Hi Rich, sure, you're right, but Rick was worried that he'd lost tons of photos, that's why I made the suggestion. As I mentioned, I retrieved virtually all my photo files, both Jpegs and more importantly RAW files...

Hi Rich and Howard. You two guys are what this Forum is all about---Aces High, always most helpful. Thanks once again. Mucho appreciado.

 

Glad you got those wedding shots back, Howard.

 

Just ran a recovery program called EaseUS and it managed to access that dead drive which Recuva could not see. I can recover all of the data which is very important to me, around 158Gb of it, but the software will cost $70. Am hmm 'ing-haa'ing over it as I'm awaiting an IT pal of mine to recover the data for me.

 

Keep up the good work, you Aces.

Got yah Howard - great idea guess I had a bad experience - Rick that is great news hope it in fact does recover your stuff that would be most excellent lol, your welcome Rick

Samsung 840 PRO 356Gb SSD Update

 

Just had a response from Samsung's Support over in Holland. The drive is faulty and they are going to issue an RMA. Never mind that I stand to lose 256Gb worth of photographs, videos taken this summer, as well as my FSX downloads. I have learned one bitter lesson-----never to invest in any more Samsung products. Should have learned my lesson when their NV-8 and NV-10 digital cameras went pear-shaped!

That's unfortunate and I too am sorry for your loss but you have to admit there never are guarantees from any drive manufacturers that they assure your data is backed up in the event of drive failure--and we know they do fail no matter who the manufacturer is.   Are you disappointed in Samsung maybe because they didn't just send you a new drive?  That would disappoint me as well, but as I say, doesn't seem like they have done something really wrong, at least to me.

That's unfortunate and I too am sorry for your loss but you have to admit there never are guarantees from any drive manufacturers that they assure your data is backed up in the event of drive failure--and we know they do fail no matter who the manufacturer is.   Are you disappointed in Samsung maybe because they didn't just send you a new drive?  That would disappoint me as well, but as I say, doesn't seem like they have done something really wrong, at least to me.

I'm NOT saying that Samsung have done something wrong. I have been in the PC game long enough to realise that no one manufacturer can give a cast-iron guarantee that a product will not fail at some time in its life due to repeated usage. And Samsung to their credit have offered me an RMA. My beef with them is that their own Technical Support here in Europe have told them that they have seen a number of these SSD drives go down, and as such should offer a data recovery service to their customers, which Samsung have refused. Moreover, what hacks me off is that this drive was only purchased in May this year, saw no activity because I was away for the months of June and July, and now goes down in August. A company with the reputation of Samsung making such short-lived products? Come on.

 

Admittedly, at the end of the day it is my sole responsibility to back-up, and I generally do so with my precious photographs. I was just awaiting to collate and burn my recent Poland trip photographs along with my USA ones, and as usual, Sod's Law, kicked in, before I could do that.

Hi Rich and Howard. You two guys are what this Forum is all about---Aces High, always most helpful. Thanks once again. Mucho appreciado.

 

Glad you got those wedding shots back, Howard.

 

Just ran a recovery program called EaseUS and it managed to access that dead drive which Recuva could not see. I can recover all of the data which is very important to me, around 158Gb of it, but the software will cost $70. Am hmm 'ing-haa'ing over it as I'm awaiting an IT pal of mine to recover the data for me.

 

Keep up the good work, you Aces.

 

Hi Rick, sure, sounds like a plan to hold tight and get the advice form your IT buddy. As for the $70 that sounds a bit high. I got my hands on some software a couple of years ago, for a fraction of that. I wanted to grab some stuff I thought I'd lost on a compact flash card. It wasn't that important so I didn't want to spend a whole lot of dosh, but it was a good exercise as yes, it retrieved all the images from what I can remember, and it only cost, can't remember, but no more than about  £15 or £20. Having said that, it was a compact flash card and so maybe a software retrieval program for an SSD is more expensive, don't know. But as I say, maybe a good idea just to take on board what your buddy says. Good luck and have a great weekend!

Hi Howard & Rich. Life is so full of surprises. You do a good turn to others, and like my late father said to me.' What you give on the roundabouts will come back to you on the swings', or words to that effect. Last week I came to the aid of a posh lady driving a Merc whose left wheel had collapsed and her mobile phone was dead. I not only loaned her mine to make calls to her husband, but helped get the breakdown services to her and stayed with her until rescued.

 

And just when I was gulping at the cost of that recovery software, and my IT pal recommended that software, lo and behold, it is on offer just for today at $41, so have bought it and am just starting the recovery process. Just have to go and pick up a supplementary 250Gb hard drive from CEX, and I can rescue my data, at last. Hallelujah!

 

Thanks for your valued inputs, guys.

Edited August 30, 201312 yr by vc10man

Hi Howard & Rich. Life is so full of surprises. You do a good turn to others, and like my late father said to me.' What you give on the roundabouts will come back to you on the swings', or words to that effect. Last week I came to the aid of a posh lady driving a Merc whose left wheel had collapsed and her mobile phone was dead. I not only loaned her mine to make calls to her husband, but helped get the breakdown services to her and stayed with her until rescued.

 

And just when I was gulping at the cost of that recovery software, and my IT pal recommended that software, lo and behold, it is on offer just for today at $41, so have bought it and am just starting the recovery process. Just have to go and pick up a supplementary 250Gb hard drive from CEX, and I can rescue my data, at last. Hallelujah!

 

Thanks for your valued inputs, guys.

 

:clapping:

Well thanks for the heads up I had no idea these drives were having problems.  Perhaps it's mainly a particular batch/size.  So sorry if you lost a bunch of photos and things that's terrible ;o(

 

Can I ask you a question about drive backups--hate to bring it up!--but I bet you know something here.  

 

Here's the brief background of my drive configuration and it's pretty simple:

 

Disk0:  Win7 + FSX + FSX Addons -- everything I care to back up is on this disk.  Samsung 840 SSD 500Gb.

 

Disk1:  empty, but could have a 2nd install put on it of Win7 which I would use for a few games AND this 2nd Win7 install I would also install a disk cloning app, Paragon Migrate OS to SSD (it does any kind of clone operation).  This one is a 250Gb SATA HDD.

 

Disk2:  empty, and this is where I plan to clone Disk0 to to back up my entire FSX install w/ OS intact.  500Gb HDD.

 

Here's my question:  is it in some ways safer/easier for me to put Paragon on to Disk1 so that it can clone Disk0 to Disk2 completely independent of the active OS at the time of the cloning operation, versus putting Paragon on Disk0 and cloning to Disk2?  Somehow it seems it could be a little less trouble prone this way since Disk0 is not the drive w/ the active OS, but it could be totally non-relevent.  Your thoughts?

Hi Noel

 

I'm no expert when it comes to using Paragon, but I'm sure somebody here reading this thread will be able to help you out.

 

Fortunately for me, I managed to recover all my US and Poland-taken photographs, videos, etc, close to over 6000 photographs alone. Mind you, I am not that happy that a manufacturer whose SSD disks have been recommended left, right, and centre by various computer hardware-related publications, could treat its customers so disinterestedly when it comes to offering a recovery service(see earlier posts), nor am I too happy that a top-notch SSD drive could pack up in less than 2 months usage. I cannot even format it to delete all my data on it falling into the wrong hands.

 

Suffice to say, I will NOT be touching any Samsung-made products with a barge pole!

Great news Rick, that is great news Buddy.  :good:

Thanks, Rich. Appreciate both yours and Howard's words of encouragements.

Hi Noel

 

I'm no expert when it comes to using Paragon, but I'm sure somebody here reading this thread will be able to help you out.

 

Everything went smoothly using Paragon's ultra simple product.  I used my Win7 Pro OEM disk installed a new OS install on the 250Gb HDD, then installed Paragon on to it, then cloned the 500Gb 840 SSD to an empty 500Gb HDD and all's well--all three disks boot fine and behave as expected.  WOW, how much slower is the 7200 HDD!  I won't know how cloning back to an empty 500Gb SSD will go until I have to try it but geez as the name implies, 'Paragon Migrate OS to SSD' implies that is what it is designed to do.  As I understand it 'alignment' is taken care of by the software.   It is ultra simple & quite fast too, Paragon that is.

Hi Noel

 

Thanks for that vote of confidence in Paragon. Guess, I'll have to make a purchase of that seeing that your experiences have been so fruitful.

 

Good to hear all went well.

Hi Noel

 

Thanks for that vote of confidence in Paragon. Guess, I'll have to make a purchase of that seeing that your experiences have been so fruitful.

 

Good to hear all went well.

Thanks yes I'm glad it was simple and seemed to go as expected.  I did a fair amount of research on that particular component of their comprehensive disk management suite--the rest of which I don't really need in any way--and all reports were very favorable.  $19.