We recently helped a new client from New York with a pretty tricky data recovery situation. She had visited the Apple Store to have her hard drive replaced. They were not able to do anything with her old hard drive. They ran some tests and told her her hard disk had “failed and lost all data”. She asked them if she was able to hang onto her old drive, which our Apple colleagues graciously static bagged for her. She then securely packed it and shipped it to us for data recovery.

On our first attempt, we were not able to grab any data, but we stuck with it and was able to recover all of her data.

Below is what she had to say about sending her hard drive to MacMedics:

ECSTATIC! FROM “ZERO DATA” TO FULL RECOVERY!

Sincerely,
Susan Henderson,
author of UP FROM THE BLUE
http://LitPark.com

You can read more about this including comments from her Blog readers and MacMedics at this link. You can read more about the MacMedics 5 rules of data protection and preservation at http://www.HardDrivesDie.com.

Also, don’t assume that when someone tells you your hard drive has “failed and lost all data”, that that is the gospel. Many folks don’t have the time, knowledge, or the energy to really know what’s up with your hard drive. At least 50% of the people that come into our shop with a “dead” hard drive don’t need clean room data recovery. If you send your drive away to “clean room” recovery for a free evaluation, and they can recover your data easily, you are still going to pay a pretty penny. Can you risk your data to our process, in almost all cases, yes. You can can do further damage by using the wrong process to try and recover the data, but if we suspect that your drive needs the clean room treatment, we’ll refer you to one of our partners. You data is worth a second opinion. If your data is worth $150, then it’s worth letting us have a crack at it.

Also, the data recovery firms pay a commission to the folks that refer business to them (including us). Many people would rather just have that commission, rather then trying to take the trouble of trying to recover your data. If your data is super critical, then you may want to go right to a clean room firm. If you’re not sure, please call us and ask us how we think your case should be handled. We do this every single day, so we do have a good deal of Macintosh Data Recovery experience we can share with you.

I recently helped a new client, Jet Stream Girl; deal with a terrible data loss issue. We did our best with her hard drive recovery from a 12” PowerBook. Sadly we were not able to get her data. She had an older iBook that was sick, but still had some of her data on it, so we migrated that unit to a new computer for her.

It was a bad situation, as she lost a large amount of data and photos. This is unfortunate reminder of why backups are SO important. See our web site: www.harddrivesdie.com for more info.

She gave us a nice shout out in her blog, which can be found here.

My 30-second elevator pitch has evolved to include ATM repairs.

So someone in the elevator will see my MacMedics jacket, shirt, or tool bag and asks, “What exactly is MacMedics?”

I say, “MacMedics is an Apple Authorized Macintosh service and consulting business. We service and maintain Macs at ad agencies and other places where pre-press and graphic design happens like corporate graphics or marketing departments. We like to say we’re in the ATM repair business, because when your Mac is broken or slow, you’re not making money.”

I got a huge dose of this wisdom this recently. A guy who lives and works near our shop has a video production business. He’s been asking about maybe getting a new Mac for the last year or so.

We exchange e-mails every so often when he has a question about his Mac or to ask if we need any video production help. I saw him at Subway not too long ago and he let me know that he might be getting a new Mac soon.

He came into the shop with his older MacBook Pro that was really sick. He had tried to run a Firmware update while he was in the middle of a project and it failed, thus making the unit inoperable. It’s not a common occurrence, but we do see it from time to time. As soon as it happened he ordered a new MacBook Pro from somewhere else, and then brought that in so we could transfer his data from the old unit to the new unit. Sadly, we could have saved him even more time if he had purchased the new Mac from MacMedics.

Normally this is not a big deal. We set it up the new MacBook Pro to migrate and it failed about 75% of the way thru. We tried a few other things and tried again, and it failed a second time. We then began to suspect the drive might be failing as it was getting kind of noisy and it was getting pretty hot as well.

I decided to go ahead and clone the drive on our data recovery equipment, so I could copy the data off the drive quickly. I then had to fix that data in order to get it into to shape to migrate it. His hard drive was a huge mess. The report on the drive was seven pages long! The total process ended up taking several hours and it delayed him over 24 hours from the point where his old unit blew up.

So, he’s a professional guy who makes his living with this MacBook Pro, and he had no back up, and he’s never had the unit serviced or looked at. This MacBook Pro is really his ATM cash machine as it provides him with all of his bread and butter for his business.

This is a fantastic case study in why a little preventive maintenance goes along way. If you treat your Mac like your very own ATM machine, you’ll never have these problems. Let’s get real here? Are you going to let your ATM degrade to a point where it stops dispensing cash.

1. This client’s MacBook Pro is well over two years old, so if we had seen it at any point recently, we would have most likely replaced the unit’s hard drive proactively and serviced the unit.

4. A little bit of annual maintenance and an automatic and tested back up system pay for themselves very quickly.

We’re friendly with this fellow, so if had stopped and called us on the phone, we would have been able to tell him all of this. We love to talk shop. If you have questions about how to treat your Mac like your very own ATM machine, just pick up the phone and give us a call!

This iBook hard drive came into the MacMedics Lab for data recovery. The hard drive came out of an iBook G4. Sadly the client did not have their data backed up. This hard drive has a serious problem and it now sounds like a chicken!

Please ensure you have an automated, functional, and fully tested back up system in place. Hard drives can die at any time. See our website www.HardDrivesDie.com for more information.

Don’t Beat Up Your MacBook Pro Unibody – Your Hard Drive Is Directly Under Your Right Hand!

A client brought us his MacBook Pro Unibody 15” yesterday. He got mad at his Mac and smashed his fist down onto the palm rest.

Sadly, this was a not a good thing for the health of the MacBook.

Here’s the carnage report:

1. Dented Palm rest (We did our best to bang the dent out)

2. Dead hard drive (It’s no longer spinning)

3. Lost hard drive data (Since the drive is not spinning, we can’t recover the data)

4. Voided Apple/AppleCare warranty. (Because the damage was due to abuse the repair could not be handled under warranty, and the client had to pay for a new hard drive)

Are You Snowed In Baltimore Or Washington DC Today? This Would Be An Excellent Time To Check Your Time Machine Or Other Macintosh Backup System.

Are you snowed in the Baltimore-Washington area? A snow day is an excellent time to review your Mac’s back up plan, add an extra layer of protection, or test the back up you already have running! Don’t forget, there’s no such thing a set-it-and-forget it backup plan! (This post has links to all my other posts on this topic. Read, learn, and protect your data.)

We also see a rise in data loss that can be attributed to folks moving data or computers around during bad weather. If you are moving your data, switching back ups, or upgrading to a new computer, or doing ANY type of data housekeeping, please read this Blog post first.

A new client in our Washington DC office, brought us a MacBook that had a dying hard drive. He needed the data, so Mike H, one of the talented MacMedics in Lanham was able to recover it all.

Folks, this would be so much easier if everyone had data back ups. I promise you that even without countless “Data Recovery” cases coming in every day, we’ll still be able to stay in business. If you don’t have a tested, working, and automatic backup working for, it’s TIME to get one. We can help if you need guidance.

If you have a back up, then test it, and please consider a clone back up and an off-site back up to boot. You can never have TOO MANY back ups.

Our client in Washington DC sent this:

“Dear Mr Stibolt

Steven S.”

We Fix Macs! MacMedics Can Fix Or Service Any Macintosh Ever Made.

MacMedics can fix Macs. Of course all of the recent Macs are no problem, even the last few generations are no problem for us. If the Apple Store or anyone else has turned you away because they say your Mac is too old to work on, then come see us!

This week we worked on two pretty old Macintosh systems.

Case #1: Replacing the hard drive in a Titanium PowerBook G4. Some people really love old Macs, we sure do. The old Ti-Book had been serving it’s owner’s needs since 2001, but the hard drive died. He saw no reason to retire the machine, so he asked us to replace the hard drive.

No problem. Even though PATA hard drives in the 2.5” form factor are getting harder and harder to find, we still have them. Old hard drive comes out, new hard drive goes in, and we transfer all of the data over to the new hard drive.

See this image large size here.

Case #2: Macintosh Classic (from 1990) that is dead, but it’s owners want the data off it. This one is still a work on progress. We’ve worked on this form factor Mac countless times, but in this case one of the case screws is fused in place, so thus far, we’ve not been able to get the Mac Classic apart. We will drill out the screw on Monday to get to the hard drive. This unit has a SCSI hard drive, something that MacMedics is familiar with. We have to pull data off old SCSI drives on a regular basis, so we’ll hook it up to one of our custom rigs to grab the data.

We had a new MacMedics client call us on the phone and then come by the office with their sick iMac. The complaint was the unit was super slow. Right away I’m thinking a bad hard drive. The client tended to agree with me. The iMac fits our profile for hard drive “retirement” anyways since it’s right at the three years old mark. This is a fine time to “upgrade” and “retire” a desktop hard drive. (MacMedics recommends desktop hard drives be retired after 3 years and 2 years in laptops)

In this case the client was in a hurry, so in trying to find the fastest solution we looked for the “sniper shot” hard drive fix to see if we could put her back in shape without replacing her hard drive. She had a presentation to work on tonight, and she felt most comfortable with the idea of getting her unit back on-line. We offered a low cost rental, since she had her Time Machine data, but she really wanted her iMac back.

We felt comfortable trying some “fixes” on her hard drive, because she had an up-to-date Time Machine back up. Well, when it really came down to it, those fixes and even a new install of her operating system failed to solve the problem. This told us that it was in fact the hard drive that was the cause of the problem.

The client opted for a new hard drive, AND an upgrade to a 1 TB hard drive (from a 500 MB. Read more about iMac hard drive service and upgrades here.), since her hard drive was dying. Because of what we had learned about her drive being super slow, we decided to multi-task and run utilities on her Western Digital TIme Machine volume while the new OS was also installing. As we started looking at it carefully, we learned that the Time Machine drive was also failing.

We’re not big fans of this brand of hard drive, and when we told the client it was failing, she was shocked to hear it. We learned that the drive was less than a year old (don’t forget hard drives can die at anytime. See our website http://www.HardDrivesDie.com for more info.) When I told her that Western Digital was not my first choice for storing data, she was again shocked as she bought it from the Apple Store.

Here’s the facts folks. Any hard drive can die at any time, and just because it was purchased at the Apple Store does not give you an extra layer of protection. The other thing to remember is that the process of TIme Machine running every hour is rough on hard drives. The other item everybody needs to know, is there’s no such thing as set-and-forget-it the world of hard drive back ups.

All hard drive back up systems need to be tested and monitored on a regular basis. Time Machine is no exception. It does a great job of providing extremely easy to use back ups, but it should not be the only back up you trust your data with. (See my previous post about Time Machine here.) We recommend a double back up. TIme Machine for your first layer of back up, and a “clone” back up for your second layer of protection. Ideally, you should also have some sort of off-site back up as well.

As we store more and more of our digital identity and life on hard drives, it’s akin to more “eggs in one basket”. When you have more data stored in one place, you increase your risk, if that single hard drive fails, you could stand to lose all of the data stored on it. The other thing to keep in mind is as the amount of data you have active and live on your computer grows and grows, TIme Machine loses some if it’s ability to keep a longer record of you past data. The larger your Time Machine hard drive volume is in ratio to your main hard drive, the longer Time Machine will keep you data backed up. Of course having any back up is better than no back up, but Time Machine’s real advantage is in it’s ability to to keep months and months (even a year) of data for you to look back on if you should need a file that you accidentally erased 6 months ago (or longer).

As was the case today with our new client, she came very close to losing her data as, both her primary and her TIme Machine back-up drives were both failing in different ways. That could have proved disastrous.

What can you do to prevent this? Make a clone of your drive. For as little as $99 you can by a portable USB hard drive and either clone your whole hard drive, or just copy your user folder to it. You can also start burning some of your data to DVDs or CDs and storing that data off site.

No matter what you need in terms of a back up, MacMedics can help. Call any of our offices, and we’ll be glad to help you add your first, second, or third layer of back up. It’s important, so don’t delay.

Tip: If you bought a Time Machine drive when you purchased your new Macintosh, it needs to be installed in order to protect you. Don’t start generating data you care about AND can’t stand to lose if you’re NOT backed up. If you’re reading this, and you need help checking you back up or getting it configured, call us we can help. It does not matter if you’re local to MacMedics here in Baltimore, Washington DC, or Philadelphia. We can come on-site, or we can visit your computer via our Desktop Support Software. A back up coaching session over the phone can be set up and running in about 15 minutes. PLEASE, don’t wait!

You can read some of my other posts on Time Machine here:

Congratulations your hard drive made it through another Friday the 13th!

Back up and secure your data! (Then test your back up system!)

Do you use Time Machine as your only back up? Double it!

Installing a second hard drive into a MacBook Pro = Very Cool. Having a mobile bootable backup anywhere = PRICELESS.

Leopard’s Time Machine might not be a powerful enough back up for you.

The Apple Store won’t upgrade your hard drive for you. But, MacMedics can, and we can do so either in or out of Apple warranty.

Here’s a common hard drive scenario that we help MacMedics clients with every day.

Your hard drive has failed, but you’d like to replace with a larger hard drive.

This makes perfect sense. Your MacBook with a 120 GB hard drive kicks the bucket, and in the process of replacing it, you’d like to upgrade it. MacMedics can help!

In Warranty: If your Mac is under warranty AND it’s hard drive fails, we can upgrade you to a larger capacity hard drive “under warranty”. All you do is pay for a new hard drive in the capacity of your choice.

Here’s how it happens:

1. We diagnose your computer’s hard drive as failed.
2. We order a new hard drive from Apple.
3. We install a new third party hard drive in the capacity of your choice.
4. We will install a new operating system on your new hard drive. (good time to upgrade your OS if you wish!)
5. You pay MacMedics for the cost of the new hard drive.
6. We send your old hard drive back to Apple.
7. We give you the Apple replacement hard drive to keep.

Your total cost: Just the price of a new hard drive, assuming we don’t also have to worry about or recover any of your data.

The free “original” size hard drive is yours to keep and you can sell it, keep it as a spare part, or use it to upgrade one of your other Macintosh computers.

Installing a new, large, faster, and more robust hard drive in your Macintosh does not void your AppleCare warranty. The only caveat that you have to keep in mind is that the Apple warranty WILL NOT cover the third party hard drive under Apple’s warranty. But if it should fail it is covered by a 1-year MacMedics warranty.

Out Of Warranty: If your Mac is out of warranty, we can also replace your hard drive with any size hard you would like. Most hard drive “upgrades” or “retirements” are done for our flat fee of $150 plus the cost of the hard drive. (Black or White original MacBooks are done for $99)

Obviously, if we have to recover your data from a failing hard drive, and provide other services in order to get your computer back in shape other charges may apply.

Here’s how it happens:

1. We diagnose your computer’s hard drive as failed.
2. You choose a new hard drive size and speed.
3. We install that new hard drive for you.
4. We clone your data from old hard drive to new hard drive
5. We test and run updates on your computer.

MacMedics keeps all popular hard drive sizes and speeds in stock at all times, so we can get you back on-line as quickly as possible.

This is just one more reason that MacMedics is often a better choice than trekking to your local Apple Store and dragging your iMac or Mac Pro through the mall. See our complete Top Ten reasons of why not to wait in line or fight the crowds at the Apple Store here.