DATA LOSS - What to do?

Yup, another case of files go bye bye.

Yesterday, an outside engineer was using my room.  In the first hour he managed to wipe out all my D-Control Console Prefs.  Which is annoying, but can be put back to normal after a couple sessions.  I got most of it back for him and helped him get his session all patched and running.  Things were running seemingly smooth all afternoon.  So I left the building at 3:30 to run some errands.  Then, my boss calls me at 6:30.  Says he has no good news for me.  Turns out the freelancer, completely erased and reformatted my external hard drive.  He plugged in a new drive that needed to be formatted, and when he went to do that, he wiped out mine instead.  Even though it was named Miko's Audio Drive 2. 

Most of the drive's contents were backed up to another drive, but the most recent working projects from the last few weeks were not.  So my question is what do I do?  Do I attempt to get the data recovered?  Do I make the engineer pay me money to start over on the record I'm working on? 

I'm more sad than angry in this scenario.  However, emotions aside, I think I'm owed some sort of compensation.  I just need help determining what it should be.

Sorry to hear about the loss, but i think it may be possible to recover, some companys do this, but i'm not sure since a formatting has occured, but that depends on the formatting level also iirc.
On the other note, and it's always when it happens that you think of it as always, well it is possible to erase protect your external drives with a password iirc, never had to do that since i'm the only user, but could be a good thing for you in the future i guess, and when you'll have it well you'll never encounter that problem again ha, as always....

PS: if you find a recovery company and if it's possible to save things, then give the bill to the freelancer, seems fair...

Where is that drive, what system, what format?

Most of the time a format these days is a "quick format". Only the start up area of the drive is re-written and the system now sees an empty drive. All the actual data is still there until new data is written/recorded over it. This is a major security issue for many corporations. But also your lucky day.

For a data recovery company it is a trivial job to restore that data, and there are even some free tools to try a DIY recovery. I would advise using a data recovery service if you have no previous experience on this.

Bill the freelancer for the data recovery--it's NOT cheap.

But if you want a chance at recovering it, stop using the drive immediately.

Bummer Mike,

Perhaps it was a quick format as others have indicated, which is simply wiping the directory information. Data stays on the drive.

http://www.powerdatarecovery.com/

Is a good place to start.

Mark

I don't think he attempted to overwrite anything.  So maybe there's hope.  I am trying out Stellar Phoenix for Mac.  He'll get the bill for that.  If that doesn't work, I'll take it to a professional service.  Wish me luck fellas.

well that sucks...  Nothing to add that hasn't already been said  in terms of how to handle the recovery process. But when it comes to drives and studio recording.  for every audio drive being used I run one to 2 back up drives that are backed up on the daily before leaving. One travels with me for safety and the other is just a back up incase the original audio drives fails. It might be over kill but better to do that the loose an entire project.

Engineers like that know enough to be dangerous but not enough to be useful. If he was an assistant, I would have him looking for the hard to find xlr to midi cable I need for voice commands of the midi instruments being used.

I normally take the project and copy it to 2 drives for me and 1 drive for the client.  I've just been plowing ahead with no time to slow down.  So, backups have taken a backseat.

I can't even begin to talk about all the things breaking on me in the last couple months.  The universe is testing me at the moment.  I just hope I pass.

when the universe tests me, I sometimes remind it that I was not an a student all the time

DISK WARRIOR!

It can attempt to recreate the directory structure from orphaned inodes on the disk. If he did a "quick format" you may be okay! With a dash of luck Disk Warrior can rebuild it. I am assuming this is (was) a Mac-formatted disk?...

It's like $30 from Alsoft.

riggler said:

DISK WARRIOR!

It can attempt to recreate the directory structure from orphaned inodes on the disk. If he did a "quick format" you may be okay! With a dash of luck Disk Warrior can rebuild it. I am assuming this is (was) a Mac-formatted disk?...

It's like $30 from Alsoft.

Click to expand...

+1 I've used this before, sometimes it loses the file names but you get everything back for the most part, it's a huge pain to re-organize things again

STOP.  DO NOT DO ANYTHING.

"I am trying out Stellar Phoenix for Mac.  He'll get the bill for that.  If that doesn't work, I'll take it to a professional service.  Wish me luck fellas."

Don't try and recover it yourself before letting a pro do it.  You can only make it harder and / or minimise the amount of data that can be recovered.  Send the drive to a pro.  Do not pass go.  Do not collect $200.

I've been in similar position several times, and I've used various bits of software to recover data and also sent drives away.  The most consistent way to get the most data back is to get the drive to a specialist.

As for asking the freelancer to pay for it, it can't hurt to ask, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were to say it's your job to keep your and your client's data safe.

The other engineer has taken it in to a professional.  I ran a scan with Stellar Phoenix, but didn't begin to recover.  Hopefully, I can get back up and running on this record quickly.

I've had good luck with Data Rescue (by Prosoft) on a Mac, fixing things Disk Warrior couldn't.  But a professional is the best choice (do not consider the guy at the local computer store a pro - go to a real data recovery specialist).