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can't happen to me. Naw, not me. (Cautionary note) — Parallax Forums

can't happen to me. Naw, not me. (Cautionary note)

Fred HawkinsFred Hawkins Posts: 997
edited 2008-02-10 20:19 in Propeller 1
My in-warranty laptop turned bricklike Tuesday. (Warranty expires Dec 12)

On it was everything Propeller, 8 months of mail and photos and sundry debris of dsl life.

Fortunately, data recovery was possible, resulting in 4 dvds and -$95 service charge. Now to mail it to warranty repairshop.

So, when was the last time you backed up your 'important' data?
Ps. Now I am proud owner of a dead-cheap ($480) ACER vista notebook,·which once I port·my favorites·will be almost a drop-in replacement.·Still to be seen: whether IDE and Prop work here -- though I have faith and no fears.·

Comments

  • Mike GreenMike Green Posts: 23,101
    edited 2007-11-29 22:05
    Fortunately, the current Mac OS has an automatic backup system (if you attach an external drive and select it for backup). Before that, there was a run of a 3rd party incremental backup program about once a week. It's amazing how many backup tools are out there if you but think of them. Condolences.
  • parts-man73parts-man73 Posts: 830
    edited 2007-11-29 23:26
    I learned the hard way unfortunately how important backups are. I was installing Linux for the first time a year ago. I had an extra hard drive that I was going to put it on, I unplugged my Windows Hard drive, thinking if it was unplugged, I wouldn't lose any data. But I had problems with the CD that I burned, and had to plug the Windows hard drive back in to do some work......

    Basically I forgot which drive was plugged in when I went back to the Linux install and formated and installed Linux right over my Windows hard drive. when I switched the hard drive cables back to the other drive I had realized what I had done but it was too late. I had lost all the original SpinStudio CAD files and all other work that I had done to that point. Right before Christmas. That was one reason for the delay between anouncing SpinStudio back in December last year, and it finally being released this summer. The other reason is now crawling and working on getting his first teeth! smilewinkgrin.gif

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  • RaymanRayman Posts: 14,801
    edited 2007-11-30 00:12
    I've also learned the hard way and now have a mirror-raid and an external drive that I triple backup to... Also, Vista-64 does some volume shadow copy and "previous versions" stuff in the background...

    At home though, I'm very vulnerable... I think I'll backup some stuff right now...
  • pwillardpwillard Posts: 321
    edited 2007-11-30 00:45
    Oh... and back up your thumbdrives too... I only lost 4 weeks of stuff... (I have backups prior to that) but I just had an 8G memorex USB microdrive fail on me... no warning. Not quite the same since these are usually for downloads and stuff... but it still set me back a bit.

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  • RDL2004RDL2004 Posts: 2,554
    edited 2007-11-30 00:47
    I bought a FreeAgent USB drive, 250GB, about 80 bucks I think. I created a "back ups" folder on it and put a short cut to there on the right click menu. Pretty much everything I download I put on the desktop so I can't forget about it. Once a dozen or so items accumulate, I send them all to the backups folder (if I want to keep them) - takes just two clicks after selecting all the files. And once a week I copy the entire contents of the "My Documents" folder to copy on the Free Agent drive. Almost everything I do is in "My Documents" somewhere (I have quite a few sub-folders in it). I've had too many drives fail on me in the past, so I also do periodic back ups to my old computer over the network (it has a brand new HDD in it - should be good for a few years).

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    - Rick
  • potatoheadpotatohead Posts: 10,261
    edited 2007-11-30 01:15
    I write my user directories to DVD every coupla weeks, then file them. It's cheap, fast and redundant.

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  • Greg PGreg P Posts: 58
    edited 2007-11-30 02:27
    I use Acronis software: http://www.acronis.com/ . The beauty is that it performs backups WHILE you work. I set aside a large USB external drive, and schedule acronis to perform weekly backups automatically. The backup image disk files may be accessed by any week, and appear to Windows to be just another added drive.

    I had a drive begin to fail at work, with data corruption appearing randomly, eventually the drive would not boot. I plugged my backup USB drive into another computer, purchased a new drive for the PC and installed it in a USB drive enclosure, plugging it into the PC also. I instructed Acronis to use the disk image files on the backup USB drive to re-create a week-old version of my boot drive on the newly purchased drive in the USB enclosure. I then extracted the new drive and installed it into my PC. Like magic it actually booted with all my programs installed and data files preserved.

    I will caution that I have not had the same success with my Dell notebook PC. It may be because I'm using an older version of Acronis. Dell has all these hidden partitions which need to dealt with properly. I suggest the more advanced software by Acronis for this application which permits low-level manipulation of the boot section of the drive.

    Again, my experience was remarkable. I will NEVER not backup my PC. Acronis is cool.
  • rjo_rjo_ Posts: 1,825
    edited 2007-11-30 02:37
    I can almost hear the wheels turning... who is going to give us a thumb drive for our Props... with auto backup?
  • DgswanerDgswaner Posts: 795
    edited 2007-11-30 05:56
    I washed my thumb drive that I keep all my hobbie files and some personal docs. I feared the worst, waited until it was dry and the drive is still working like a champ.... I back it up frequently now.

    Nero burning rom which comes with most CD roms, comes with a decent backup utility. it supports most media types. and will do incremental and differential backups

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  • Peter JakackiPeter Jakacki Posts: 10,193
    edited 2007-11-30 06:28
    External USB hard drives are the way to go. I have them for my desktop and portable ones for my laptop. There is also an additional network storage drive that also keeps copies but always one drive that I leave in the car away from the others in case of fire etc. What I do also is to keep the project documents on a separate partition or drive from Windows. How many times have I "lost" drive C but my data came through it unscathed.

    I use ZTREE (Where would I be without it) to select all the recent files in a branch that includes subdirectories and then I copy across to the external drive telling it to replicate the paths and to update any older file with the newer one. Takes only a few short moments usually.

    My sister-in-law must have smacked her laptop pretty hard because Vista wasn't booting and the hdd was making that terrible repetitive "seek,uhhohh,reset,seek" sound that indicated some media damage. I tried pulling the drive out and putting it into a usb shuttle then applying various techniques but to no avail. The only way I got the stuff off mostly intact was by booting the laptop on a SimplyMepis Linux CD and opening a console to force mount and then copy all the files onto an external usb hdd. Any GUI interface just timed out badly. Still the recovery got 90% of it but it took more than 24 hours of running with all the timeouts to get the files. The drive is a write-off.

    *Peter*
  • GadgetmanGadgetman Posts: 2,436
    edited 2007-11-30 09:17
    I've tried the Knoppix LiveCD a few times(mostly to resize NTFS partitions, but also to read out files), but my preferred tool to save files from broken drives is FileRescue Professional (www.objectrescue.com)
    Well worth the price...

    And no, it isn't MY files I save, but those of colleagues at the office.
    I tell them time after time NOT to store files on the local HDD, but to use their Homeshare, but no....

    The last one, though... Came in with a HP nc6400 laptop which had a bent(1) frame. The screen was pulverized, and no obvious signs that it was booting...
    Yanked the HDD out and plugged it into a desktop, but no sign that the PC detected it. Then the user told me that he had a pal who does data recovery in another company, and that he had 'software worth $25000' and had promised to make an attempt... Good luck to him...
    It would take a clean room and a specialist company like IBAS to get anything back from it...

    Myself?
    The original files are stored on a NAS-disk, and copied to my computer before I start work on them. Backup is to one or more USB-disks.

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  • AleAle Posts: 2,363
    edited 2007-11-30 10:39
    I'm like many, messy. So I have more than one "working" computer. At home, I use mostly a desktop. But sometimes this laptop or one of the other two.
    So, I keep projects in every machine, backup from time to time, but I know my method is not reliable enough. I'd like to do work in just one medium, regardless of in which computer. Sadly, ext2 for Mac is... not as stable as in linux (uncleanly unmounted (I always unmount before I remove the flash drive, but somehow the fs gets corrupted, will kernel panic the Mac, mount as read-only, or hang during unmount). And fat is as it always was, just a joke. Two external mem sticks already failed on me, so I do not trust them. And USB on linux is not very reliable, I mean let a disk be connected for 2 days... and your fs is borked :-(. For that reiserfs 3 is well, bad, xfs is even worst. I'll stick with ext2/ext3... they work better. CDs/DVDs are cheaper.
  • RDL2004RDL2004 Posts: 2,554
    edited 2007-11-30 12:12
    Ah man, I never thought about flash drives and such. I don't use my flash drive for anything other than transferring files, but my phone has a 2GB microSD that has some stuff on it that I don't have copies of anywhere else... I guess I better start backing it up too.

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  • Ken PetersonKen Peterson Posts: 806
    edited 2007-11-30 15:14
    I never keep my primary copy of anything on a thumb drive, or on a notebook. I have a server that I keep everything on, and that all goes to a second redundant hard drive every night. Every month I make a DVD with all of my favorite stuff and put it in a safe deposit box and I keep another copy in a file at work. I have in the past lost just about everything due to hard drive failure more than once. So I have learned the hard way it CAN and DOES happen to me.

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  • Fred HawkinsFred Hawkins Posts: 997
    edited 2008-02-10 20:19
    PSA: Time to back up your propeller stuff.
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