TAG | computers
I bought a Seagate FreeAgent 1.5TB drive this summer (yes…just a few months ago) because my Western Digital 320g drive was full. I was so excited to pick up the drive because I made the commitment to shoot only in RAW, so file storage space is a paramount. After transferring all my images and music from my Western Digital drive, as well as transferring files residing on my laptop harddrive, and subsequent image files, I quickly filled up about 1/2 of the drive. No worries. I still have over 750GB of storage left on this one drive. Sweet!
Or, so I thought.
I suspect some of you may have experienced the horror that follows.
Last night, I went to pull some images from the external drive. I plugged the power adapter into the wall and immediately heard a dull “beep…beep…beep.” Hmmm, that doesn’t sound good. My anxiety level went up a few more notches when I noticed that the drive was not recognized on my computer. Now while I like to fancy myself as an advanced amateur IT guy, I had no clue what to do next other than unplug the power supply and plug it back in.
“beep…beep…beep “
Ah man…this is NOT good. Even though ALL my image files are saved on this drive, I decided not to panic. I will do some research, and solicit help from my friends. Sure enough, within moments, I had a couple of photography friends on Twitter as well as a workplace friend offer advice and recommendations. Before consulting some of the “third party” services for data recovery, I thought, “Why not contact Seagate? It’s their faulty hard drive that is the source of my angst.”
I will let the chat with the service support person speak for itself:
Michael Carter: Thank you for contacting i365, A Seagate Company – Professional Services , my name is Michael Carter. How may I help you today?
Communication with the RightNow Chat service has been lost. Please wait while attempts are made to restore the connection.
Maybe I’m wrong, but is it too much to think, let alone expect, that the company that produced the faulty drive would be willing to cover the cost of data recovery on one of its failed units — particularly one that is still under warranty? I took exception to the notion that the only way for this drive to fail was due to physical damage. Ask anyone who knows me, and the y will tell you that I treat my equipment with kid gloves. The flipping drive was working two days ago, now it doesn’t. Unless our cat secretly gave the drive the Office Space treatment, I just don’t get it.
[sigh]…on to researching other data recovery services. If you know of a good service, please share it in the comments. I already received a Tweet from DataSavers.com inviting me to check out there services. Gotta love social media.
Ok…I’m just sayin.’ Up to $2500 to recover data of your $149 [failed] product? That’s a pretty rhetorical question because I know that these companies know you are in a bind. Most people, particularly businesses would be willing to pay a pretty steep price to recover data. For me, I have to debate the pros and cons. I am at the nascent stage of my photography career. My business has just begun to make a ripple, in terms of client interest, and then BOOM! My entire stock if images from the last couple of years has potentially vanished. I have to determine how much those thousands of images are worth to me–not to mention my ability to even pay that much for recovery. (Do I sense a Help Save Matthew’s Image Files donation campaign coming on? Just kidding…sorta.)
Edited to add: Here is the text of an email I just received from Seagate, as a follow up to my chat with the service representative.
Please click on the following links to know more about the service levels offered -
1. Priority- fastest turn around time/ free return media
The cost for Priority Service will be $2300 which includes a free external drive with all your data on it. Furthermore, the drive will cover new two years of warranty.
[link removed]
The Promotion code : PRIO4
2. Economy – No evaluation fees/No data No charge
For Economy service it will cost you $1600 and your data will be returned to you on a trusted media of your choice like DVDs .
[link removed]
The Promotion code : ECON4
So let me get this straight. For an additional $700, Seagate will expedite recovery of my data and send it back to me on another one of their potentially faulty devices. Ummm…yeah, that sounds reasonable.
Again. Please share your opinions in the comments. I would really like to hear from you.
Ps. It took every ounce of restraint I have to keep this post family-language friendly.
Please note: the video has a couple of “adult words.” (very briefly @ 3:32 mark)
I love it! There are some great anologies in the video.
OK, forgive me, but I’m still on this topic. PC vs. Mac. Putting aside my seemingly never-ending problem with Windows Explorer not responding, I have turned to doing what I do best — researching the hell out of something before making a decision. At the most basic level, I have the same reaction to Macs that I suspect most other people do. Ooooooh…ahhhh. It’s hard to look at, or put your hands on, a Mac without having some sense of technological or aesthetic arousal. They are sexy. However, just as I am with people, I’m not easily sold on appearance alone. I need to know what’s behind the “pretty/handsome face.”
I think where I am starting to look at the Mac over the PC is not for the aesthetic, or cult-like adherence by photographers, artists, and the like. Instead, I’m looking squarely at the stability of the underlying nuts-and-bolts. Principally, the operating system. This is what I want to understand more fully before making the leap. Is Apple’s OS just that much better than Windows? Or, is it a combination of the operating system and the hardware? (The question about the operating system is a bit rhetorical because not much research is needed to run across articles or reviews that effectively push Vista over a cliff.)
Though some may consider the design, look, and feel of the computer to be shallow; if you’re working on it daily, it is important. Given my penchant for minimalism (example: I subscribe to Dwell magazine), the Apple is perfect. However, I’ve not spent any time actually laying hands on the system. The tactile feel and response of the keyboard is very important to me. I type a lot–even more now that I’m blogging–and I need a comfortable and responsive keyboard. Considering all the bloggers I see banging out content on MacBooks, it suggests that the keyboard is good. I’ve read some reviews suggesting the keyboards on Macs are a little lacking, but I think there’s some subjectivity here because everyone has different typing styles. I’m a touch typist, so I may have a different perspective from someone who is a two-finger, hunt-and-peck typist. Moving to the physical product, I am not completely sold that Apple’s are the prettiest things out there. I’ve seen a number of laptops and desktops by Sony, Samsung and HP that rival, in my honest opinion, Apple’s aesthetic.
Turning the focus to the underlying system; this is an area where I want to be versed on facts not biases or hype. Whereas the look of the computer is rather subjective, the desire for a functioning operating system–free of mysterious alerts, bugs, viruses, etc., should be pretty objective. This is where I do tend to listen more attentively to Mac users, because what I universally hear is the satisfaction with the experience. Ask just about any PC user, and you’ll get a story, if not a tome, about problems. I seldom hear Mac owners saying, “God! This thing is a piece of sh*t!” If you could have been a fly on the wall last weekend, that would would have been the mildest expression uttered. Nevertheless, I don’t want to make a decision to change platforms in a knee jerk fashion; particularly when the switch to a Mac involves a pretty hefty investment. (I think Dave Cullen did a good job capturing the justification for the price differential between Macs and PCs in his video.) I would like to do a little more reading on the differences in operating systems. I would also appreciate, your comments. Whether objective or biased, it’s interesting to hear the perspective of people on both sides of the fence. I am particularly interested in hearing people who’ve tried both and why they made the decision to go with a PC or a Mac.
In fairness to my Toshiba; though there have been a few Vista hiccups that have given me fits, I’ve had a pretty good experience with the laptop. The programs that I have on the system work, and I’ve seldom encountered compatibility issues. From talking to friends, it appears that one of the major differences between the platforms is the ease of use for graphical design and layout. According to my fried Chris, iWeb would have cut the time redesigning my website in half, it not more. In fact, he e-mailed me the other day and said that had that been him dealing with all the freezing programs and convoluted graphic design; he would have been standing at the door at the Apple store the next morning. I shared some of that emotion. I just don’t want to be hasty. Not to mention, I don’t have several thousand dollars to spend on completely new equipment. Hence, I am being rather deliberate about this issue, with the freedom of having a system that works, albeit not optimally.
Again, I’m interested to hear your opinion. If you were a PC user that made a switch to Mac, please share your experience. Would you go back to PC? If not, why? I am also very interested to hear from people who have tried Macs, but decided to stick with PCs.
My very close friend, Dotch, has been an Apple/Mac aficionado since college. I still get a hearty chuckle reflecting on him clearing space and polishing the corner of the dorm desk for his first Mac. Over the years, he’s stayed true to the brand, and I’ve never once heard him cursing at his computer.
Fast forward to the last few weeks with my (knock on wood) trusty Toshiba 17″ wide screen Satellite laptop. The machine itself has been humming along for nearly two years. What’s been giving me increasingly giving me fits, though, is the buggy Windows architecture. (I’m running on Windows Vista Home Premium.) It begin with an occasional hiccup here and there with program compatibility. I bought a few Windows Vista magazines and the tips provide in them seemed to tweak out the goofy stuff. Recently, though, I’ve been nagging little problems. I could see if this was a one off thing. Maybe something happened that my system didn’t like. However, the system alerts has been showing up with some frequency. It seems like nearly every time I point my cursor down to my system tray, I get the hour glass. A couple double clicks later…this stupid alert.
What the…? COME ON!!!!!
Notwithstanding Dotch’s testimonials for the last 20 years about Apple products, I’ve been relatively neutral on the platform issue. I’m not really one for peer pressure or so easily enamored with Apple products. Sure, they’re pretty, but, heretofore, had not discerned a difference in utility between the two platforms . So when I’ve receive a distinct, almost incredulous, “WHAT? You don’t have a Mac?” from follow photographers, I brushed it off. I enjoyed a quiet chortle, observing that all these Mac owners are running programs–Photoshop or Lightroom–that run on PCs in lieu of Apple’s Aperture. What’s the big deal?
At the sake of being redundant, this…
…is becoming a BIG deal!
Starting out in this business is costly enough with the expense of “photography equipment.” However, as I acknowledged in a previous post, in the age of digital photography, a computer is just as much photography equipment as are the camera bodies, lenses, lights and filters. I’m a very patient person, but I have a low threshold for equipment that doesn’t perform as designed. I can’t blame Toshiba, really. It’s the unstable Windows OS that I’m learning deserves all the criticism heaped upon it by Apple and countless numbers of technology writers. After all these years, I think I’ve reached the end of my rope with PCs. A MacBook Pro just may find a home on my lap in the near future.
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