one of my external hard drives, the one with EVERYTHING I REALLY, REALLY WANT on it has died…

Im sure this happens to many people, and often. What is one to do in a case like this?

Did you backup?

• OPTION 1: If it’s your backup drive that failed, the data will most likely still be on the related computer. Make another copy or backup. Problem solved.
• OPTION 2: If it’s not a backup drive that failed, do you have a backup of it? If not start backing up in future. Think about your recovery options, and the cost involved.

Data recovery options

Ok so you didn’t have a backup, and it’s critical data. If you manage to recover your data, you should consider that prevention is better than a cure.

• OPTION A: If it’s a mac, I use and can recommend Data Rescue by Prosoft Engineering. This software allows you to recover data from the HDD and costs about USD$100. You will need another external HDD (preferably two to clone your corrupt drive first) to recover data to. DON’T use the broken hard drive until the software and new HDD(s) are ready to go. This will cost about $300 for two new disks and the software but has no guarantee it will work, especially if there has been a catastrophic hardware failure.
  • if it’s windows, I can’t and/or wont be able to help or give free advice. Try a windows data recovery program as per option 3. If you want to engage the services of a professional to recover on windows expect $150 per hour.
  • Is it Linux, BSD or UNIX? If you disk is unmounted then try fsck -fy <yourdiskdevicename>
• OPTION B: Pay a professional data forensic service company upwards of $1000 to recover your data. Some companies, such as Prosoft Eng, may perform this task at a budget rate.

How much is the data worth to you?

If it’s not worth between $300 (for the software + new disk solution) to $1000+ then a last ditch effort is put the HDD in the freezer for 10 mins and see if it works long enough to get your essential data off it. Freezing it may permanently destroy the disk so I accept no liabilty for offering this advice.

Future prevention

Disks fail, it’s just a matter of time as to when. Always have at least one backup of ALL your data you can’t afford to lose. On a Mac, it’s as simple as buying an external disk that is about 1.5 times the size of your computers Hard drive, and plugging it in. The Mac will ask if you want to start backing up – and all you have to do is leave it plugged in when you use your Mac.

Even better is to backup in duplicate or triplicate with a copy “offsite“, e.g. at another location. Update backups regularly, with time between backups as long as you an afford to miss data. On a Mac, you can have one hard drive always plugged in, backing up with Apple’s Time Machine. Introduce a second Hard drive that you “clone” once a week using Carbon Copy Cloner, and leave that drive locked up at work. Now you have a primary backup and an offsite secondary backup.

Use paid “cloud” backup services such as dropbox (which I use for free), mozy, BackBlaze or iDrive. These will sync or backup your valuable data automatically into the “cloud”, and even in some cases between computers.

Good luck!

• Vendor: Novatel Wireless Inc.
• Model: GSM
• APN: 3netaccess
• CID: 1

I installed Snow Leopard as an Upgrade (not a fresh install) after having a CCC backup and a Time machine backup in place.

When I plugged in my 3 expresscard, 10.6 detects the card, initialises and populates the WWAN icon with “Telstra 3G: Not Configured”.

It detects the card as a “Novatel Wireless HSDPA Modem”, and automatically configures the Network Advanced settings of the card, as shown:

The question is: Why is the APN telstra.datapack setup as default?

I am able to change the APN to 3netaccess, which results in a successful connection to 3:

Wed Sep  2 15:38:25 2009 : Initializing phone: ATE0V1&F&D2&C1S0=0
Wed Sep  2 15:38:25 2009 : Initializing PDP context: AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","3netaccess"
Wed Sep  2 15:38:25 2009 : Initializing with secondary command: AT$NWPDN=0
Wed Sep  2 15:38:25 2009 : Dialing: ATD*99***1#
Wed Sep  2 15:38:25 2009 : Waiting for connection
Wed Sep  2 15:38:25 2009 : Connection established
Wed Sep  2 15:38:28 2009 : Serial connection established.
Wed Sep  2 15:38:28 2009 : Using interface ppp0
Wed Sep  2 15:38:28 2009 : Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/cu.wwan
Wed Sep  2 15:38:32 2009 : Could not determine remote IP address: defaulting to 10.64.***.***
Wed Sep  2 15:38:32 2009 : local  IP address 115.130.***.***
Wed Sep  2 15:38:32 2009 : remote IP address 10.64.***.***
Wed Sep  2 15:38:32 2009 : primary   DNS address 202.124.68.182
Wed Sep  2 15:38:32 2009 : secondary DNS address 202.124.65.22

The annoying thing is the WWAN menu still shows Telstra when connected.


Looking at the WWAN system file:

cd /System/Library/Extensions/IOSerialFamily.kext/\
Contents/PlugIns/AppleWWANSupport.kext/Contents/\
Resources/
less countryCodes.plist

Since Skype Version 3.8.0.188 (Release date: November 19, 2008) and all later versions (including Skype 4 Betas as at Jan. 2009) the software Philips supply no longer works with Skype and the VOIP321 phone.

The latest VOIP321 driver from their website suffers the same issue, even though it states “The VOIP321 USB Phone Driver V 3.8.3 which can be downloaded from Philips web site is compatible with Skype software version from V2.0.0.x until V3.8.0.x”. This is plainly no longer correct with the latest stable release of Skype, V3.8.0.188.

Skype developers are unable to do anything about it as they see it being a Philips driver problem. Phillips wont update their driver (Quoting support staff “… no more development/fixes are being incorporated into the VOIP321.EXE file”).

The solution to getting this beast working again:

• Uninstall Skype 3.8.0.188 (or later non-working version)
• Visit the Old Apps website where you can (without support from Skype) download a previous version and use it.
• I found that Skype 3.8.0.154 3.8.0.139 worked fine for me with the VOIP321 hardware under Windows XP
• Reinstall the older version.
• Launch the newly installed older version of Skype
• Remove the VOIP321.exe application from the Skype menu: Tools > Options > Advanced > Advanced Settings > Manage other programs Access to Skype
• Reboot your Windows Computer

If you don’t own one of these yet, don’t waste your time on Philips Skype phone devices. Their driver support is lacking when Skype is updated and they EOL their product too soon. You buy a product for a few hundred dollars and it becomes useless 12 months later. Phillips would probably rather sell you a newer bit of hardware.

Should they update their driver at this point I will be the first to commend them. I forgot to mention: Phillips Skype phones (where your PC is required) are Windows Only. No Mac or Linux support or drivers are offered.

My next purchase will be a wifi or wired ethernet Skype phone, and not Philips.

An enterprising user on the Apple Discussion forums remembers a similar problem and fix for the trackpad from earlier MacBook models. The fix in this case involves removing your battery and sticking a piece of paper between the pad and the chassis. It works, and here is my solution captured at the moment of repair:

Enjoy.