Commentary
Are those photos really priceless?
by Steve Nelson, Minnesota Public Radio"The hard drive is dead."
When I said that to my wife of 14 years, I was really saying, "Honey. Eight years' worth of pictures of the boys are gone. Even though for weeks you've been asking me to back them up because the laptop was slow and making weird noises. And I said I would. Also, wasn't some of your writing on there? 'Cause that's gone too. And the home movies. And everything else."
Well, maybe not gone. The computer and its click-click-clicking drive were sitting in a repair shop, where I hoped a wingman could bail me out. Turns out the failure was mechanical. The easy $150 fix was off the table, but maybe all or most of the data was still on the drive. To get it, my wingman would need to send it out to a squadron of data recovery specialists, at a cost of up to $1,200.
There it was. It's easy to call pictures of your kids priceless, but suddenly mine had a specific and rather steep price tag. T-ball games. Birthdays. Yellowstone. Twelve-hundred dollars.
There's one photo in particular I kept thinking of: our 5- and 3-year-old boys meeting their little brother the day he was born. The baby was swaddled tight in a blanket in Mom's arms. Our 3-year-old, a little freaked out, said, "He doesn't have any arms." Snap. Great picture. Great moment. I remember thinking, "We're all here now."
Well, we might all be here, but that picture is gone. Still, the fact is, there are plenty of other shots of the kids out there. The proliferation of digital technologies means it's certain that even after the crash, there are more photos of our kids than there ever were of me or my wife. Grandparents and friends are constantly pointing cameras at those boys. I take cell phone pics and send them to Facebook. We've even got some actual, honest-to-goodness printed photos.
When it comes down to it, though, I really want those pictures we lost. Eight years is a long time. We're not going to get another chance to record D's first steps.
On the other hand, a little compiling from friends and family and we'd have a respectable album. With $1,200 we could take a vacation to make new memories and take new pictures.
In the end, the deciding factor will likely be my guilt. After all, this was my fault, and it would be great to tell my wife, "The hard drive is alive." But then again, don't be surprised if you see us at the Dells, snapping pictures and trying to make up for lost time.
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Steve Nelson, St. Paul, is program director for Minnesota Public Radio News.
Comments (7)
If your hard drive is not fried, you should be able to get your photos and documents. I recently 'hit a wrong button', and WHAM!...three years of photos (well-over 4,000 the last time I checked - and none backed-up). I went to C-net and found Pandora, a file recovery program that comes pretty highly recommended and works quite well. Oh, and it's FREE. Give it a try.
UGH.
Just. ugh.
I will get your data off of that drive for much less... who in their right mind said it would be $1200+! It would be much closer to the $150... unless it's really messed up, but I would let you know that. Let me know if you want my help, I will do all I can and it still will be very much less than $1200.00! I can send a phone number, but only if you respond with interest in my offer. I live in MPLS.
Robert Stephens is on your board... Can't he hook you up with a little more cost effective data recovery? :)
The same thing happend to me just before Christmas and I was told the same thing--$1200-$1800. Dead drive, no way to retrieve the data unless you go to a clean room. If you find a solution, please let me know. I'd love to have my 10,000+ photos back!!
Consider your hard drive as your backup. Load all photos on external drives or on a paid backup cloud service. Become OC. Immediately make copy of new photos on external device before you see them on your computer, even phone pics. Sorry for your loss. The blame lands on the digital photo marketers in not emphasizing or selling backup devices to make it easy. I even have a hand-held backup for all photos when i travel, but had to order it online. Local camera shop did not know what I was talking about. Good luck. $1,200? Get a second opinion.
Give this a shot:
http://www.deadharddrive.com/
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