The Five Stages of Data Loss Grief - Memory forever - Gizmodo
Mon, March 22, 2010 at 22:01 The Five Stages of Data Loss Grief
So your hard drive just died, and you didn't back it up. I'm so, so sorry. You can expect to go through the following five stages once you discover that all of your photos, files and music are gone forever.
Stage One: Denial
"No. No, there's no way. This is probably just a software issue, maybe if I try rebooting again it'll work. I've only had this hard drive for two years, there's no way it just died. I'll get all that stuff back. This silly computer always freaks out but is fine after a reboot. Even though I've tried rebooting five times and it sounds like a fork is suck in a garbage disposal in there, it's probably just the CD drive."
Stage Two: Anger
"Are you fucking kidding me, Western Digital? I've lost everything! I trusted you, and for what? How does a company that sells such crappy products stay in business? I will murder the first WD employee I see. And what the hell is wrong with me that I didn't back this stuff up? I am the biggest idiot in the world and I want to punch myself in the goddamned face. I hate myself and don't deserve to be happy."
Stage Three: Bargaining
"OK, so maybe I can download some software and boot this drive as a secondary drive and try to recover some stuff. I mean, I'll have to go buy a new hard drive and install it and then figure out how to hook this one up as a secondary drive, and I'm not sure where my OS discs are, but hey, I'm a smart guy, I can figure this stuff out, right? Or maybe professional data recovery services have gotten much, much cheaper lately. Yeah, I'll bet they're affordable now, they've gotta be."
Stage Four: Depression
"All those photos. I'll never, ever get them back. I'll never see those faces again. And my essays from college, I was going to share those with my kids someday. And man, all that music, it's taken me years to collect all that. Why did I even bother? It's like the last ten years of my life have just been erased."
Stage Five: Acceptance
"Ah, none of that stuff was that important. Most of it was uploaded to various sites like Flickr, anyways. At least the really important stuff. Regathering all that music will be fun, too! And hey, you know what? Maybe it's good to start fresh every once in a while. And man, hard drives have gotten a lot cheaper since I last bought one. This is really just a good way to put things in perspective; none of this stuff was all that important. Except for those photos. Why the hell didn't I back them up?"
Photo via Flickr
Memory [Forever] is our week-long consideration of what it really means when our memories, encoded in bits, flow in a million directions, and might truly live forever.
Send an email to Adam Frucci, the author of this post, at adam@gizmodo.com.
Your version of Internet Explorer is not supported. Please upgrade to the most recent version in order to view comments.Data loss is the equivalent to a flood, a bunch of stuff you wanted to keep forever just got real soggy and theres nothing you can do about it. ReplyBubbleF**kingBuddy promoted this comment
I'm surprised WD was singled out, and not craptastic Seagate/Maxtor. I don't know how they've gotten so bad in recent years. Reply
Yesterday i've made a backup of my primary pc hdd, just in case. I never had a problem with my hdds. Maybe i'm just lucky. *knocks on wood*But as i imagine, this list is *very* accurate. Reply
Edited by Nipple of Doom at 03/20/10 12:39 PM
It's even worse when this happens when you are backing up... It's like your data decided to stab you in the back and leave with all your memories. Reply
stage 6: invest $3k in a crazy big readyNAS
stage 7 regret
stage 8 watch prices drop.. more regret
..... Reply
Stage 7: I'm the guy that told you so. Now listen to me, go and buy a freaking external HDD bigger than what you have and backup, backup, backup.
[Trust me, I work with two guys that recover alot of data for users. And they also shrug, sincerely, when they can't: "Not my problem you didn't have a backup!" ] ReplyEdited by SigmundTheSeaMonster at 03/19/10 8:23 PM
Stage Six: Learning from your mistake.
You drop some MAD money on a Raid5 NAS and set it to email you if a single drive ever fails.Oh, and if anyone gets to step 5, can you email me and remind me to immediately buy some stock in Buffalo? ;-] Reply
acidrain69 promoted this comment
Unless the head crashed, it's possible to recover the data by replacing the circuit board with one from an identical drive. I've had to do that myself before. Now, finding an identical drive... that's the problem. I was lucky in that I had two identical drives in the system, so I just copied the data off the good drive then took the board off it. If you don't have two identical drives, and the drive is old, then get looking on ebay... Reply
You forgot stage 3.5, the one where you take the hard disk out back and do something unspeakable to it.That's the only fun step here, you might as well take advantage of it. Reply
Edited by AreWeThereYeti at 03/19/10 6:48 PM
Awesome article and so so true. Kudos to Frucci on this one.I think this happens to everyone once. You collect and archive apps, music, video, porn, pics, txt files, important code, sql databases, wp backups, etc. to have it all die along with your crappy barracuda hd thats five years old.
After that happens once, you make multiple backups.
I like to backup everything per season. For instance I have Summer 2002, Spring 2002, etc. and store them on both DVD and USB HDD.
When it comes to personal pictures/video, I think it's a good idea to make a stow away back up on something like a usb flash drives and online storage sites. I have come to find that the one thing that can't be duplicated are personal pictures, video, and text and the memories they hold.
Most of the time everything else can be re-obtained. Reply
acidrain69 promoted this commentEdited by WaffleTeamStrike! v26.00 at 03/19/10 6:39 PM
You forgot the MacGyver stage:
The one where you get another HD and change the PCB out.
And after that doesn’t work you go to CVS and get; Cling Wrap, a box of powder free latex gloves, lint free bandages, medical tape, and rubber bands. *remember to wink at the cashier*
Then build a small clean room and swap out the platters in the HD.Next would come anger as you score the top God damn platter on accident screwing things back in! Reply
AreWeThereYeti promoted this comment
I make a habit of e-mailing all my photos to myself. If I need them any time or anywhere, I can access them from any computer with internet. Reply
I knew before I looked for the author's name that this would be Adam Frucci -- I'm still sorry for your loss dude. [gizmodo.com] ReplyEdited by ZLevee at 03/19/10 6:24 PM
Let's dedicate a thread here on the optimal security for your average data-muncher.I'd say use 2 or 3 HDD's in RAID 1 placed in a sortof shock-proof container stashed under your desk or anywhere safe where you can still access it.
Can anyone tell me how durable SSD's are when they're not being used much? I'd say they're less prone to having an equivalent of a head crash for their data. Still, I'd use RAID 1 on those things too.Fireproofing the container?
Keeping it suspended with strings if you live in earthquake regions? Replyacidrain69 promoted this comment
Funny that the pic is of a dead Maxtor Hard Drive. I had two Maxtor HDDs die on me in one week. Too bad I failed to backup my collection of the entire series of MTV's Jackass. Replyphilibuster promoted this comment
Thanks for the reminder to back up, it has been a couple of weeks.Though with so many of our pics and stuff now being stored on the cloud, losing a hard drive isn't as detrimental as it was at one point.
Though the last hard drive I lost, I still haven't made it to the level of acceptance. It was my negligence for not backing up, and I am still pissed off about that. Reply
So which is worse, drive failure that isn't your fault or doing something stupid and overwriting your precious files because of a brain fart? Reply
This is a solid reminder to make a back-up of your loved ones (and spouses) before they die. ReplyEdited by WestwoodDenizen at 03/19/10 6:06 PM
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| Now back your data up so you never have to feel the pain. It is sooooo important.
I watched the un thinkable happen a few weeks back where a building in the area was seriously burnt due to arson (apparently). I wonder if the 2 businesses inside had suitable DR plans.
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