As someone who has worked in the field of I.T. for 30 years, there is one universal thing that has never changed, and that my dear friends are you, the end users.
Everyone has their PC, Tablet, Phone, Laptop and everyone has their world on their devices, the photographs, the documents, the chats that they have had. Material that to the person is so valuable to them, they just cannot even think about what would happen if they ever lost any of this data... yet, 30 years o.... I am still dealing with people who call me up saying that their computer won't boot up, or their laptop won't start or their tablet or phone won't power up or they seem to have lost vital stuff.... and I say to them... (oh you already KNOW what I'm going to say now don't you?) Have - You - Got - A - Backup - Of - Your - Data? And what is the universal reply? Why of course, it's always the same... NO!
At that point, this is where it gets very interesting, as suddenly the end user realises that being asked that question, it has somehow moved to this being their problem, rather than it being mine! And then we get the high pitched, and usually, slightly enraged voice that states, never ask, but states that I HAVE TO GET THAT DATA BACK AS IT'S IMPORTANT and I HAD BETTER GET IT BACK! I MUST!
Now when I first started out in I.T. all those years ago, I took on the emotions of these people, I worried, and fretted about actually being able to do what they wanted, and when I happened to fail on occasions, I also learnt that the anger I received was all because I had failed them, that I had been unable to recover their valuable data, stuff they could never get back, all because I was hopeless with the task at hand...
As time went by, we saw the influx of software and hardware that would allow users to back up their valuable data, their chance to have something safe and secure... to get back what they so valued... and then they would all ask the same question... How much for that software? How much for that hardware... HOW MUCH???? Oh, that's very expensive...
Yes... the data that is so precious, does have a price attached to it, and it's amazing that through the years this has stuck with me, so much so that like today, I went to collect a computer from a client, who I asked that they drop into their local office and I would collect it from there, to save them money, and me a lot of travelling time. I had received details that it would be there on Monday and I could collect it in the morning.
So, today I drive out, wander in and ask where the computer was, as I would take it away to repair it, only to be told by the person who had brought it in that they might have forgotten it...but we should check the car first... So we walk outside, check the car and nothing is there! I must have left it at home... Not a problem says I, bring it in tomorrow and I'll come back and get it then. Smiles around, I leave sighing... but heck, nothing to worry about...
I get a phone call 10 minutes later to be told... the person might have left the computer outside when they emptied their car over the weekend... and in a slight panic said, I'll go home and see if I can find it...
At that, the alarm bells in my head started to vibrate, but until I heard otherwise I would remain optimistic (that's actually a lie as I'm a born pessimist by nature thank goodness) so I went about dealing with other jobs the rest of the afternoon.
I get a phone call... I get a voice saying, I found the computer but it has been left outside, and it's wet... straight away I advise the person to just cover it up and get it across to me straight away so I can check on things, and more so to make sure I can get the hard drive checked for all that data that would be on it. But as usual, we have to meet half way from where I am and where the other person is, so thats a 25 minutes drive I could do without, but because of what we are dealing with, I venture forth to save the day…
We meet at a car park… the back door opens and I look inside… (the images below were taken after I had got the water out of the case back at base)
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The only way I can describe that moment is how I would feel if I was shown a dismembered body, when I was expecting one that was maybe roughed up just a little… seriously, the computer was in pieces and looked as though someone had left it in the rain for a month to rust, but not only that, they had used it as a football as well!
Everything was smashed, a side panel missing, CPU fan is gone, rods into the motherboard snapped, secondary fans shattered, water pouring out from inside… Memory chips sodden.. the case itself all bent… and I get asked, “Do you think it will be ok?”
I’m sure the laugh I gave was more hysterical than comical, as I just wasn’t expecting this scene of carnage that was before me! More so, the person who’s computer this was… I know what she had on it, and I also know… the chances of her having any sort of backup of any of the data would be…. yeah you got it…. ZERO!
So here I sit, trying to recover the data from the hard drive… listening to the grinding whirring and buzzing sounds of a drive that has met it’s maker and I know that the next stage will be for me to break the news that I am unable to bring the computer back to life, but this time, there is zero emotion, zero worries and only a sense of knowing what way things will now go… which is….
Hi there, I’ve been working for several hours on your computer system, but sadly your computer is beyond saving, and your hard drive is sadly not recoverable by myself. All the data is gone!
Cue the rage, the anger and the statements from above about the valuable data….
I will let that wash over me like a warm stream of air from a vacation…. and then…. I shall say, the next stage will be to take it to a specialist datarecoveryr agent who can examine the drive and they may be able to recover data from the drive…
I know I will be met with YES! Take it there and see if they can get the data back (mentally I am now counting…. 3… 2… 1…) and then it will come…. 30 years in the business, different people, places, cultures, all the same… I will then be asked… HOW MUCH?
Starting price will be £200 - £300 for the data recovery, and usually, £90.00 for them to do some general work on the drive to see if it is even recoverable….. Cue the silence….
And incredibly….. that data suddenly becomes something of no value…. yet again….. and they shrug, and then move on to getting a new computer and the discussion of having a backup in place this time… (I will say nothing…)
I'm not surprised people fail to backup there data. I'm a little surprised when they take their anger out on the IT guy who can't recover said data. I wonder how many people on a daily basis lose years of pictures and video because they don't backup their data.
I backup up important data on a fairly regular basis but I'm always paranoid its not enough. In my experience, hard drives (mechanical ones anyway...I don't have enough experience with SSDs yet to say) are one of the most common components to fail (followed by power supplies and then fans).
I try to keep an offsite backup too but I know I don't update that nearly often enough...
The thing with a mechanical hard drive is that you stand a chance of data recovery, but when an SSD goes I have found it's dead, with 99.9% chance of recovery and no amount of freezing it will help LOL! I advise people when I see potential problems and give people a cost, and then it's up to them. When they do have an issue, my sympathy is now long gone, with the only satisfaction being that I had taken the time to advise them at some point that this would happen, but they chose not to listen or be proactive.
I remember going to a job for another client who is a solicitor and also involved in politics as well now, and the PC was an ancient old thing that had developedbadd blocks, but the data was semi-salvageable.
I was basically threatened that I had better get the pictures back because they were of his wedding... Would be interesting for me to bring that up considering this same person has decided to become a bit high profile over here in Scotland these last few days... saying people are against him.... with his attitude I am not surprised!
Yeah, the magnetic disks themselves are going to be pretty reliable. But you may have to pay for an expensive data recovery service to get to the data on them. I've probably had a dozen hard drives fail on me personally since I started using hard drives (around 1993). Only once or twice have I been able to coax them into giving up the data. I guess the typical failure modes of a mechanical hard drive are that either something electronic fails, or something physical fails (stepper motor or whatever). In either case at least most of the data is probably still locked away safely on the magnetic disks themselves and can be recovered with the right equipment.
I don't know about SSDs. It seems unlikely all the memory chips would fail at once so I would assume that with the right equipment data could still be extracted from working ones somehow. But I guess there's a lot less you can attempt without specialized equipment. I would think though that eventually SSDs would be a lot more reliable than mechanical hard drives. There should be less to go wrong with solid state. I've never had a CPU or memory fail in a computer under normal circumstances. Just hard drives and power supplies. A couple of motherboards but I'm pretty sure those were the power supplies' fault too.
Must be an Alienware thing. I found one in a bush in Aberdeen!
Well, all the parts I had got thrown into a skip in Glasgow.. maybe it was fly-tipped in Aberdeen!!!! :)
Hahaha! Yeah!
Been there, done that and got the t-shirt as well. As much as I distrust the cloud still it is there for a reason - nobody wants to bothered having a separate hard drive with duplicates of their stuff on it - why have it twice? Of course we know it's because loosing data isn't an if it's a when - this is an extreme situation but I have had hard drives go randomly - hell a PSU can go pop and take out the entire pc - motherboard, ram and hard drive - it's scary when you think about it...but until it happens everyone lives in that happy place that their computer is bullet proof and will last for ever.
Great post, and the pictures gave me the biggest chuckle ever!
#thealliance
If someone had done a video of me opening that car door today, the video would have gone Viral, I'm sure of it! Tomorrow will see events unfold... but my heart goes out to the guy doing a simple job of delivering a PC to me, only to have left it outside, and kids decided to play football with it... Sometimes you cannot make this stuff up!