Yep, if it is suffice for your needs, then you don't need to think about it too much!

 

Pro and home are virtually the same, just more features added. If it can handle home, it will be able to handle pro.

 

So, I got my Dell XPS on Friday. It's OK. Not having MAJOR issues with the Vista when I install all my hardware & software. Had some minor problems that my software support staff was able to quickly idenity & attribute to Vista.

But now I have a new problem. My Western Digital My Book Premium external HD just FAILED! I hear a constant clicking sound, which according to their VERY limited customer support page indicates a drive problem. The unit is about 1 1/2 years old & only had a 1 year limited warranty on it. They are affiliated with several data recovery firms, but I'm concerned they'll charge an arm & a leg to recover my files. It had some sensitive info (tax returns) but more importantly almost all of the picture files I have of my daughter since she was born in 2004.

I'm not really sure just how much i want to (or can afford to) pay to have it recovered. I got an e-mail back from one of the companies who will diagnose the problem & then give me a quote for the recovery. This phrase scares the living crap out of me, "The cost of standard service for IDE or SATA drives is $995 or less per recovery. Pricing depends on several factors, such as time required for recovery, the cause of data loss, condition of the platters, the manufacturer of the hard drive and the file system."

So... a couple of questions:

Does anyone know of any reliable & trustworthy data recovery companies in Hawaii? I'm thinking I should try & get a quote from a local company first (I usually try to support local small businesses first anyway) and then consider shipping it away to a firm that WD recommended.

Anyone else have bad expereinces with WD external HD's? On the flip side, what external HD's have you had good experiences with?

I can't help but wonder if the failure of the HD on my Sony Vaio PC & now that of my external HD are related. Are there any viruses that could do something like this? My Sony was almost 5 years old, so it may have just been time... and it looks like quite a bit of people have had problems wtih WD external HD's just dying on them as well.

 

Hardware failure is common on Hard Drives. I only know of Ontrack (mainland) as a reputable recovery solution, other IT guys can recommend other companies as well. Price is really expensive for recovery.

Locally, I don't know of any businesses that can do reliable recovery job, I could be wrong. Most of local businesses are not specialized in data recovery, by the simple fact of connecting your defective drive to an external housing and try to do a software recovery.

For External hdd, I usually have 3, and contain the same exact data, that is how I backup my photography picture, plus the online hosted solution. Not to sound mean, but this could have been avoided if not relying one external drive only. I learn the hard way as well...

Edit: here is the link: http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/

The constant "clicking" noise sounds like a mechanical failure.

 

Norris- Yup, I guess I learned my lesson just now. These external HD's are not that expensive any more, so I should buy two when I do get a new one. My plan was to buy a new one every 3-4 years... but it appears that was flawed thinking on my part. Steve was suggesting I look into internal flash HD's as an alternative.

BTW, is that avatar one of your pics?

 

Yup for the avatar, was taken from 17th floor of the Hokua Building.

External HDD are really cheap now. Also, for your future pix, look for an hosted solution as well. I use my flickr pro account to upload my original pix, unlimited space, very convenient, and cheap.

Hope you can recover your data from your external drive, but it would be at a cost.