Hard Drive Not Found and Data Recovery with Windows Home Server

Now that Windows Home Server has been available for almost a year and half, I am amazed at how many people do not protect themselves with a Windows Home Server from a Dead Hard Drive or Disk Crash and from these four terrible words strung together in white text on a black screen, "hard drive not found"  . As Joel Evans,  DriveSavers breathes life into a dead drive eloquently put it," In computer circles a well known statement when it comes to hard drives is that it’s not a matter of “if” a hard drive dies but “when”". What he also pointed out is the simple fact that if you send your drive to an expert company to recover the data from the drive it will probably run you about $1500 US. Did you see that? $1500!!!!!!!!

How much is a Windows Home Server again? oh yeah, about a third of that.

There are plenty of Data Recovery companies out there, but why would you want to wait for a failure just to put yourself through that financial strain? Besides, there are no guarantees that one of these Data Recovery companies will be able to recover all of your information from your drive. And if you are reading this post and you are now having to go down this painful and expensive path of getting your data recovered, why don't you take out an insurance policy and buy a Windows Home Server?

In the event that you encounter the horrible "hard drive not found" message and you now realize you have a "dead hard drive", and you have a Windows Home Server, Data Recovery via the Restore Computer Wizard  will take you about 1 hour, minus the time it takes you to run out to your local computer hardware store to get a new hard drive. The new hard drive that you purchase just has to be at least the same size as the previous drive. Little known fact, if you want to upgrade your current hard drive with a faster larger drive, you can perform the same steps with the Restore Computer Wizard to put your new hard drive in place. Simply run one final backup of your pc, shut down, pull your old drive, install your new hard drive, boot your pc with the Home Computer Restore CD and follow those 6 simple steps to you newer, faster, expanded capacity pc.

Thanks for letting me vent a little on this. I guess working for a tech company blinds to the reality that not everyone is aware of the solutions we are working on. I would much rather prefer that our customers were aware now of Windows Home Server than after the fact, So, that they do not have to endure the pain of a hard drive failure, but alas, this is the reality. Heck, I still know many fellow employees who are initimately aware of the full capabilities of a Windows Home Server, yet they have chosen to go it alone and take the risk of a failure. I will just have to bite my lip when my neighbor comes over one day and tells me that his hard drive failed.

Thanks again,

Kevin Beares
Community Lead (Windows Server Solutions Group)

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  PingBack from http://www.webdatarecoveryservices.com/services/windows-home-server-team-blog-hard-drive-not-found-and-data/

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  run.forrst.run, I am really sorry you had this problem with your Windows Home Server. Fortunately, there is help for what happened to you. Please read this article from Alex: http://www.alexvermeule.com/post/Howto-recover-from-a-Windows-Home-Server-crash.aspx Thanks, Kevin

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  This article covers my exact reasoning for owning a Home Server.  Unfortunately, it did not prepare me for my 1.5tb drive failing in my HP Home Server this morning. There is little documentation that I have found yet to attempt to recover from this.  So the average user would still likely spend that $1500 for data recovery and several hundred more for services of a consultant. Duplication is set on so in theory the files should be on another drive.  But Where are they and how do I point to these new ones?  And is the drive really bad?  I will remove and reinstall it and hope the system tells me something.