[Info-vax] ODS-5 data/file recovery

[Richard B. Gilbert]

On 2/17/2013 3:44 PM, MG wrote:
> On 17-feb-2013 17:51, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
>> Recovery with a disk that wasn't quickly pulled offline can be dicy.
>> Blocks get reused.
>
> It's amazing, when you think about it, how in 'the media' they
> always warn for the amazing danger of data still being held in
> disks and even after physical defects, in the magnetism.  But,
> ironically, when you 'yourself' (i.e. computer end-user) try
> to recover it, you're usually in a lot of pain and hours further
> ... either with or without results.
>
>
>>> Sounds a bit contradictory, doesn't it?
>>
>> Nope.
>
> Rewriting a piece of software is worth one's time (and money, I
> guess), while it's equally prone to fail.  So, how is it different?
>
>
>> If you don't get your data back, then you're out either the money you
>> spent on the recovery, or the time you spent performing the recovery
>> yourself, or both.
>
> I wouldn't even know who could provide it, as a service, so I'm
> obviously limited to figuring it out myself.
>
>
>> If you did your own recovery work here, then you've learned more about
>> the details involved than you'd ever learn from comp.os.vms or from
>> asking questions in general.
>
> ?
>
>
>> Few folks in this situation are willing to pay, irrespective of the OS
>> and the platform and the particular trigger for the deletion.
>
> ?
>
>   - MG
>

I guess that the lesson here is, "BACKUP".

Human error can turn your precious data into garbage.

Computer hardware, particularly disk hardware, is subject to 
catastrophic failure!  When you hear that "loud scraping sound" say 
goodbye to your disk drive and probably to your data as well.  "BACKUP" 
is what you should have done yesterday.

Sometimes, some very expensive experts can recover some of your data.
Don't count on it!

Have you done a backup recently?