Lost data legal question

[caveman]

Last week when I bought leopard I also purchased from my local Apple Centre a Lacie external HD which I used to temporarily copy some work onto whilst I made space for the OSX installation, as my other external HD was full. Everything went fine but a couple of days later when I went to retrieve the data the HD would not mount.

I took it to the Apple centre and after a few days they said it was broken and they could not get any data from it.

So basically I bought a device for backups and it broke within days leaving me without my RAW backups and client work.

So what can I do about it if anything? Can I claim for anything? Clearly my RAW photos are gone forever but what about the work I have to remake for my clients? I am not into suing people but I'm seriously annoyed with the whole thing.

 

[Aptmunich]

No.

If you are using a device for anything work related it is part of your job to make sure you have copies in duplicate and triplicate. Sure it's annoying - and doubly so with a new device, but it's most definitely a risk you took and your fault.

Can you sue a car maker when your car breaks down and you miss an appointment?

 

[sevenhelmet]

x2. You cannot take legal action against Apple and expect to win. HOWEVER, you do have another option to recover your data. There are hard drive recovery firms which specialize in recovering lost data from a "crashed" or damaged hard disk. It's not cheap, but depending on what you lost you might want to consider it as an option.

 

[Aptmunich]

You could also try the old "stick it in a plastic zip-lock bag and put it in the freezer for 10 hours" trick...

Sometimes that'll help just enough to let you grab some data...

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2006110111270170

 

[PerryLynch]

The trick with data loss is to have it stored in multiple places first. Liability law is generally interpreted so that the vendor is liable for the replacement of the item in question, and not the data that it had no part in creating.

As far as data recovery goes, that's something I'd strongly recommend leaving to the experts. If the Apple Center guys did anything that would cause data to be written to that drive, there is a very good chance that your original data has been destroyed.

The best tools for the job involve computer forensics equipment that actually gives you the ability to physically read the drive surface without writing to the drive at the same time - a write-blocker is the technical term. If they just stuck it in a USB/Firewire enclosure, you may be SOL. Find a computer forensics expert near you and ask them about this. You may even find a kindred Mac user, who is able to do this for you on the cheap.

Good luck,
Perry