4zzz radio station needs data recovery

General
1

This could be a chance to make a very good impression on the folks at 4zzz.

The following email is from the 4zzz station manager -

Subject: [Volunteers] 4ZZZ server hard disk failed, data recovery help urgently if you have contacts?  
From: Michelle Brown michelleb@4zzz.org.au

Hey All

We’re in the middle of a bit of a major emergency, our main administrative server Banana (which holds all the most important 4ZZZ docs and archives) has had a hard disk fail.

We can possibly recover the contents through experts however they cost a fair bit and may take a while.

SO, hoping in the network of over 200+ volunteers someone may be a data recovery expert, or be mates with someone. Or maybe you know of a good local business to suggest, we’ve been getting quotes and time frames in the last hour but more leads the better to save us money.

Please let me know ASAP if you can!

Thanks

Michelle

1 Like
2

Someone might be able be able to do some basic attempts at recovery for free but recovering data from a drive that has really failed does cost money because it is rather specialised work that requires specialised equipment and knowledge. At my work we have had luck via this guy.

Jason Wright

Email: jason@lostdata.com.au
Phone: 0430 346 009

Would be worth at least running it past him for pricing. Someone at HSBNE might be able to have an initial go at it but this guy is a local (jindalee or similar) pro at it.

Has anyone had a quick go at recovering it yet or is this still a very new problem?

  • Nathan
3

I don’t know of any cheap ones but they may want to consider a mirrored raid for the future (a backup is better than recovery)

4

If you are really serious about backups, another machine is the way to go.
There has been cases where the motherboard or PSU has take the HDD’s with it, thus another machine with it’s own UPS is the only way to protect from this type of failure.
And since it’s now another machine take it off site and your covered for fire and theft.

5

Repeat after me, RAID is not Backup. RAID is not Backup :smile:

Backups should always follow the trifecta:

  1. Onsite quick retrievable short term backups. (ie Time Machine) [ Whoops, didn’t mean to delete that! ]
  2. Bootable Backups (ie SuperDuper) [ Crap, my HDD died and I have a deadline to meet ]
  3. Offsite long term backups (ie BackBlaze) [ My house burnt down ]

Anyhow, back on topic, 4ZZZ are probably looking at expensive recovery options unfortunately :frowning: Thats just the grim reality of having all your data on one fallible device.

1 Like