Ideas for recovering from catastrophic data loss

.KEYWORD loss
.FLYINGHEAD REAL STORIES OF THE PALMPOWER PATROL
.TITLE Ideas for recovering from catastrophic data loss
.OTHER
.SUMMARY We were recently approached by a concerned father. His daughter, a medical resident destined for Alaska, had lost much of the data on her Palm device. Could we help? We’re not a tech support team, but Senior Techical Editor Claire Pieterek sent some suggestions and the caring Dad managed to recover some of the lost data. Might you have a similar problem some day? If so, here are some ideas you might use.
.EDNOTE We were recently approached by a concerned father. His daughter, a medical resident destined for Alaska, had lost much of the data on her Palm device. Could we help? We’re not a tech support team, but Senior Techical Editor Claire Pieterek sent some suggestions and the caring Dad managed to recover some of the lost data. Might you have a similar problem some day? If so, here are some ideas you might use. Of course, to avoid the problem as much as possible, backup and HotSync regularly.
Hello, I’m a loving father with a very large problem and hoping that someone can direct me to someone who can assist me. I realize that what I am looking for may not even exist, but I’m desperate and can only hope that someone may know someone who can give me assistance.

Here’s the story: My oldest daughter is finishing her third year in pediatric residency at Johns Hopkins. About a year ago, I encouraged her to buy a PalmPilot since I love mine so much. She did, and has also fallen in love with it — putting all of her patient notes, diagnostic clues, and other vital information on it. These are not only very important to her day-to-day life, but are also resources she intended to rely on when she begins her two-year stint in Alaska in July. She will be the only pediatrician in a remote area the size of Ohio and will need all of the help she can muster.

Unfortunately, the computer she was synchronizing her PalmPilot on died an untimely death back in November. Being a Resident (and thus not well paid) she couldn’t afford a new computer and kept on taking notes without any backup. This was making us both nervous. This past weekend, my wife and I visited her in Baltimore and helped her buy a new laptop. The first order of business was to install her Palm Desktop software and synchronize. The unthinkable happened — the memory of her Palm Pilot was apparently reinitialized and there is no information showing. Everything was lost. She is devastated and I am too.

Here’s my hope against hope. I know enough about computer software and databases to know that they are typically list-driven. I’m hoping that rather than actually being erased, the data is still actually resident in the Palm device, but just not accessible. I’m hoping that someone who has the tools and knows how to do it might restore the raw data. I’ll gladly pay any reasonable amount if this can be done or attempted. I’m hoping that, with your connections to the community of PalmPilot technologists, you might know someone who can either accomplish this task, or end my agony by assuring me that it is not possible.

Of course, I had already contacted the Palm service center and was of course told that "the data is gone", but my own experience as a technologist tells me that this may not actually be the whole story. I will try again on Monday and hope to reach someone more knowledgeable — but I am hoping that someone here might be able to help. I would be most appreciative of any help you can give me — if you can point me to someone who might be able to help, I will be eternally grateful.

Sincerely,

Frederick Schamber

fhscham@sgi.net

.H2 Senior Technical Editor Claire Pieterek answers
Denise Amrich (managing editor of PalmPower) forwarded your message to me. Does your daughter still have the old PC, by any chance? There may be a way of salvaging the data from it, depending on what happened. ("It died" unfortunately isn’t specific enough for me to even guess what needs to be done. In Real Life, I do everything from designing and building networks to PC support.)

[One thing I always make sure of when I want to backup to a new machine is that I custom configure the HotSync so that "Handheld Overwrites Desktop" is set for all of the big four applications. I’ve never had a problem with all the data ending up in my Palm Desktop. Mr. Schamber didn’t say whether or not this was done. I’m assuming it was, since some of the data arrived intact. –DA]

Otherwise, please call your daughter and tell her not to HotSync the device again. There may be a chance that the data is intact on the new PC. When you perform a HotSync operation, two files are created for each of the built-in applications (the built-in applications are, of course, Address List, Memo Pad, To Do List, and Date Book). These created files can be found in the C:&#92PALM&#92USERNAME directory (where USERNAME is her Palm device’s username), in the directories ADDRESS, MEMOPAD, TODO, and DATEBOOK. One will be named yourdaughtername.DAT, the other will be named yourdaughtername.BAK. It’s possible that the .BAK files may still contain her data if she has not performed more than one HotSync.

Using Windows Explorer, she can navigate to the C:&#92PALM&#92 USERNAME directory. In each of the directories for the built-in apps, rename the .DAT entry to yourdaughtername.OLD and rename the yourdaughtername.BAK entry to yourdaughtername.DAT.

Here’s an example of what the USERNAME directory looks like, using DOS. My USERNAME directory is "PieterC":

.BEGIN_CODE
Volume Serial Number is 02E2-3435
Directory of C:&#92palm&#92PieterC