Loss of data

[wireball]

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Hello, I have been dreaming of and building amps for the past ten years and have learned very much from people on forums like this one who are kind enough to share knowledge. I have been collecting tube specific files and schematics on my hard drive for as long and had quite a pool to learn from.

My main computer died on me and so I pulled out the "spare" that I have two hard drives in, one with all my files as a backup that I would refresh via cd rom every so often from my main
PC, but the backup HD failed several days after I authorized PC tech to reformat my Main PC, now I have to start over since I never kept the update CD's.

I am asking anyone who has time to share links so I can get started, I have all the links to the general sites but I had many, many, links to sites that had articles with little tricks
to building amps that made my chosen hobby more a pleasure when the head scratching begins.

Also I would like to regain (I probably had them all) as many as possible of those sites that had guitar amp schematics
and articles posted which either no longer exist or will take years of random browsing as I did to stumble on them, like several sites that had tube manuals and one site where a guy was selling amps (which looked quite nice) and also posted all the schematics for them on the site, cannot remember the name though.

I know some will think, why should I share things that took me years to acquire? all I can say is try to imagine this happening to you, I have spent many years chipping away at my 4.3 gig "tube amp database" and now it's all gone, since I am retired this is very important to me.

All my redrawn schematics, my DIY amp schematics, my layouts that took more hours than I can remember, are lost forever. I am only asking for links but whatever you are ok with sharing will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance for any help you can offer.

[dai h.]

data retrieval didn't work? :(

here's a start for the links:

http://www.firebottle.com/fireforum/fireBB.cgi?cfg=ga&relsub=garm&mode=

there are a bunch more (I guess on the old ampage site right side window)

[Ray Ivers]

A gentleman posting as 'Floyd' on the AX84 BBS mentioned that he had found a data-retrieval service that charged $420 to recover data from a damaged/compromised hard drive.

I don't know how ten years' lost work - plus the coming months of trying to locate and replace at least some of that loss - is worth to you, but if a lightning strike took out my HD plus both my backup drives, I would gladly pay five times that much to get back everything that's on this computer I'm using right now (and I'm by no means wealthy).

If it were me, I'd pull that HD in a heartbeat and send it off to a data-retrieval place, but YMMV. For me, the $420 expenditure would be forgotten within weeks, but the pain of losing the huge part of my life contained on this HD... jeez, I don't even wanna think about it. ;)

Ray

[Just Bob]

I've had that sort of data retrieval done before. It's better than losing the data entirely, but still not a total free ride. Depending on how the disk was damaged, a lot of your data comes back as file fragments that are not directly useable. If the directories get damaged, information is lost that says which sectors go with what files and the file name. You have to stitch them back together and guess as to what the file type might be and which fragments go with what file. If you get lucky, the files you want will be readable. If not, you get a lot of bits that may not be easily put back together. I'd try it. I've had good and not-so-good results, but still better than completely losing years worth of data.

[wireball]

Thank you guys for all your comments and thank you Dia H. for the links.

That guy over at AX84 is me.

I traded off the PC along with the drive, it would have made me feel even worse
if I paid that much and there was a partial recovery of files that can easily be
replaced and all my personal stuff was lost, I did register a recovery program
and had no luck with it, my son was hacking away at his myspace.com site
for at least a week before the slave died and 90% of the files I recovered were
gifs and jpegs from that site, I would have gladly paid the $420.00 to recover
my files but none of the two places I asked would give a guarantee even after
I gave them breakdown of what the HD had been through since the folder was
deleted. The worst thing happened after I traded the PC (couldn't stand looking
at it any more) another guy at AX84 offered to do the data retrieval for just the
cost of shipping both ways, then the best thing happened, a guy at AX84 offered
to do the data retrieval for just the cost of shipping both ways and all sudden
like, I felt better about the whole mess.

That just knocked me out, anyone who would offer that kind of help to a fellow
tube head has got to be a super cool person, really made my day!

I am just going to suck it up and start over, I had fun doing it the first time
so maybe this time I will do an even better job of it.