Retrieve my data from the LaCie Rugged drive

And, whaddya know… it worked!

I’m happy to have my data back. The question that remains for me is whether the issues other people experienced were also due to faulty cables, or if there’s still a chance the drive could fail further down the line. Do I want to keep using a drive that could die at any moment?

Need to think about this a little more.

the dude at LaCie is going to send me out some new cables to try. Let’s hope that’s all it is. In the mean time, I’ve got hold of an email address to start writing complaints to, should the cables not solve the problem. (Not that I’d be holding my breath on achieving anything, but it’d be worth a try.)

This weekend I’m down in London (thanks to a mandatory training course at 8:45 am on Saturday), so I’ll pick up my other drive, and copy some data back from that. If I get paid in time, I may do some shopping around for another drive. Different brand, of course. Anybody have any recommendations?

Turns out that the Rugged drive may not be so fantastic. I have the 80GB model, which I purchased around this time last year. I also have a LaCie Porsche model. Honestly, I can’t remember which I purchased first… but thank goodness I didn’t buy two the same!

The Rugged drive had started being a little temperamental not long after I got it. Initially, I thought it was to do with how I was using it. It seemed to time out, which I figured was because I was trying to transfer too large a quantity of data all at once. A few times it disconnected itself. I thought I must have bumped it… although, it didn’t make me very happy to think that the connection could be so flimsy, particularly as it’s supposed to be designed for people ‘on the move’. However, after a few sessions of it disconnecting with no movement whatsoever, I began to realise that something was not quite right.

If only I’d looked into it there and then. The other week, I had run out of space on my laptop. I needed a solution quickly, as I had more photos to download from my camera and was about to set off on another trip. The solution seemed to be transferring my music and less-essential files to the Rugged drive. If that was successful, I could delete those files from my laptop and download my photos. The plan was to pick up my other drive from London, copy the files across, giving me two back-ups.

I transferred the files. Disconnected the drive. Reconnected. Checked the files. They were all there, and intact. I checked again, just to be sure. Feeling safe, I deleted the files from my laptop. When I went to make another last-minute ‘satisfy-my-paranoia’ check, the drive wouldn’t connect. WTF? I tried again… and again… and again. Nada. The drive was whirling away, but nothing was happening.

There wasn’t much I could do about it at that moment, as we were due to head out the door and drive to Edinburgh. Last week, I contacted the LaCie online support. After all, it’s under warranty. Their response was to try another cable. Fair enough, but am I supposed to buy another cable? (Think I’ll go into my local Apple store, and see if they can loan me a cable.) They also said that I could return the drive to be repaired, but their process doesn’t retrieve any data. If I want my data, I can send it to a professional data retrieval service… but then my warranty is void.

Frankly, that’s the biggest load of crap I’ve heard in a long time. I did some searching online, and it seems loads of people have had problems with these drives. Drive simply stops working. I’m guessing that LaCie don’t even bother trying to repair the drives… they must only replace them. Bastards.

• Don’t buy a LaCie Rugged drive. Not everyone has issues with them, but there seem to be a lot who do.
• Read many, many, many product reviews. Possibly I wouldn’t have discovered this was a problem anyway, as most of the people complaining only started having issues (or mentioned them) after I’d bought mine.
• Never delete files you want to keep, until after you’ve made two back-ups. Preferably on different brands of media. The worst thing is that I know this.
• LaCie’s warranty policy clearly sucks. Perhaps this is common practise in the industry. I don’t know. Before I purchase another drive (from a different company) I’ll research other warranty policies.
• Don’t be blinded by association with a much-loved brand. I was considering buying another LaCie drive, as for some reason I thought they were a great brand. I suppose I was convinced of this by their product placement in the lovely Apple stores. Silly me.

Obviously, I still need to check out the cable thing. Fingers crossed that will fix it. I’m also going to keep harassing the LaCie support people. If the cable doesn’t fix it, I don’t think it’s fair I have to trade-off retrieving my data with having the warranty upheld. Thankfully it wasn’t my photos that I’d transferred, or I’d have been furious. (Along with kicking myself soundly.)

_{Bloody heck, this turned into a looooong rant!}