Disastrous Saturday Ever

Generally speaking, my Saturdays are pretty quite and I tend to go easy on myself with everything. I woke up in the morning and like any other Saturday, I had my breakfast at home and headed for my Coffee from the nearest Dunkin Donuts. As I was focusing on my work and listening to some great music from my iPod, I realized I did not add number of great tracks that I knew off.

When I went back home, the first thing I did was to turn on my desktop to synchronize my iPod and update the library. However, this time my computer failed to recognize my backup drive. Initially I did not take it seriously, so I checked with the power and USB cable. Everything seemed ok yet the drive letter did not show up.

I restarted my computer and tried it once again. This time around I started to get a bit nervous as the drive started making some noise (not normal). It almost sounded like the disk read/write head was trying to read but it's getting stopped by something. This went on for few minutes. I realized something is gravely wrong here. I plugged off the USB and power cable and started to think what can be done! At this point I wasn't worried about the drive but all the important files that I have inside my drive. They are invaluable.

Over 30 thousands of pictures taken by my DSLR, videos, musics that I ripped from my audio CDs, important financial document files and stuff. It seemed like everything was gone. That evening, I was so upset and frustrated that I actually forgot have my lunch altogether.

That 1TB Western Digital drive indeed served me well but I really didn't expect it to die instantly, not like this. It was from the era when SSD drives are yet to be introduced for the masses. I spent couple of hundred bucks back in my school years for this backup drive and it never let me down until today. I decided right away to place an order for another 1TB drive (enough for my need), but this time around I am not falling for any mechanical HDD.

I ordered Samsung 850 EVO 1TB mSATA SDD which cost me close to $400 (including tax) but I really don't mind spending extra for added durability at this point. Yes, I know that I can get far larger mechanical hard drive with the same amount but it's not about the space that I am worried about. I already have the Nekteck mSATA Enclosuer which I am thinking of using with this new drive replacing the previous SSD.

Updat 10/17 2:00pm: I was up until Sunday early morning to play around with my backup drive. I opened up my 1TB Western Digital enclosure and separated the main hard drive unit. Placed it up side down and connected with my desktop using some spare cables. Somehow my drive got recognized and I am currently in the process of recovering some of my files. Unfortunately, the data transfer rate is very slow, around 1mbps. It seems like I have to keep my desktop on for few days just to finish the transfer process. Until my SSD gets delivered, finger crossed.

Update 10/17 8:00pm: Somehow I managed to transfer all of my files to a safe backup drive. I had to keep my PC on to transfer all the files for straight 2 days as the transfer speed was pretty low. I tested some of the files and turns out they are perfectly alright.

Update 10/18 9:00pm: My Samsung 850 Evo 1TB SSD arrived today and I was able to copy back all of my files from the temporary backup drive to this brand new little baby. Everything went smoothly without any hiccups. Finally, I can sleep with peace in my mind.