Your thoughts on this article are requested.

[David Brooks]

This is the article:-

http://pindelski.org/Photography/2011/11/29/disk-drill/

I bought the product more than 10 years ago and it worked well for me.

Has anyone else reading here had a need to recover photographs?

--
Kind regards,
David

[geoff]

On 19/12/2022 10:52 pm, David Brooks wrote:
> This is the article:-
>
> http://pindelski.org/Photography/2011/11/29/disk-drill/
>
> I bought the product more than 10 years ago and it worked well for me.
>
> Has anyone else reading here had a need to recover photographs?
>

Fortunately no, but would you trust something described as having been "
.. written in clear grammatically correct English" ?

geoff

[nospam]

In article <ZpacnWQ9zIz-Sz3-...@giganews.com>, geoff

more so than something that has grammatical errors. if they don't give
a shit about proper grammar, then why would they care about the more
complex details of file recovery?

the product he is spamming both here and elsewhere is not good and
their claims are anywhere from false to highly misleading.

even if it were any good (which it is not), it's a general purpose
recovery app for a wide variety of file types, versus being tuned
specifically for recovering photos. t

here are many tools that are designed for photo recovery, which is the
proper choice for recovering photos.

[geoff]

On 20/12/2022 10:59 am, nospam wrote:
> In article <ZpacnWQ9zIz-Sz3-...@giganews.com>, geoff
> <ge...@nospamgeoffwood.org> wrote:
>
>> On 19/12/2022 10:52 pm, David Brooks wrote:
>>> http://pindelski.org/Photography/2011/11/29/disk-drill/
>>>
>>> I bought the product more than 10 years ago and it worked well for me.
>>>
>>> Has anyone else reading here had a need to recover photographs?
>>>
>>
>> Fortunately no, but would you trust something described as having been "
>> .. written in clear grammatically correct English" ?
>
> more so than something that has grammatical errors. if they don't give
> a shit about proper grammar, then why would they care about the more
> complex details of file recovery?

My point, in not so many words.

And that the 'article' is basically an advertisement for a file-recovery
app. Not (just) photos.

geoff

[David Brooks]

It's a VERY interesting website, geoff.

You might like to start here:- http://pindelski.org/Photography/about/

//The Author: After years of misery in an English public school where he
learned about corporal punishment, Englishness and cricket, Thomas
Pindelski attended University College, London, graduating at the top of
his class in Mechanical Engineering. Immigrating to the United States in
1977, he lives in Scottsdale, Arizona and takes pictures for fun and sanity.

Biography: A living thing. Click here.//


--
David

[David Brooks]

> there are many tools that are designed for photo recovery, which is the

> proper choice for recovering photos.

You are a fine one to talk.

You cannot even write text messages correctly!

You have *NO* experience of the product and are talking out of your arse
again.

--
David

[nospam]

In article <r9goL.21705$jiuc...@fx44.iad>, David Brooks

<Davi...@home.now> wrote:

>
> You have *NO* experience of the product and are talking out of your arse
> again.

that would be you. you do not have even the slightest clue.

i've used several drive recovery apps since the 1980s and personally
know people who have worked on drive recovery software. i've recovered
more drives in the past several months (with various file systems) than
you have in your lifetime, and that includes any you might try to
recover in the future.

i also know bullshit when i see it.

[geoff]

Sorry, I don't see how any of this relates to file-recovery on computer
drives.

Also a very fluffy auto-bio. I'd be embarrassed to publish something
like that, but that's just me...

geoff

[geoff]

And yes, granted, there is other info and media on his site that is
worthwhile. Some interesting, and even great, pix.

And some that is opinion presented as fact, and some just plain wrong.

geoff

[RichA]

200 dvds dont take up much room.

[nospam]

In article <1cacc817-62c8-4fd2...@googlegroups.com>,

RichA <rande...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> 200 dvds dont take up much room.

yes they do.

the contents of 200 dvds can entirely fit on a 1tb usb flash drive that
fits in a pocket, with of space left over.

[David Brooks]

That is absolutely true!

You are though, no doubt, aware of this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot

I've personally not yet happened across any instances but am pleased
that I've also stored copies of my photographs in the cloud.

--
Kind regards,
David

[nospam]

In article <CXepL.123692$gGD7....@fx11.iad>, David Brooks

<Davi...@home.now> wrote:

> >
> > 200 dvds dont take up much room.
>
> That is absolutely true!

it's very much false.

[Carlos E.R.]

I would not backup/archive photos on a flash drive, not safe.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

[nospam]

In article <53ig7jx...@Telcontar.valinor>, Carlos E.R.

<robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:

> >>
> >> 200 dvds dont take up much room.
> >
> > yes they do.
> >
> > the contents of 200 dvds can entirely fit on a 1tb usb flash drive that
> > fits in a pocket, with of space left over.
>
> I would not backup/archive photos on a flash drive, not safe.

the claim was how much space it takes up.

for the highest reliability, upload to a cloud service, which is far
more reliable than anything anyone can do on their own and takes up
zero space.

add in a couple of local copies using hds and/or ssds and you've
covered just about every disaster short of the planet's extinction, at
which point it won't matter anymore.

there's also the issue of how long it would take to burn 200 dvds, and
then read them back if a restoration is needed. the backup would also
be stale long before it's done. also keep in mind that if *one* dvd
fails, you've lost data. it's an all around bad idea.

tl;dr - using dvds is one of the worst possible choices for
backup/archive.

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2022-12-23 13:42, nospam wrote:
> In article <53ig7jx...@Telcontar.valinor>, Carlos E.R.
> <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:
>
>>>>
>>>> 200 dvds dont take up much room.
>>>
>>> yes they do.
>>>
>>> the contents of 200 dvds can entirely fit on a 1tb usb flash drive that
>>> fits in a pocket, with of space left over.
>>
>> I would not backup/archive photos on a flash drive, not safe.
>
> the claim was how much space it takes up.
>
> for the highest reliability, upload to a cloud service, which is far
> more reliable than anything anyone can do on their own and takes up
> zero space.

I don't take that as reliable, because the service can be removed on a
whim. It has happened already. Some cloud services even crashed or went
up in fire, to discover that they had no backup.

>
> add in a couple of local copies using hds and/or ssds and you've
> covered just about every disaster short of the planet's extinction, at
> which point it won't matter anymore.
>
> there's also the issue of how long it would take to burn 200 dvds, and
> then read them back if a restoration is needed. the backup would also
> be stale long before it's done. also keep in mind that if *one* dvd
> fails, you've lost data. it's an all around bad idea.

Sure, 200 DVDs is not admisible. Maybe if one has an automatic DVD feeder.

Yes, one DVD can be damaged, but that is a 0.5% loss. A hard disk can
fail and the entire thing is unreadable.

Then, you could use Archival BlueRays, much bigger.

>
> tl;dr - using dvds is one of the worst possible choices for
> backup/archive.

Not much different than when we used 200 floppies. And we did.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

[nospam]

In article <b0mg7jx...@Telcontar.valinor>, Carlos E.R.

<robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:

> >>>> 200 dvds dont take up much room.
> >>>
> >>> yes they do.
> >>>
> >>> the contents of 200 dvds can entirely fit on a 1tb usb flash drive that
> >>> fits in a pocket, with of space left over.
> >>
> >> I would not backup/archive photos on a flash drive, not safe.
> >
> > the claim was how much space it takes up.
> >
> > for the highest reliability, upload to a cloud service, which is far
> > more reliable than anything anyone can do on their own and takes up
> > zero space.
>
> I don't take that as reliable, because the service can be removed on a
> whim. It has happened already. Some cloud services even crashed or went
> up in fire, to discover that they had no backup.

that's the *very* rare exception.

google, amazon, apple, microsoft, dropbox and other major cloud
services aren't going away any time soon.

normally, if a service shuts down, they give ample warning. further,
the cloud is *one* of multiple copies, so in the unlikely event it does
suddenly go away, there are other copies.

cloud services have multiple geographically diverse data centers, so
that in the event a disaster occurs at one of them (hurricane, fire,
etc.), there won't be any data loss or even an outage.

they also have massive amounts of redundancy. drive failures do not
cause problems.

the best cloud services have eleven 9s of reliability: 99.999999999%

an end user can't come anywhere close to that level. most users make
one backup and it's next to their computer. if their house burns down,
they lose everything.

> > add in a couple of local copies using hds and/or ssds and you've
> > covered just about every disaster short of the planet's extinction, at
> > which point it won't matter anymore.
> >
> > there's also the issue of how long it would take to burn 200 dvds, and
> > then read them back if a restoration is needed. the backup would also
> > be stale long before it's done. also keep in mind that if *one* dvd
> > fails, you've lost data. it's an all around bad idea.
>
> Sure, 200 DVDs is not admisible. Maybe if one has an automatic DVD feeder.

how many people have that? and even if they did, it's still going to
take days to complete, which mean. the backup will be stale by the time
it's done.

> Yes, one DVD can be damaged, but that is a 0.5% loss. A hard disk can
> fail and the entire thing is unreadable.

that depends on how it's backed up. if it's by file, then you might
lose a bunch of files, and murphy's law states they'll be the most
important. if it's part of a set, then one failed disc renders the
entire set unusable.

the point is that *something* was lost.

the other problem is finding *which* disc has the desired file.

at best, it's horribly inefficient.

hard drive failures do not always affect the entire device. bad blocks,
for example, affects only the files on those blocks.

regardless, use multiple drives and individual drive failure is not a
problem.

the big advantage for hard drives is it's fast and backups can happen
on a continual basis, without any user interaction. that means it gets
done.

> Then, you could use Archival BlueRays, much bigger.

that only reduces the number of discs. it's still a hassle.

> > tl;dr - using dvds is one of the worst possible choices for
> > backup/archive.
>
> Not much different than when we used 200 floppies. And we did.

'we' didn't.

in those days, the amount of data was much smaller and important files
might be copied to a couple of floppies.

larger data sets were copied to another hard drive or sometimes tape,
both usually networked.

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2022-12-23 14:49, nospam wrote:
> In article <b0mg7jx...@Telcontar.valinor>, Carlos E.R.
> <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:
>
>>>>>> 200 dvds dont take up much room.
>>>>>
>>>>> yes they do.
>>>>>
>>>>> the contents of 200 dvds can entirely fit on a 1tb usb flash drive that
>>>>> fits in a pocket, with of space left over.
>>>>
>>>> I would not backup/archive photos on a flash drive, not safe.
>>>
>>> the claim was how much space it takes up.
>>>
>>> for the highest reliability, upload to a cloud service, which is far
>>> more reliable than anything anyone can do on their own and takes up
>>> zero space.
>>
>> I don't take that as reliable, because the service can be removed on a
>> whim. It has happened already. Some cloud services even crashed or went
>> up in fire, to discover that they had no backup.
>
> that's the *very* rare exception.
>
> google, amazon, apple, microsoft, dropbox and other major cloud
> services aren't going away any time soon.

Google changed conditions, and people lost things. Not the only one, but
I forgot their names.

>
> normally, if a service shuts down, they give ample warning. further,
> the cloud is *one* of multiple copies, so in the unlikely event it does
> suddenly go away, there are other copies.

Not if the server catch fire. No warning. And yes, it has happened. With
total loss of files. Google it.

>
> cloud services have multiple geographically diverse data centers, so
> that in the event a disaster occurs at one of them (hurricane, fire,
> etc.), there won't be any data loss or even an outage.
>
> they also have massive amounts of redundancy. drive failures do not
> cause problems.
>
> the best cloud services have eleven 9s of reliability: 99.999999999%
>
> an end user can't come anywhere close to that level. most users make
> one backup and it's next to their computer. if their house burns down,
> they lose everything.

Sure.

>
>>> add in a couple of local copies using hds and/or ssds and you've
>>> covered just about every disaster short of the planet's extinction, at
>>> which point it won't matter anymore.
>>>
>>> there's also the issue of how long it would take to burn 200 dvds, and
>>> then read them back if a restoration is needed. the backup would also
>>> be stale long before it's done. also keep in mind that if *one* dvd
>>> fails, you've lost data. it's an all around bad idea.
>>
>> Sure, 200 DVDs is not admisible. Maybe if one has an automatic DVD feeder.
>
> how many people have that? and even if they did, it's still going to
> take days to complete, which mean. the backup will be stale by the time
> it's done.
>
>> Yes, one DVD can be damaged, but that is a 0.5% loss. A hard disk can
>> fail and the entire thing is unreadable.
>
> that depends on how it's backed up. if it's by file, then you might
> lose a bunch of files, and murphy's law states they'll be the most
> important. if it's part of a set, then one failed disc renders the
> entire set unusable.

I have one hard disk that failed completely and suddenly, everything lost.

>
> the point is that *something* was lost.
>
> the other problem is finding *which* disc has the desired file.
>
> at best, it's horribly inefficient.

Sure.

>
> hard drive failures do not always affect the entire device. bad blocks,
> for example, affects only the files on those blocks.

Normally.

> regardless, use multiple drives and individual drive failure is not a
> problem.
>
> the big advantage for hard drives is it's fast and backups can happen
> on a continual basis, without any user interaction. that means it gets
> done.

Ah, if the backup disk is online to do automatic backups, then that disk
degrades faster.

>
>> Then, you could use Archival BlueRays, much bigger.
>
> that only reduces the number of discs. it's still a hassle.

Sure. But it is doable.

>>> tl;dr - using dvds is one of the worst possible choices for
>>> backup/archive.
>>
>> Not much different than when we used 200 floppies. And we did.
>
> 'we' didn't.

Oh, young thing! :-P

> in those days, the amount of data was much smaller and important files
> might be copied to a couple of floppies.
>
> larger data sets were copied to another hard drive or sometimes tape,
> both usually networked.

If you had them.
Huh, network had not been invented yet.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

[nospam]

In article <nlqg7jx...@Telcontar.valinor>, Carlos E.R.

<robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:

> > google, amazon, apple, microsoft, dropbox and other major cloud
> > services aren't going away any time soon.
>
> Google changed conditions, and people lost things. Not the only one, but
> I forgot their names.

cite required.

> > normally, if a service shuts down, they give ample warning. further,
> > the cloud is *one* of multiple copies, so in the unlikely event it does
> > suddenly go away, there are other copies.
>
> Not if the server catch fire. No warning. And yes, it has happened. With
> total loss of files. Google it.

there was *one* instance where a service shut down unexpectedly, and if
i recall, that was because it was hosting pirated material.

as i said, google, amazon, apple, microsoft, dropbox and other major
cloud services aren't going anywhere any time soon, certainly not in
the lifetime of anyone reading this.

it's *far* more reliable than anything anyone can possibly do on their
own.

>
> I have one hard disk that failed completely and suddenly, everything lost.

then you're lucky.

i have had many hard drive failures over the years, but since there
were multiple other copies of my data, it was only a small hassle to
replace the drive.

> > the big advantage for hard drives is it's fast and backups can happen
> > on a continual basis, without any user interaction. that means it gets
> > done.
>
> Ah, if the backup disk is online to do automatic backups, then that disk
> degrades faster.

false, but even if it did, there are multiple copies of the data, so
it's only a small hassle to replace the one that fails.

some servers have a hot-spare so that this can be automated, although
that's not always a good idea.

> >> Then, you could use Archival BlueRays, much bigger.
> >
> > that only reduces the number of discs. it's still a hassle.
>
> Sure. But it is doable.

lots of things are 'doable'.

the point is if something is a hassle, it doesn't get done as often as
it should, or at all.

>
> > in those days, the amount of data was much smaller and important files
> > might be copied to a couple of floppies.
> >
> > larger data sets were copied to another hard drive or sometimes tape,
> > both usually networked.
>
> If you had them.
> Huh, network had not been invented yet.

eh? network predates personal computers and floppy disks.

the early days of what became the internet began in the 1960s. ethernet
goes back to the early 1970s.

the first mac in 1984 had built in networking. all that was needed to
connect them together was a cheap adapter and cabling. about two years
later, farallon came out with an adapter that used ordinary phone cord
(phonenet) which meant that in most cases, people could network macs
using existing wiring in the walls. their phone only used one pair,
leaving the other pair for the network. no configuration on the macs
were needed. mac users back then would often carry phonenet adapters
and phone cord in their laptop bag to set up a network at various
gatherings. copying files was easy and lan parties were trivial.

by the late 1980s and certainly into the 1990s, hard drives were common
and floppies were on their way out. in 1998, one of the only two
remaining floppy disk factories closed due to insufficient demand for
both to remain open.

as for backups, multiple macs could easily be backed up by a central
server and a tape drive. a background process ran on each mac that was
woken up by the server, changed files were copied, and then it went
idle. this was in the 1980s.

keep in mind that anyone with two macs could set up remote backups,
including home users. it was not only an enterprise solution. a very
common scenario was a desktop mac with a tape drive (or hard drives)
acting as the backup server, and a laptop that connected when at home.

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2022-12-23 16:15, nospam wrote:
> In article <nlqg7jx...@Telcontar.valinor>, Carlos E.R.
> <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:
>
>>> google, amazon, apple, microsoft, dropbox and other major cloud
>>> services aren't going away any time soon.
>>
>> Google changed conditions, and people lost things. Not the only one, but
>> I forgot their names.
>
> cite required.

LOL! That's general knowledge. You should be aware of it.

>>> normally, if a service shuts down, they give ample warning. further,
>>> the cloud is *one* of multiple copies, so in the unlikely event it does
>>> suddenly go away, there are other copies.
>>
>> Not if the server catch fire. No warning. And yes, it has happened. With
>> total loss of files. Google it.
>
> there was *one* instance where a service shut down unexpectedly, and if
> i recall, that was because it was hosting pirated material.

And I recall two or three fires destroying entire cloud server rooms to
the ground, with no backups.

It is that much of a hassle, if my entire collection fits in one disk or
two.

>
>
>>
>>> in those days, the amount of data was much smaller and important files
>>> might be copied to a couple of floppies.
>>>
>>> larger data sets were copied to another hard drive or sometimes tape,
>>> both usually networked.
>>
>> If you had them.
>> Huh, network had not been invented yet.
>
> eh? network predates personal computers and floppy disks.

Ha, ha.

> the early days of what became the internet began in the 1960s. ethernet
> goes back to the early 1970s.
>
> the first mac in 1984 had built in networking. all that was needed to
> connect them together was a cheap adapter and cabling. about two years
> later, farallon came out with an adapter that used ordinary phone cord
> (phonenet) which meant that in most cases, people could network macs
> using existing wiring in the walls. their phone only used one pair,
> leaving the other pair for the network. no configuration on the macs
> were needed. mac users back then would often carry phonenet adapters
> and phone cord in their laptop bag to set up a network at various
> gatherings. copying files was easy and lan parties were trivial.
>
> by the late 1980s and certainly into the 1990s, hard drives were common
> and floppies were on their way out. in 1998, one of the only two
> remaining floppy disk factories closed due to insufficient demand for
> both to remain open.
>
> as for backups, multiple macs could easily be backed up by a central
> server and a tape drive. a background process ran on each mac that was
> woken up by the server, changed files were copied, and then it went
> idle. this was in the 1980s.
>
> keep in mind that anyone with two macs could set up remote backups,
> including home users. it was not only an enterprise solution. a very
> common scenario was a desktop mac with a tape drive (or hard drives)
> acting as the backup server, and a laptop that connected when at home.

Macs, Yagh.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

[nospam]

In article <rrah7jx...@Telcontar.valinor>, Carlos E.R.

<robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:

> >>> google, amazon, apple, microsoft, dropbox and other major cloud
> >>> services aren't going away any time soon.
> >>
> >> Google changed conditions, and people lost things. Not the only one, but
> >> I forgot their names.
> >
> > cite required.
>
>
> LOL! That's general knowledge. You should be aware of it.

if so, then it should be trivial to find a cite.

absent that, it will be considered to be something different than what
you're claiming.

> >>> normally, if a service shuts down, they give ample warning. further,
> >>> the cloud is *one* of multiple copies, so in the unlikely event it does
> >>> suddenly go away, there are other copies.
> >>
> >> Not if the server catch fire. No warning. And yes, it has happened. With
> >> total loss of files. Google it.
> >
> > there was *one* instance where a service shut down unexpectedly, and if
> > i recall, that was because it was hosting pirated material.
>
> And I recall two or three fires destroying entire cloud server rooms to
> the ground, with no backups.

cites required.

but even if any of that were true, the major players, such as google,
amazon, apple, microsoft, etc., aren't going to disappear because of a
fire or any other disaster. that's one reason why they have multiple
data centers. you keep ignoring that.

you're also taking it out of context.

*far* more people have lost data because of what they did on their own,
including drive failure, incomplete (or lack of) backups, theft, fire,
floor or other natural disasters, or everyone's favourite, user error,
such as deleting the wrong file.

you also don't understand backups. the cloud is not the *only* copy.

in the unlikely event a cloud service suddenly disappeared due to a
fire or other disaster, the user still has their local copies (plural)
and can upload it to another cloud service. they haven't lost anything.

the point is that a cloud service is *far* more reliable than anything
an end user can possibly do.

claiming that a rare one-off event doesn't change that fact. put
simply: the plural of anecdote is not data.

> >>>> Then, you could use Archival BlueRays, much bigger.
> >>>
> >>> that only reduces the number of discs. it's still a hassle.
> >>
> >> Sure. But it is doable.
> >
> > lots of things are 'doable'.
> >
> > the point is if something is a hassle, it doesn't get done as often as
> > it should, or at all.
>
> It is that much of a hassle, if my entire collection fits in one disk or
> two.

very few people can fit everything on to a single blu-ray disc.

this thread started with a claim about storing 200 dvds.

even a single dvd is too small to hold some of the files people work
with, such as hd and 4k video.