Beware : Cudas got issues

About less than 2 months ago I've bought a brand new Seagate Baracudda 1Tb SATA hardisk.. This new HDD has been the main storage for all of our work.. It has been connected to our intranet which all computers in our office could share this storage device.. I have to tell you (those who have not experienced the beauty of 1TB) that the amount of storage is simply HUGE!!!

I've made 3 partitions on the HDD named "store", "work" and "backup".. The "Store" has the biggest amount of space to put all our past work and personal stuffs.. So, since we have a huge space to put all our files, I've transferred all images from my HDD into this new HDD to free up as much space as I could (in hope that my OLD pc would be faster and it does).. All our latest work has also been transferred onto the HDD to the "work" and "backup" partitions.. And some of them has been burned on a DVD-R for archiving..

Since then, I have been doing some major editing to our photos including these architecture photos below.. All of the latest work is inside the HDD..

These architecture photos are not easy to process.. most of them are photomatix's HDR..

How to create an HDR image? It is easy but time consuming..

1st, I have to shoot 3 RAW exposures for a single composition (can also be done using single RAW file by adjusting the exposures by +- 2 stops; similar to bracketing)..

Back in the office, I have to process these RAW files to get the results that I want ie; white balance, hue, saturation, tone, contrast, sharpness and few others. Then the 3 images is exported as TIFF(*.tiff). For the next step, I've used photomatix to create HDR images from the 3 exposures.. 1st I will drag the 3 files into photomatix which then will be combined into a single image.. Then I used the "Tone Mapping" function to get the proper result.. Next, the images will be processed by photomatix to generate the HDR image to a final state and then be saved as a JPEG file.. Final step will be to open the JPEG in Photoshop to be tweaked in order to achieve the final output.. Those are the steps required to create a single JPEG of an HDR image. (jangan pening kepala ye kepada sesiapa yang tak faham term2 photography ni.. abaikan aje). Anyways, can you imagine the amount of things to be done to create a single image?

I can only manage to create 10 to 12 HDR images a day and for the set below, I managed to complete around 60 images but I cant remember how long it took me..

Last week, after few days of outstation trip (againnn...) my PC behaves oddly.. It starts to become sluggish and hangs a few times. Each time the PC hangs I would use the "Panic Button" to restart. It was okay for the first day..

2nd day came and the sky came down on me.. Like the day before, I would restart the PC normally when the PC hangs.. But this time windows just wont load.. Few times and still no avail.. To not do anymore harm to the PC, I've run the Windows CD and perform a CHKDSK..

Hollaa.. My PC booted up again and I was able to use the PC again..

The next day, I've decided to update my portfolio in my facebook with the building photographs.. That was when I realized the misery that is coming my way.. All the partitions of the new HDD was gone.. What is left was an F:\ icon with only 32mb on it.. what happened to my 999gb worth of space? I've start to panic..

I then ran my hdd recovery software.. It would usually able to detect missing partitions or lost/deleted files.. But this time it had found nothing.. Even the missing partitions.. I've downloaded few other data recovery software (trial version) to detect the missing partitions but still to no avail.. This is the first time ever that I got panicked over computers.. I was too panic that (for the first time in such a loooooooong period of time) i gave up.. I didn't actually mind the work since I still have the raw files backed up.. I really dont want to loose my family photos.. The photos of Eva from day 1 till present.. Everything sentimental was in the HDD..

I dont know what else to do.. I've started to browse for data recovery services in Malaysia.. No surprise that all the companies are in KL.. Well,  the next day I've made a trip to KL to get my data recovered.. The 1st one is in Subang but they refused to do mine since they only entertain big companies and focusses on servers.. The 2nd centre was in Shah Alam but they stopped doing repairs.. So, I was left with only 1 specialist left to go which is MDR Solutions.. MDR is (as far as i know) the biggest data recovery company to entertain private and small time entepreneur like us..

Mr Yew was the person who entertained me. He lokked at the disk and grinned.. He said that this family of HDD is problematic.. They have a firmware issue which affected more than 50% of the series.. He told me that it would not be easy eventhough it was only a software issue (which I later agree after I browsed the net for info on the particular model/series).. We left the HDD with him and pray to Allah that it would not cost me a limb..

2 days later Mr Yew called me up and give me their evaluation and quotation.. Alhamdulillah.. The quote is still within my budget eventhough it is not anywhere near cheap.. Mr Yew added furthermore that he could not guarantee that he can recover all the datas.. He said that if they cant do it, they wont charge a single dime.. The quote does not bother me.. I just want the photos of my princess back.. I could not bear losing them photos..

I am now still waiting for good news from Mr Yew.. He said that he will get back to me on Tuesday.. I pray for him to deliver me good news.. Aminnn..

Anyways, I would like everyone to avoid buying the same HDD as mine and if you have already bought it, please backup all of your important files NOW..

The hardisk model is :

Seagate Baracudda 7200.11



Be awareeee~