“A staggering 50% of businesses that lose their data go out of business within 24 months.”

Google it.

This sounds bad. What happened?

Last week due to hard drive failure and some very bad luck I lost all of my photography from the last 6 years. I felt like I lost my life. I was only weeks away from launching my website. Bloody heartbreaking.

Thousands of photos that can never be reproduced. Gone. Not to mention hundreds of hours sitting at my computer editing. All I have left are the low res sets I’ve uploaded to this site and to Flickr.

Both my main and backup drives failed within hours of each other. It was a combination of firmware corruption, physical drive failure and human error.

My main drive was a Drobo unit. For those of you thinking about getting one of these, do your research first. The system uses its own propriety RAID-like array that makes it near impossible for data recovery. If the device itself fails, like mine, you’re screwed.

Drobo support told me to use Disk Warrior to repair the problem. It failed half way through the process and ended up causing more damage corrupting the HFS+ directory structure. Thanks! My backup was a Seagate 7200.11 drive. Apparently these are dropping like flies. If you have one of these, backup now and download a firmware patch from Seagate. If you’re ever in this position I recommend you stop everything and call a professional. It may save your arse.

The drives are now with a data recovery service, searching for my lost photography files. There is a good chance they can recover the data from my backup drive, however I need to raise a staggering $5000 to cover the costs.

What you can do to help

Reach for your wallet and buy me a beer (or a case!). Your donation will really help. You’ll receive a gift for any donation amount, a set of images for your mobile wallpaper, or vouchers to redeem on prints once I recover my files, or for shoots in the future.

Click one of the Donate buttons below and follow the prompts. All online donations are processed securely by PayPal.

If you don’t have PayPal or a credit card and would still like to donate feel free to mail me a cheque. Remember to include your email so I can get in touch re: your gift.

Nic Bezzina
129 Bedford St
Newtown, NSW
Australia 2042

What you get in return

Donate $1:

Receive a few random images from a band of your choice.

Donate $5 (the cost of a beer):

Receive a full set of images from a band of your choice.

Donate $15:

Access to every set I have in my web archives.

Donate $50:

Receive a voucher for an A4 print. Redeemable any time, for any shots in my archives or anything I may shoot in the future (includes postage). Plus access to every set I have in my web archives.

Donate $100:

Receive a voucher for three A4 prints. Redeemable any time, for any shots in my web web archives or anything I may shoot in the future (includes postage). Plus access to every set I have in my archives.

Spread the word

Tweeting or posting a message on Facebook or MySpace will really help me reach my target.

My advice

Let me leave you with this thought for now: your movie collection and iTunes library can be replaced with the application of time and money. You will never be able to recreate a lost photograph. Back them up. Twice.

Thank you,

Nic Bezzina