Large Scale Central

Hard drive crash

General Discussion
#1

I’m just getting back online again after a disastrous hard drive failure a couple weeks ago. Of course the warranty expired a few months ago. Been pretty slack about making backups too, so now I’m trying to sift through 300,000 nameless files that were retrieved via data recovery software, looking for the few vital documents that can’t easily be replaced. The words “needle” and “haystack” come to mind here, and some of the needles are disguised as straw – i.e., files that have been incorrectly tagged by the software.

Also lost over a year’s worth of saved emails, all my bookmarked links, etc. And I have to re-download and reinstall several apps.

As you can imagine it’ll take me a while to get back up to speed.

#2

I was wondering where you had drifted off to.
I have several external drives to use for backing up files.
However, I too get slack at times backing up files.
On my main system I use a RAID array using three hard drives. It uses a percentage of the drives for “parity”.
Replace a failed drive and the array will “rebuild” the drive.
Ralph

#3

I kept my old computer and connected it to my network. I have a cmd file that backs up my critical files on a regular basis to my old computer.

You might also want to check out an online service like Carbonite; it backs up your files automatically.

#4

Ray,

You were missed. Thought you were on vacation or something, but it was getting long since we heard from you.

#5

Welcome back. I will do my back up today.

#6

The most excruciating thing now is trying to get my old computer linked to the newer one again. Took forever to get it to work the first time around, and I don’t remember how I did it.

#7

Hi Ray

I too suffered a hard drive crash about the same time and while my personal and work files were backed up, all of the software that has to be reinstalled, plus the few things that weren’t backed up (like bookmarks for example) take a long time to get back together. Last year, I found this useful little program for doing back ups. Its by Microsoft (and free) called SyncToy. I have an external hard drive at home and work, and I run SyncToy twice a week to synchronise files off my laptop hard drive to the external ones.

I feel for you trying to get everything back in order though.

Cheers
Tony

#8
Ray Dunakin said:
The most excruciating thing now is trying to get my old computer linked to the newer one again. Took forever to get it to work the first time around, and I don't remember how I did it.
Ray, If you are running Windows XP, it is under "My Network Places" in the menue. Network tasks will be to the left when you open "MNP". Ralph
#9

Thanks. I’m actually on a Mac. Finally got the old G3 Mac talking to the new iMac again this evening. It should have been much simpler, but the age difference between the two systems meant that some of the old methods are no longer supported on the newer machine.

The tech guy who replaced the drive said that hard drives used to last a lot longer, often 10 years or more. He said the average is about 3 years now. Probably why they’re so much cheaper than they used to be.

#10
Ray Dunakin said:
Thanks. I'm actually on a Mac. Finally got the old G3 Mac talking to the new iMac again this evening. It should have been much simpler, but the age difference between the two systems meant that some of the old methods are no longer supported on the newer machine. [...]
Ray, sorry to hear about the disaster... It should be possible to recover most of your data using some specialised tools. For the future, you may consider backups;-), I found the Time Capsule an inexpensive and easy solution to backups for my Mac's. But of course it is possible to backup Mac's using rsync which you can put in a script and run via cron like on any other Unix system. Best wishes from Tokyo, Zubi