Busted disk drive

[ticklehound]

Hey everyone

- I received some troubling news. My old hard drive (containing almost 3 GB of tickle media) is busted. I finally took it in to my tech guy to salvage something but despite re-wiring it, running certain software, hell even sticking it in the freezer for a bit, no luck in recovering anything.

Glimpse of hope is that the media on there is probably intact and can be recovered but needs high-tech equipment. It involves a sterile white-room and all that shit; as such, pretty costly. Question: how valuable is this media? how much would you be willing to pay? What would you do in my situation?

Now, I do have another drive that contains several dozen GB of new media I've collected in the last couple years. However, keep in mind the older media files were smaller in size back then and are near-irreplaceable media, some of it artwork no longer available, and videos from now defunct sites. Also, there's also a nostalgia about what it was like to collect all things tickling 'back in the day,' and these files mean more to me.

Items like old Magic Touch promo clips from the late 90s, random femfeet clips and photos, and historic realtickling files. And the artwork collection with over > 10 MB in cartoons.

I'm thinking about it, not sure where to go next. Anyway, I'm frustrated and disappointed; wanted to share.

 

[Imlatino]

aw man you should invest in an external hard drive or online data storage. Although I think ur less likely to be spied upon using your own external.

I got a good 330GB of tickle porn there 🙂

 

[ViperGTS]

Considering the pricing of proper hard disk recovery from a team could be in excess of $5,000...

You tell me if it's worth it.

 

[love feet]

oh not good! 🙁

 

[Lord Doctor]

How badly busted is it?
Get an external drive, and a flash drive. Borrow someone's computer to download and install a Linux OS onto the flash drive. Boot your computer from that and from there you might be able to recover the files and transfer them onto the external or a dvd.

 

[ViperGTS]

How badly busted is it?
Get an external drive, and a flash drive. Borrow someone's computer to download and install a Linux OS onto the flash drive. Boot your computer from that and from there you might be able to recover the files and transfer them onto the external or a dvd.

Yeah, because the average Joe is going to know how to do that...lol

Besides, the symptoms he's describing indicate a hardware problem, not a corruption or bad sectors issue.

 

[TheTickleMonster]

How badly busted is it?
Get an external drive, and a flash drive. Borrow someone's computer to download and install a Linux OS onto the flash drive. Boot your computer from that and from there you might be able to recover the files and transfer them onto the external or a dvd.

yeah, i don't think that'll work

At this point I think the best thing to do is say goodbye to all your things, sorry... maybe I'm wrong which would be nice. But your stuff seemed pretty busted by what you were saying

 

[ticklehound]

Thanks for the input - I should clarify - it's my old external HD thats not working. PC won't recognize it. We've bypassed the USB interface and connected it directly and it still can't be read.

The guy (friend of my brother who trusts his work) says the data can be retrieved. He knows of places that can do it - costs a few hundred, a grand at most.

I'm considering it. I slept on it, then remembered I may have some old CD-R's where I backed up some media when I swapped computers some years ago. Now I gotta dig through my crap and look for it. Good thing I never throw anything away.

I guess I was posing a question: if you had a similar problem, how much would you be willing to shell out to retrieve?

thanks

 

[phant0m]

Dude, you can grab 3 gigs of tickling media so cheaply now that some producers have hi res videos. It's not worth the money. Take a hundred bucks, and grab a bunch of stuff from your favorit producer when your new HD arrives. I recommend the F3 Spinpoint 7200rpm 1TB, it has a reputation for being reliable, though you should still backup important files.

 

[ticklehound]

Hey all - wanted to thank everyone who sent me input. I did find the CD that had a lot of the old stuff I was talking about. Its probably not worth shelling out the $$ to open up the hard drive, because I cant afford to.

I guess what was lost in communication was the sentimental value of the older tickle media. The pictures, artwork and videos from the early internet period that took hours upon days to accumulate, when I among others first got online and found out about this community. This was way before the TMF, before clips4sale & the dozens of studios available, before I could be choosy and only download the really good stuff. It was life-changing to say the least.

Anyway, nothing lasts forever & most of the old videos are difficult to find. I'm still looking though. If anyone has or want any old tickle pics, toons, vids, etc from circa aY2K-ish, let me know. I'd like to share.

Before anyone gets copy-righteous on me, all of this media I am referencing was freely shared and posted

 

[daddy]

This is a prime example of why you should always back up important stuff onto DVD or CD. People seem to forget that external Hard drives fail just as much as the internal ones. Backing up is done as easy as while you sleep. Sorry on your loss.

peace out,
daddy

 

[marcusb]

It's not that much. We've had drives recovered from OnTrack and DiskSavers for $800-1100. Depends largely on how difficult... and they will give a written estimate prior.

Considering the pricing of proper hard disk recovery from a team could be in excess of $5,000...

You tell me if it's worth it.