You never really know how well your backup system works until you actually lose something.

I was in the midst of collating all these various shoots that I had stored in various locations on my network and have myself a grand ol’ DVD burn party.  I moved all the directories to my archive computer and, after a couple days of moving files – sat down to start the backups.  And at that moment, the hard drive decided to stop working all together.

Right now, I have approximately three years worth of photographs that I cannot access on what appears to be a fried HD.  Early works with Virginia were on that disk.  New stuff with favorites Crystal Moon, Lady and Satori are now missing.  There’s so many more shoots on that drive that I don’t know the full extent of the loss.  My shoots usually average about 2 gigs  and with a full 160 gig drive, I could’ve lost as much as 80 separate shoots.

There is hope, however and I’m asking you if you can help.

There are data recovery businesses that specializing in getting things off of dying and dead HDs.  But they’re pricey.  If you can, please donate towards saving the pics.  Every dime you donate will go towards rescuing the data on that drive and a better backup system than what I already have. Just randomly googling “HD data recovery” comes up with prices of $600-2500. I do want to offer something for your hard earned cash:

For a $20-$49 dollar donation, you’ll receive an 8×10 of the photo of your choice.

For a $50-$74 dollar donation, you’ll receive a medium print (longest side = 24 inches) of the photo of your choice, ready for framing and a 8×10 of your choice.

For a $75-100 dollar donation, you’ll receive an autographed copy of my book “Hello” (allow 2 weeks to arrive.)

For a $101-$125 dollar donation, you’ll recieve a large (longest side = 36 inch) print of your choice.

For a $126-$150 dollar donation, you’ll recieve an autographed copy of my book “Hello” and a large (longest side = 36 inch) print of your choice.

For a $300 and above donation, you will receive a large print (longest side = 36 inches) of a custom photoshoot of the model of your choice. (depending on availability and theme)

Can you help a struggling photographer get back some of his hard work?