Russian, Belorussian and Ukrainian are essentially the same language. A man on Lingvoforum (Wulfilla) said he heard strange Swedish and it turned to be Danish.Quote:
Norwegian, Danish and Swedish is ESSENTIALLY the same language
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Russian, Belorussian and Ukrainian are essentially the same language. A man on Lingvoforum (Wulfilla) said he heard strange Swedish and it turned to be Danish.Quote:
Norwegian, Danish and Swedish is ESSENTIALLY the same language
Судя по тому, что он не заметил гопоты на Украине, он из вуйков. =)Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus
But if two people are speaking Belarussian or Ukrainian to each other, how much can you, as a Russian, understand? I understand everything (95% or more) if it's Norwegian and 85-90% if it is Danish.
I have also been wondering whether it isn't a problem for some peole in Belarus and Ukraine that some signs are only in Belarussian / Ukrainian. I asked LOTS of people in Belarus if they could speak Belarussian and I met only two people who said they could speak it.
When I was in Ukraine I did not ask about it.
It depends. I had very little experiance with Ukrainian and no experiance with Belorussian. When people speak slowly, I can understand them, but I don't understand films. That's the question of practice. If you hear Ukrainian for the first time, it's hard. If you watch TV for two weeks, you start understand nearly everything. It is important to know the most common different words and to know some phonetical differences. Like Russian "o" - Ukrainian "i".Quote:
But if two people are speaking Belarussian or Ukrainian to each other, how much can you, as a Russian, understand?
Of course, it's not.Quote:
I have also been wondering whether it isn't a problem for some peole in Belarus and Ukraine that some signs are only in Belarussian / Ukrainian.
The situation in Ukraine and in Belarus is very different.Quote:
I asked LOTS of people in Belarus if they could speak Belarussian and I met only two people who said they could speak it.
When I was in Ukraine I did not ask about it.
In Ukraine there are probably more people whose mothertoungue is Ukrainian than those whose mothertoungue is Russian. But I'm not sure.
Belarus - Latvia border and one of the few remaining border crossing duty free shops on the European continent.... Haven't seen one for 15 years, probably!
http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/6915/p6300615.jpg
http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/2204/p6300616.jpg
Funny do's and don'ts on trains in Belarus:
http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/7079/p6300614.jpg
"Palace of Marriages" (Soviet idea, I think) in a city called Novopolotsk in Belarus. Right behind it was a Catholic church that was being renovated. http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/8168/p6290607.jpg
Some members of a historical society that was putting on a show at a cultural event in Vitebsk.
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A park in Vitebsk, Belarus
http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/2715/p6260584.jpg
A canal running through Vitebsk, with a waterfall feature
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A memorial park in Vitebsk. All throughout Belarus there were flowers on soldiers graves. I did not see when these soldiers were killed, or where (because the flowers were obscuring the stone). Not sure what's going on with that...
http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/4040/p6220557.jpg
Interesting street scene from Vitebsk, Belarus: Renovation is going on everywhere... a nun is supervising the work... a married couple is walking around town to have their picture taken at various famous spots.
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/2180/p6240565.jpg
Me in the village of Narach with a Russian tourist to Belarus, who could speak Swedish.
http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/7576/p0006130494.jpg
Rural Belarus, photo from bus window. Small village that had a nice Catholic church
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/6706/p6100414.jpg
This is the Victory Square in Vitebsk, Belarus. It looks a lot more sterile than it is! There are a few shops in the building with the slogan on. They are selling very nice linen clothes and fabrics. Also some restaurants.
http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/272/p6220530.jpg
A playground near the Vitebsk Victory Square where kids can climb on real Soviet army tanks and helicopters.
http://img807.imageshack.us/img807/8563/p6220534.jpg
MORE LATER!
"A playground near the Vitebsk Victory Square where kids can climb on real Soviet army tanks and helicopters."
Never happen in USA. Too many lawyers.
Very interesting to know that, Hanna! We have almost no information on those languages here in Brazil.... well, it's reasonable why, but anyway, good to know! Do you consider any of the languages easier than the others? Might be an option after I finish my studies in Russian and Dutch.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
By the way, great pictures! =)
I think the situation with the Scandinavian languages are the same as with Portuguese and Spanish only they are a bit more similar, and since our countries are smaller, there is even more interaction between them.
I think Russian and Dutch will keep you busy enough! ;-)
More picture coming soon, but here is one of the very nice beach in Liepaja.
The temperature in the water is about 18C I think.
I have also visited the nearby "must see" attraction, an old Soviet navy base which is in a terrible shape along with the poor souls still living there. I did not enjoy the visit much so I won't write about it unless someone is particularly interested.
http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/6633/p7050649.jpg
1 vote for a photo and paragraph about the navy base. Perhaps the name so I can look it up on-line.
And trains.
Nice beach, I guess I'm surprised at the water temp and it's being empty of people.
We had a Latvian kid at work a few years ago but he didn't talk very much.
http://www.xltphoto.net/blogimages/k...urch_small.jpg
Church in Karosta, an imperial Russian/Soviet ex-navy town in Western Latvia. If I understood things correctly, it was more or less shut off from the rest of Liepaja and people could not cross the bridge into Karosta unless they had legit business there. Lots of military families lived there, and some are still there.
http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...Mmh86_3p-E&t=1
Karosta is not exactly a chic place to live nowadays.
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/o...l/25242420.jpg
It was getting dark while I was getting to the military sights and I did not want to walk around there by myself so I left without having seen all of it. I am not particularly interested in this kind of stuff anyway.
However I noticed that a few radar towers were still in use, and a large building that looked very much like a military kaserne (baracks) had been fixed up, was in use but there was no signs at all to indicate what it was for and lots of dogs were guarding it. Maybe Nato is doing something there now, what an irony!
================================================== =============================================
Sorry about my absence from this thread.
It was very interesting to read Nulle's post. Thank you for taking the time to respond!
I was expressing an opinion and he was expressing another, from a much more solid perspective than me, since he is Latvian. I don't think there is any problem and I respect his opinion and everything he says.
I don't think that the Russians in Latvia are actively discriminated against in a brutal way, or anything like that. There are more problems with this in Estonia as I understand. The groups are mixing quite a bit between themselves in Latvia. In Liepaja, the mix seems to be exactly 50-50 based on languages spoken in the street.
The thing that seems wrong to me is that there isn't more usage of Russian on town. Clearly it's either banned or strongly discouraged. Normally in bilingual countries you see both languages in use, consistently.
However, lots of papers etc are available to buy in Russian and lots of cafes etc play Russian speaking radio stations.
I have not watched TV but I noticed that there are plenty of Russian TV channels when I flicked through.
I spoke with a girl whose father was Russian and mother Latvian. She said most people who took a strong stand on this were extremists and that she could understand the arguments of both sides. However she said that in Riga there are gangs fighting each other Russians vs Latvians. But most people simply don't think about it.
Andrei, the guide I met in Belarus was born in Latvia. He said that his family "escaped" because they were being discriminated against, language-wise. They lived in Ventspils and his dad was an operator of some piece of navy monitoring equipment.
The view that the USSR liberated Latvia which then more or less voluntarily entered the USSR (which incidentally I more or less believed while growing up) is simply not something that normal Latvians agree with.
Practically nobody over the age of 25 can speak English to a useful level, but everyone can communicate in Russian, or in many cases speak native sounding Russian even though they are Latvian. I usually ask people if I can speak English with them, they usually look panicked and indicate "no" and I then speak Russian with them. Young people are happy to speak English though. There are plenty of young Latvians who are practically trilingual - very impressive.
My personal opinion about this is:
The state should provide services in both languages, like Belgium, UK, Finland, Switzerland etc do... That is the norm in the EU which Latvia has chosen to be in. The only reason why Latvia is not following EUs standard on minorities is because of the bad reputation of the USSR.
Anyone who was born in Latvia, or who grew up there, including in USSR times should automatically get citizenship, regardless of language skills. Anything else is discrimination in my opinion.
Russians who live in Latvia definitely ought to make a serious effort to learn Latvian unless they have a very solid reason not to (like if they are very old or have a learning disability). It is disrespectful and arrogant not to.
Russians who are not prepared to respect Latvia should move somewhere else.
I spoke with a man whose age was a bit unclear to me. We spoke in English because he wanted to practice. He said his mother was in her 50s but he looked like he was in his forties or fifties himself. He first said he could speak Latvian. Later he changed the story, it seemed, and said he could understand it but not speak well at all. He was born in Latvia, so this situation was not very impressive to me. Hard to believe he managed to learn decent English and was not a fluent Latvian speaker.
He said that his mother was getting a pension from the state, but when she went to get it, the staff at the office refused to speak Russian with her, even though they knew it. For that reason he needed to go with her every time she had to go to this pensions agency. He himself was unemployed but if I understood him right he was a specialist on a piece of software that is used for steel production. He was off to a job interview the next day.
I also think he said that he himself was not currently a Latvian citizen, but in the process of becoming one. People who are not citizens have a document that cannot be used for travelling anywhere other than Russia. Of course, there is nobody to stop them going elsewhere in the EU since there are no borders anymore. But they could not for example travel to the USA on this document.
With a few exceptions it is almost impossible to look at people and guess whether they are Russian or Latvian speakers. Only if somebody has very dark complexion and look almost impossible as a Northern European - then they are likely to be Russian. But the dress sense is the same and peoples behaviour is similar. The Russian people seem very un-Russian in many ways. Or maybe my stereotypes of Russian people are wrong.
I saw a churchyard where people of all faiths and backgrounds were buried together. Orthodox, Lutheran and Catholic.
Some Russians actually had stars and even hammer and sickle on their gravestones. Hm! Communism is not the way to get into heaven! Lots of people had a photo of themselves on their gravestone. I have never seen that before.
There was a very strange part of the church yard that consisted of about 200 white identical graves of people with Latvian names. They were all born in 1919 or 1920. An obelisk with a swastika (nazi symbol) was raised near these graves, and there were some swastikas on the gates to this area too. There was a text in Latvian which I could not understand at all.
I have no idea what this was about. If it was something raised by the Nazis during the war, then I really can't understand that the Soviets let it stay as it was. I saw this on the way to the "Karosta" navy base town.
My camera was having some problems, so the pictures in this post have been taken by other people.
Basically some of Karosta has been re-instated as it was (although without any maintenance, so it looks crap...) Tourists can even sleep in a Soviet military prison, as a "hotel".
In my childhood there were some problems with foreign (unknown) submarines sneaking around the cost of Sweden. Most people thought they were from the USSR, namely from the Liepaja navy base (i.e. Karosta). However later, long after the end of the Cold War it turned out that the majority of the incidents involved Nato submarines.
http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...ZWk0cInjMw&t=1
http://www.karostascietums.lv/data_s...s/HPIM1681.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3073/...f9c962e161.jpg
PICTURES OF THE NICE TOWN OF "LIEPAJA" COMING SOON!
http://www.speedtest.net/result/1380964328.png
Now we're talking! See the upload speed. And Telia is a Swedish company, hehe!
Oh, I just have to finish this blog by saying that I have arrived in Sweden.
At the moment I am in the rather erm... rural village.... the name translates to "Sauna-swamp!... lol!) It's literally in the middle of the forest, however it is on the main railroad connecting the North of the country with the South. I ended up here because the train had a breakdown. (Interesting that this did not happen at all in Romania, Ukraine or Belarus. The state railway has been privatized and must make a profit.. Hence they are skimping on the maintenance I imagine. Never before can I remember a Swedish train breaking down.)
Luckily the train was standing on this station when it broke down, and I noticed that woman was letting a cottage practically for free, so I thought, "why not"?
Here, you cannot buy alcohol, shop on a Sunday... voting for any party other than the Social democrats would probably be unthinkable. The finest Christians don't have a TV or internet because it may lure you into sin.... People greet each other with "God's peace", even the teenage boys!
Everybody has a snow machine and in the winter they see the Northern Lights all the time!
It's all rather charming and this place is extremely cheap to stay in. People are super friendly and I am sorting out my affairs.My neighbours are super friendly have already invited me over for coffee several times and I have sampled some very tasty home baked bread and waffles. Half of what they are saying is very hard to understand because the speak such strong dialect and use some Finnish and Sami words.
It's a part of my country that is very foreign to me and I would never have thought it could be so nice.
Will upload more pictures of Belarus and Latvia as soon as I can!
They do have Internet as I see :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
I am using a mobile modem! Only one mobile company even covers this area.Quote:
Originally Posted by Doomer
There is no broadband in the house where I am staying unfortunately. I might run out of allowance on this card quite soon... they don't even sell the top up cards in the local shops and I can't buy it online because I have no Swedish credit card.
The next possible place to buy a topup is two hours away!
My neighbours think that the demise of the USSR was a great tragedy and that all the bad information about it was propaganda and lies.
When TV showed a feature about the 20 year anniversary of the August coup in 1991, they both thought it was a great shame that the coup failed! Oh dear.
They are so incredibly friendly that I am not getting time for all the stuff that I am here to do, chatting all the time and inviting me to dinner etc. Today I got fish straight from the local lake.
This lifestyle is really lovely.
This is the type of fish that I ate:
http://www.fiskeri.nu/wp-content/uploads/aborre1.jpg
Это окунь?Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
Да, правильно! Наконец слово нашла в словаре!
Ты рыбак?
Нет. Рыбачил только в 12 лет, когда отдыхали на Волге. Очень нравилась рыбалка.Quote:
Ты рыбак?
After Bernard Shaw visited the USSR during the starvation, he told everyone what a nice country it was, that there was actually no starvation there, that HE'd had there the best dinner in his life (!). He also said that "any 'skilled workman...of suitable age and good character' would be welcomed and given work in the Soviet Union". When he was asked by a journalist during his press conference why then he hadn't stayed in the Soviet heaven and had still gotten back, he said something like "The Britain is hell for sure, but I'm an old sinner and supposed to be in hell".Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
I guess your neighbors are the same kind of people.
No they have nothing in common with him. They're just working class people who have been reading a certain popular communist Northern paper all their lives. Life was tough up here when they were young and workers were not always treated that well Then they saw reports of a modern country emerging fast in the USSR, where working class people like themselves were the heroes. Social democracy in Sweden never did away with capitalism, it was just bridled a bit. They've never actually travelled outside of Scandinavia so they are not basing their view of any practical experienes. But I was surprised to hear them both indignantly say that Gorbatjov and Yeltsin were traitors etc. It's one thing to be a communist in general, and another thing to idolize the USSR. Plus, they are also reasonably Christian, although not of the strictest kind. I don't know that it's possible to combine that with the kind of ideology that they seem to support.Quote:
I guess your neighbors are the same kind of people.
But they are incredibly nice people and they are certainly entitled to their opinion as far as I am concerned.
Hanna,
I'm hoping to visit (maybe Belarus), Ukraine (Kiev and Odessa) and Russia (Moscow and St. Petersburg) in 2012. Now that your trip is over and some time has passed - is there anything different you'd do on your trip? Any places you recommend? Any places you'd say stay away from? Do you have any advice for anyone planning to go to Belarus, Ukraine and Russia?
Thank you,
Scott
You will always wish you had spent more time in X. I was just in Petersburg for 6 days, and I could have stayed another six. rushed through the Tretyakov in Moscow in under two hours b/c of time constraints. jeez!!
Did you stay in a hotel? If so, how much was it? How did you get your visa? There's a site evisa.kdmid.ru to get a visa. Ever use it?Quote:
Originally Posted by chaika
Thank you,
Scott
@ Scott, here are my "lessons-learnt":thumbs:......
No 1 tip, do not underestimate the difficulty with getting a visa to the great nation of Russia, lol!!! Start early, fill in all papers properly and generally treat the issue with great respect! You must do it in your own country, it is extremely complicated to get the visa anywhere else. By far, my greatest regret about this trip was not being able to get a Russian visa because I had underestimated the difficulty. If you want to travel visa-free to Russian-speaking countries, then Ukraine and Kazakhstan are the two possibilities.
2 - If you go to Ukraine, be aware that the majority of signs etc that you see when you walk around town, will be in Ukrainian. This is really confusing if you are trying to learn Russian. I think most people speak Russian between themselves, but do not go to Ukraine with the expectation that it is Russian-speaking in the same way as Russia itself. On the other hand, Ukraine itself is a very interesting cool country with super-friendly and helpful people.
3 - Forget all the stories you may have heard about "the wild East". It is basically not dangerous to travel in this area. There are no more crooks or theives than anywhere else, and the average person is MORE helpful towards strangers than what they'd be in an average Western European city, for example. There are no ticket touts and no beggars.
4 - If you travel by train (which is a good idea...) be sure to allocate LOTS of time to figure out how and where to get your ticket at the station, read the time table and learn train related vocabulary. The people who work in the railway industry in this area do not speak other languages, so you must be able to speak with them in Russian. Even if some railway staff members look a bit grumpy at first sight, they are almost universally very helpful if you ask them for help in a nice way. Also remember that when there is not a convenient train, there might well be a coach for the same stretch. They usually leave from a separate coach station.
5 - Do not comment on politics, since the politics of Eastern Europe is extremely complex and as foreigners we sound stupid and / or ignorant / arrogant almost regardless of what we say. Instead ask open and unbiased questions and simply listen to what people say. Alternatively forget about politics and enjoy the culture or history for example.
6 - Give Belarus a chance and you'll have a very unique experience. It's a country that has very little tourism despite being very interesting for lots of reasons. For all extents and purposes it is Russian speaking although street signs are in Belarussian. The guidebook hysteria about Belarus being Soviet-like is totally exaggerated. The only thing that is a bit unusual is that you see quite a lot of people in military style uniforms, but I think they simply have desk jobs for the state, and are not policemen. Belarus is extremely good value for money compared with Russia. You can stay in a perfectly nice and clean hotel for USD 20 a night, just as an example. It is also an extremely safe country totally devoid of robberies or yob behaviour. Beautiful nature.
7 - Visit smaller towns, not just the capitals.
8 - I regret that I didn't go to more concerts or to opera, theatre or ballet. In Belarus in particular, it's super cheap and the quality is fantastic. I went to a piano concerto and it was amazing.
9 - Try to meet somebody who is local and willing to show you around. That way the city feels more real and you get a better feeling than you'd ever get from a guided tour.
10 - The local Gum/tsum department stores are listed in all guidebooks, but they are not where the good shopping is in Ukraine and Belarus . For that, try the markets, chic boulevards with new (and expensive) designer clothes, or indoor / underground shopping centres.
11 - The tastiest and best value restaurants are the ones serving local food. Do not have Italian, French, Sushi etc in this part of the world. For what you get, it is not good value. Be prepared for very long waits for food at restaurants and don 't get upset, it's just the norm.
12 - Consider fitting in some fun activity, like going hiking, going to a spa, take a week of skiing or sunbathing depending on the season.
13 - I would have loved to go to the Caucasus, to Central Asia or Russia's Far East. If you were to do something really cool, you could fly to St. Petersburg, then travel by train through Russia stopping in interesting places on the way and return to the US over the Pacific. There might well be some airline flying Vladivostok directly to the USA, else, just book a ticket with a change in S.Korea or China.
14 - Bring and give little presents to people from your own city - it's the culture! People you meet will be more hospitable and friendly than you could ever expect, and mutual gift giving is part of the customs, I think. I wish I had thought of bringing souvenirs to give away, but I simply didn't think of it. If you have food on the train, offer something to everyone sitting nearby, for example biscuits or fruit.
Hello Hanna,Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
Thank you so much for the advice! I'll keep it in mind. My wife lost her passport so she has to get one then I'll start planning the trip.
Thank you,
Scott
I am SUCH an idiot - I have LOST my photos from this super cool trip.
I can't believe I call myself an IT professional and make such a basic mistake (have been on a laptop and an external drive only for the last year and a bit, since all my stuff is in storage in London - but obviously external drives too, can crash!)
I'll have to do a data recovery in the autumn when I have settled back in the UK ££££ this is super expensive.
My only backup is in fact this travel blog and a few photos that I sent to some friends and relatives.
But this was a VERY interesting trip and I am FAR from finished with these countries!
Travelling alone was much more fulfilling than I had expected and it is relatively easy to meet people to talk with. It's a bit "weird" and antisocial perhaps, but it gives you total freedom too. All I was missing is somebody to discuss the exciting experiences with.
The height of the trips were>
1) An impromptu "guided tour" of Kiev in Russian by a Belarussian guy on a business trip, who had a day to kill and knew the city quite well. What a grand city! I had no idea Kiev had so much to see. I'll be back for sure. Not to mention Yalta which I did not get to. Can't wait!
2) Ending up in the mysterious republic of "Pridnestrovie" by chance - a place that does not officially exist as a country, but has its own currency and border check.
3) Speaking Russian for the first time as an adult - in Moldova!
4) Positively surprised by Belarus - very well organised and newly renovated country. Gomel, Minsk and Vitebsk - all well worth a visit.
5) Staying at a sanatorium - funy, relaxing and different - and really helped my migraines which have been a lot better since - went on outings and met lots of nice and interesting people.
6) The beaches of Latvia - awesome!
Oh Hanna, I'm so sorry to hear that! Losing photos is so difficult. People say, "Oh, well you at least went there and have your memories," but it is not the same... I know.
So what you need to do now is download this diary, scan all your ticket stubs and anything else you have in hard copy form, and then along with all the photos you can find... save them all to a cloud somewhere so you hopefully won't lose anything else.
http://www.free-emoticons.co.uk/emot...gn/big_hug.gif
It seems that your compatriots don't share your opinion ;-)Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/8...4446502002.jpg
I'm a data recovery guyQuote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
Do you want my help?
I'll try to make it free of charge but shipping is on you
If you don't want to ship, I can recommend a good data recovery company in the UK (we DR guys like mafia, know each other :) ) but as you already know it is expensive
Quote:
Originally Posted by Basil77
I know - this is so silly!
This whole country is in the grip of extreme political correctness - you wouldn't believe some of the things... One of the basic tenets of this is a fixation with democracy as the ultimate good, and solution to all problems, according to the latest definition coming our way across the Atlantic. These people don't really know what they are talking about, wrt Belarus, or they've been drinking the US Kool Aid and think they do... If they need to worry about European countries in shambles, I'd recommend them to go to Rumania or Albania. Peopler there are a lot worse off than Belarussians. They could use our economic help. Democracy is a means to an end, nothing else. If the Belarussians want to change things, let them do it themselves. It's not Sweden's or anybody elses business.
Even sillier is that the exact same people that complain about socialism in Belarus at the moment, were falling over themselves in turning a blind eye to serious issues perpetrated in the name of socialism prior to '90, and praising or wanting to copy the latest grand project in the USSR, giving Swedish foreign aid to North Korea or Communist guerilla groups. Because this was PC back then, political struggle and equality was cool and democracy was secondary.
In my opinion these people lack principles! They change their opinions to match whatever winds are blowing from the nearest super power at the moment... And add some homespun nonsense to it... This has unfortunately been a trend in Sweden for a century now. When is my country going to wake up and actually stand firm for a position that is rooted in what people here actually want, rather than being a pathetic copycat of whoever holds the most swing in international policy. I guess it's only a matter of time until these spineless people start regarding China and whatever views the Chinese hold as the best thing since sliced bread...
Either way - I can't believe a professional diplomat, the ambassador, would have anything to do with a stunt like this. Who could it possibly have benefited? Nobody.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doomer
Wow you are so kind, thanks! Cool job, but a tough industry I guess! Any MR users in the US definitely ought to use your business as a first stop for data recovery.
I read that there are quite a few scammers, and it's hard for the honest professionals to justify the seemingly high prices to customers.
Let me get back on whether to take you up on your offer! I really appreciate it!
I have a lot going on at the moment, so I thought I'd take care of this in September, in the UK.
The British company I was thinking about using is called "Kingdom Data recovery". It sounded like the name of a Christian business.. and they had some good and genuine sounding customer testimonials. I wrote there, and the guy responded back straight away, warning me that it sounded serious. Did you here of them, or who would you recommend?
~
The technical background is this:
The drive in question is a Seagate 2 TB drive, internal, although it is temporarily housed in an external bay, since I am using a laptop. The drive was bought only about 5 months ago, so the problem is not down to "wear and tear".
The fault appeared almost immediately, with about 1 hour during which is was a bit noisy (which I should have reacted on). I think it got a bump, while in use. Fell over from standing upright... My fault!
The fault is almost certainly mechanical, although I wouldn't know what.
- After plugging in the USB cable, the drive makes a squealing sound for 1/2 second, with about 1 second inverval. This carries on for about 15 seconds, then stops.
- I think that it can't read from the drive due to some mechanical problem, perhaps a fault with the disk itself, or the "arm".
- I haven't been able to test the drive connected with the SATA cable directly to a normal motherboard, because I don't have a desktop PC here.
I have my collection of Russian films which is quite large, on this drive, as well as my collection of Asian films, photos and my Audiobook collection. Everything but the photos are replacable, although it would take significant time. Some of the audiobooks had not been copied to my ipod and could be hard to find online again.
This data was first on a small "travel" 1 TB Samsung drive that can only connect with mini USB. I think it's a solid state drive - or a laptop drive, it is too small to be a normal internal drive.
This drive contains almost the same data, just 5 months out of data. But it packed up too (!!!) however I was able to get the data off it in time, using recovery software "GetDataBack". But this drive is inaccessible too now, at least to me. Doing data recovery on this drive, rather than the 2 TB would be an alternative, if the 2 TB fails. But the photos are not on it. The majority of the films are also on the hard drive of my regular PC, which is in storage in the UK.
I wanted to ask the data recovery firm to see if there is any way they can access the content on one of one of these drives, and copy or clone it to a replacement disk. Does that sound feasible to you, or would you recommend me to do something else?
Thanks, you are always so sweet!!!:friends:Quote:
Originally Posted by rockzmom
That is very much trueQuote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
I've never heard of the "Kingdom Data recovery" companyQuote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
In the UK I would recommend this company - Professional Data Recovery Service UK : Hard Drive Recovery : USB Memory Stick Recovery : Memory Cards Recovery : CD-DVD Recovery : PC Images
This is most likely an indicator of seized spindle problemQuote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
When you drop a hard drive, relatively heavy platters packet puts an excessive force on the spindle fluid bearing causing it to jam
The sound you hear is drive's inability to spin up
This is quite complex problem but it is good in some way because it preserves drive from further mechanical damage
Please do not power this drive up anymore, you won't get anything good from it
You definitely need a DR professional to do this kind of job
PS: there is also a chance that it is not a seized spindle problem but jammed heads. Newer Seagate drives have a parking ramp on outside of platters packet. If heads got between the ramp and platters, because of the excessive force they could have created media damage, in this case you data might be unrecoverable
Thanks for explaining all this, and for the recommendation! Do you think my chances of recovering the data are slim, or quite good?
Which drive do you personally think is most reliable in the 1-3 TB class, I mean what brand or type?
I thought Seagate was very good, but this is the worst crash I have ever had.
It all depends on the damage, it is impossible to answer before proper evaluationQuote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
I use WD Green family drives recentlyQuote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
But neither of drives is protected against drop :)
All hard drives should be protected against two things: heat and vibration/shock. These are two major damaging factors
Hanna:Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
I'm so glad that I read your post again before my trip. I've just called my credit card and debit/ATM card company and apparantly it was a smart thing to do. They actually asked for my departure and return dates and ran them through their security systems.
I called mine also. Luckily I had more than one credit card because one of the cards I used once and then for the rest of the trip was declined. When I got home and called them they said even though I informed them of the countries we'd be in how would they know if my card was stolen or not.
Good luck,
Scott
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ann