/USB drivers), but that is caused by the drivers not making the drive visible on the (internal) PC IDE interface. If you boot the PC with a 3.5in floppydisk or a CD, and are unable to access the drive through the command line (CD <drive:>), then Spinrite can't see it, and thus can't process it.
Should one dismount the drives from their casing and somehow hook them up to the internal PC connectors, they would probably show up and Spinrite would be able to process them.

I've run into some other problems as well (like being unable to create a DOS boot CD--as we have no floppies on either of our systems).

You don't need a floppy station. Spinrite can create a bootable CD image on the HardDisk. In turn that image needs to be burned as an image to the CD by capable writer software.

If the underlying issue is an internal drive hardware failure, then software recovery options are reduced considerably, but Spinrite will try (and take its time doing it because it needs to acquire enough statistical data by 'lifting' bits from the platter surface while reading the surface from various initial reading positions).

Bart
 

Michael Seltzer

New member
Hi all,

Thanks again for all your help. Because of the time involved (and limited access to a PC), I decided to return the drive to LaCie. I've received the new drive, which is working fine so far. I did lose some images, but I'll survive.

Another question, if not LaCie, what drives do you recommend, as I know want to set up a mirrored raid? And can I add another a different manufacturer's drive to the LaCide as a raid? Space is also a problem, and the LaCie stack nicely and can be daisy-chained, which helps.

Maybe I'll start another thread with those questions, as they aren't quite what this thread was about.

Thanks,
Michael
 
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