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So, my harddrive failed. |
buggy123
Fleet Admiral
Joined: December 22, 2009
Posts: 16
|  Posted: 2011-10-15 20:01
Recently, my third harddrive failed, the third one this year. I have no idea how I kill em so fast, but thats the least of my troubles.
I got a new one, but the old one had a internal failure, and therefor no recovery programs will work.
And it had the only record of what my over-the-top, 50 digit long, random yahoo email password was.
And I didn't set any of the password recovery questions.
And I didn't set a second email.
And I have over 100$ of games that require access to my email to use.
And I don't have much money to send it in for recovery.
Does anyone have any ideas? I REALLY need to get that email password back, it's the only email I use and virtually everything is entertwined with it.
One might ask why I set it to a "over-the-top, 50 digit long" password. Well I had a issue with people getting into the account and sending spam emails to my contacts, so that solved it...
Maybe I should of just stuck with the spam.
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Eledore Massis [R33]
Grand Admiral
Templar Knights
Joined: May 26, 2002
Posts: 2694
From: tsohlacoLocalhost
| Posted: 2011-10-15 21:58
My suggestion, Bang your head against a stone wall and cry..
Seriously, i have no suggestions what you can do to fix it.
I can guess the harddrive is smut (not working), so you can't boot up and login to change your password to something you can remember.
I can guess by what you already told me you didn't expected to lose your password or forget it, or accidental deletion of the browser password remember settings..
But besides that i can give you some advice for the darn next time.
1: Keep passwords simple enough to remember.
here are some examples of nice passwords.
M6l1ttl3P)Ny :: -> mylittlepony
d3xT$0-eN3rgy :: -> dextro-energy
W#W8LwewilR)CK^0U :: -> wewilwewilrockyou
Keep the passwords to a phase or even a darn song if you need to. Obfuscation the password a bit by adding numbers for letters and remember to use Shift..
2: Store the password somewhere safe.
I personally use a old computer that stores a number of encrypted txt files with userinfo and passwords. backuped every day to a good old floppy..
Secondly i use multiple e-mail addresses so should i lose one i don't lose the world. yes i only use one for personal contacts, but buisines, game, sale, junk, promotion all got other e-mail addresses, some of them i only check once a month unless required..
3: Stop trusting browser 'remember password'.. It is so EASY, but yet if you want to login from another computer, you won't know it anymore.. if you use the password a lot, you remember it a lot.
I have only a few passwords that i don't remember. mostly the one's that i don't need using..
last, yes i know i have more login-names and passwords then a lot of you guys. but really, how hard it is to remember like 4 different login names and there passwords?
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Doran
Chief Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 29, 2003
Posts: 4032
From: The Gideon Unit
| Posted: 2011-10-15 22:18
Quote:
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On 2011-10-15 21:58, Eledore Massis [R33] wrote:
2: Store the password somewhere safe.
3: Stop trusting browser 'remember password'..
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keepass/lastpass + mozbackup + dropbox
[ This Message was edited by: Doran on 2011-10-15 22:20 ]
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Fatal Afro Man *NCO*
Marshal
Fatal Squadron
Joined: September 09, 2006
Posts: 201
| Posted: 2011-10-16 00:30
Why did you only store it on the harddrive if you have had two previous harddrive phails?
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Tellaris
Grand Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: April 30, 2002
Posts: 830
From: Land of Chocolate
| Posted: 2011-10-16 00:46
It depends on what, exactly failed. You MIGHT be able to open it up and "semi fix it" long enough to do what you need to do. My friend's failed, the reading arm or whatever broke. He glued it back on, and froze the drive... it gave him an extra 15 mins to work with it before the arm obliterated the disk.
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$yTHe {C?}
Grand Admiral
Sundered Weimeriners
Joined: September 29, 2002
Posts: 1292
From: Arlington, VA
| Posted: 2011-10-16 01:35
Do you know that it is the harddrive, and not like a SATA controller or something? That is, have you tried connecting it to some other machine, or tried slaving it or... well, any troubleshooting at all, really?
Also, in the future, you should do backups. Something easy like scheduled tasks that run NTBackup to some external (or internal data drive) hard drive is cheap and will save you this trouble. If it is the drive and you don't know what you're doing in getting the data off you're pretty much boned, something you could have avoided with a $40 external.
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Crim
Fleet Admiral
Sundered Weimeriners
Joined: March 16, 2003
Posts: 1336
| Posted: 2011-10-16 04:17
Call up your email provider and explain the situation. You'll likely have to provide proof of ID like a drivers license. That should at least get you the email back.
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Boerenkool
Marshal
Joined: December 18, 2007
Posts: 218
| Posted: 2011-10-16 04:58
can u remove the disks containing the data from ur harddrive that is broken, and put em on a working hard drive? close it all up again and put it in ur comp to see...
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NoBoDx
Grand Admiral
Joined: October 14, 2003
Posts: 784
From: Germany / NRW
| Posted: 2011-10-16 14:02
depending on damage-type, you could try to freeze the HD for 20 minutes
but put it into a air-tight plastic bag (seal it with tape or something like that) so that no water can get to the drive
sometimes you can access the drive for some minutes... enough to get the most important files
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Talien
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: May 11, 2010
Posts: 2044
From: Michigan
| Posted: 2011-10-16 14:49
Yeah, I'd suggest tossing it in the freezer for a bit as well, it worked for a friend of mine when his died a while back. It's not a permafix so you better know exactly what you MUST get out of it and back it up immediately, as often a drive is completely FUBAR after freezing it.
In the future I'd recommend storing a text file with all your account/password info on a USB memory stick.
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Iwancoppa
Fleet Admiral
Joined: November 15, 2008
Posts: 709
| Posted: 2011-10-16 14:59
Quote:
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On 2011-10-16 04:58, God Almighty wrote:
can u remove the disks containing the data from ur harddrive that is broken, and put em on a working hard drive? close it all up again and put it in ur comp to see...
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definately try this.
Also, check EVERYTHING connected to the drive.
It could be:
Faulty/stuffed SATA/IDE controller
Cheap power cable(it does happen)
Bad cooling
Vibration in mount
BIOS problems
Tons more random outside the box issues too.
BTW, it probably would help if you took it to some "data recovery experts"
If they actually can do their job, should be walking home -120 dollars, but with a new1tb and all your stuff. 
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Talien
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: May 11, 2010
Posts: 2044
From: Michigan
| Posted: 2011-10-16 15:10
I would not suggest taking the disk wafers themselves out of your drive and putting them in another one unless you know EXACTLY what you are doing, they are VERY easy to ruin and if that happens then you're SOL. A single fingerprint can trash a wafer, and cleaning it off could ruin it just as easily, and getting any dust on one is likely to damage it as well.
Just don't do it unless it's absolute last resort after everything else has failed and a data recovery place won't touch it.
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Adapt or die.
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NoBoDx
Grand Admiral
Joined: October 14, 2003
Posts: 784
From: Germany / NRW
| Posted: 2011-10-16 15:19
Quote:
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On 2011-10-16 04:58, God Almighty wrote:
can u remove the disks containing the data from ur harddrive that is broken, and put em on a working hard drive? close it all up again and put it in ur comp to see...
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afaik you need a identical drive for it to work ( and firmware )
and you might do more damage to the drive while flipping the disks (to both drives)
i've had the beste expierience with the 20 minute-freeze
... or you bring the drive to a recovery-company for a "small" price (a collegue with buisness data on his disk had to pay ~1900 USD just to check if his files are recoverable)
[ This Message was edited by: NoBoDx on 2011-10-16 15:20 ]
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buggy123
Fleet Admiral
Joined: December 22, 2009
Posts: 16
| Posted: 2011-10-16 15:25
Thanks for the replies everyone, and your right talien, if you take apart a hard drive and so much as a single speck of dust lands on it, its ruined.
Im pretty sure its a arm failure, il try freezeing it later on. The only thing of any real value on it is the email password, and since my email is Yahoo theres no other way to recover my account.
Thanks for the tips, and as usual il probably play Darkspace for a month or so again untill I get bored and leave, untill my new harddrive fails(and I know it will) and I go through the whole process again.
[ This Message was edited by: buggy123 on 2011-10-16 15:25 ]
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Gejaheline
Fleet Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 19, 2005
Posts: 1127
From: UGTO MUNIN HQ, Mars
| Posted: 2011-10-16 15:41
There are two types of people in the world: Those that have had a hard disk failure, and those are about to have a hard disk failure.
Meanwhile, XKCD gives us these wise words of wisdom on passwords:
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