Deze pagina in het: Nederlands | Engels

December 31, 1998

This article is about a personal Horror which recently happened to me..

Before, during and after the last Weekend of Terror (part 14) this website has bloomed. The idea was born that a website for your beloved festival was greatly appreciated, a place where last-minute information about the festival could be found, running discussions about the surprise film, etc... This, including the potential continuation of the festival, has given me the motivation to drastically change the design of this website.

Starting somewhere late april 1998 I've been busy creating "The Unofficial Weekend of Terror Pages" version 4.0. The main changes are:

• less playfull design
• a complete and serious way to present the different films,
• a number of discussion forums,
• dual language (Dutch and English),
• Java Scripting.

A large portion of my spare-time has, lovingly, been sacrificed to make this.

But, horror, about 3 months ago I started having problems with my Hard Disk. Instantly I bought a new Hard Disk and copied all data to it. Quickly after that my old Hard Disk died. Data secured, I'm happy and continue working.

A few days later my machine doesn't boot and displays the message "Hard Disk(s) fail (80)". After loud screaming running through my house I decide it's time for a new computer. My faithfull Pentium 133, with 32MB of memory is replaced with a, bought in parts, Pentium 2, 350MHz, with 128MB of memory. Assembled the machine, placed my Hard Disk and booted...

nothing...

waited... nothing...

waited a little longer... still nothing...

slowly I feel a panic rise...

Before I uncontrollable start to panic, again, I buy a new hard Disk. Put it in my beautifull P2 350/128 and boot... It boots. Added my other Hard Disk and boot... It boots; but I'm unable to approach my other Hard Disk.

At this point I started searching for someone that was able to help me with the hardware of my Hard Disk to make Data Recovery possible. Enter Dennis. He accomplised more than I ever could; for which my eternal gratitude. But we still were unable to get data from my Hard Disk. Below you see a text that describes what is potentially wrong with my Hard Disk:

Headcrash Damage caused by physical contact between the read head and the platter. This causes some scratching of the platter's magnetic coating. The damage can be seen as a stripe on the platter. Metal dust often leads to further crashes on several surfaces. If the power supply is not switched off immediately, you could lose even more data.	Stiction The platters are coated with a lubricant which may cause the read head to get stuck to the surface when the power supply is switched off. When the disk is started, the head may be ripped off the plate and a head crash will occur within a few seconds.

This information is from the IBAS site. This is a Norwegian company with an establishment in the Netherlands. They, Among other things, do Data Recovery. I called them and asked what it would cost me to have them save my data. The following indication was given:

To research what the problem is they charge, approximatly, Fl.1000,-. After this they know what's wrong, what can be saved, how they have to do this and what it would cost me. The indication for my total costs, they said, wouyld be somewhere between Fl.5000,- and Fl.10.000,-.

I will not spend that kind of money to save, among others, a never published WebSite.

Because of my limited spare time I've been lazy with keeping my backups up-to-date. I thought, these things don't happen to me, only to others. This will never happen to me again. Take this as a warning if you have data you do not want to lose.

Finally, a domestic message concerning my lost data. A number of people have been sending me e-mails with questions and/or information about the WoT. I've been unable to answer these e-mails, and now I've lost them. My sincere apologies for this. If you still have questions or wish to share information don't hesitate to contact me...

Bob.