Re: recovering from "rm -rf"

[David Masover <ninja@slaphack.com>]

Rudy Zijlstra wrote:
> David Masover wrote:
> 
>> PFC wrote:
>>  
>>
>>>> Drive A is a 500 gig striped RAID.  Drive B is a 200 gig IDE drive.  I
>>>> mv'ed all my data (about 100 gigs) from drive A to drive B.  Drive B
>>>> then had its power plug fall out (don't ask me how I managed that), I
>>>> plugged it back in (stupid!) -- there was a spark -- drive B now won't
>>>> spin up, and drive A is essentially "rm -rf"ed.
>>>>     
>>>
>>>    You probably fried the electronics... if the heads are still OK,
>>> you  could recover your data by exchanging the PCB from a brand new
>>> drive, with  the fried PCB of the old drive. You need some electronics
>>> skillz, but a  friend of mine did this (it was an adventure, as he had
>>> to find the same  drive as he had, from ebay, etc) and it worked for
>>> him... if something  that's not on the PCB is dead, well, you need a
>>> recovery company.
>>>   
>>
>>
>> Seems kind of a waste to buy a whole new drive, if it does end up being
>> that simple.  I wonder if I couldn't ship this back to the manufacturer
>> and have them do it?  I'm sure they have extras...
>>
>>  
>>
> forget that idea, the extra's are bough by the recovery companies...
> 
> In other words, its not cost effective for the manufacturers to keep
> spare parts around.
> 
> /Kick in open door
> The thing you *should* have done is keep good backups, especially
> considering the amount you are willing to pay to recover...

I'm not sure yet how much I'm willing to pay.  If the Namesys people can
help me out, there will certainly be a donation headed their way, but
I'm not sure yet if I want to spend $500 to $5000 on a recovery.  It's
an academic question, anyway -- if it costs too much, I'll have to wait.

> No matter how you do it, no matter what type of RAID level you run,

Striping is fast, but not really RAID.

> nothing beats a backup on a separate medium, with an automated script to
> make it every night (or more often if needed).
> Kick in open door/

Indeed, a lesson learned.  I've got some sort of backup script
somewhere, but I'm not sure exactly what it's backing up, or to where.
It may have the really important stuff, but almost certainly won't have
all the music and anime, so I'm still trying to recover Drive A.

> With respect to pricing, your cheapest option is likely to get a similar
> drive from Ebay. Lots cheaper than spare parts from the manufacturer
> (which i do not expect them to have). Even buying a similar drive new
> from a shop will be cheaper than spare parts.

Similar drive, if it'd work.  But my manufacturer warns me that even
identical-looking drives sometimes have different firmware.

> What you can do is ask the manufacturer which drives are using the same
> PCBs. You might get lucky.

(same PCBs and firmware.)  Thanks, I'll do that.