Backups - just when I thought I had it all sorted...

[Duncan Rounding]

You WILL loose data, It's not IF but WHEN!

I just thought I'd post a note about backups following my experience this morning.

I have a tested automated backup and restored regime which works well from C to internal D and then manually on to an external drive. Only problem is I had forgotten a long ago to include my digital pictures - they were stored on an external drive only.

The inevitable happened and my external Lacie Firewire 800 drive failed. After a bit of delving around I was able to determine that it was the drive caddy that was faulty - but it had caused the drive to loose some directory data and seemingly loose hundereds of picture files.

Having been in this situation before a couple of years ago I dismantled the external drive and installed the it internally into my old computer and ran DriveRescue 1.9 which enabled me to copy all the lost files to another drive. I then ran dskchk which as it happened also recovered the lost info. (Don't run chkdsk until you've first run DriveRescue as it may write to the disk making recovery almost impossible)

Take heed, check your backup set and test a restore if you can. Also download DriveRescue (http://www.woundedmoon.org/win32/driverescue19d.html), it's a great bit of recovery software anmd saved my bacon twice now.

I am now looking at having two external drives. Does anyone know of a good RAID 1 type of external drive that doesn't cost the earth?

[completerookie]

in order to recover data from a hard drive, I have been know to place the hard disk in the freezer for a little while. sounds crazy but it actually cooled down the HD enough to free the spindle and allow it to spin up again, as soon as it spun up, I did a quick recovery and . . . .
not a "first line of defence" solution, but if your'e desperate, then . . .
admittedly the last time I did this was before the very clever recovery programmes available nowadays.

[NormanRouxel]

Yes a bit of physical persuasion often works. I've done the trick of whacking a stuck drive on a corner while powering up, and sure enough it spun once more. Didn't dare power down and went straight into copying the critical files onto innumerable floppies (was a few years ago).

Another time ages ago, we had a drive where a connector had fallen off inside (8" winchester disk costing more than a good car - only support in the USA). A home made clean room (actually a huge poly bag, some rubber gloves and duct tape - drive and tools washed down and their tips cleaned with blu-tack) and we got the lid off and fixed the connector and it ran happily thereafter. Poly bag also kept our dripping sweat off (that drive was expensive).

[pinbrook]

I work on the policy of having 3 copies of everything, and sometimes 4

I have a smallish C drive (copy1) so I copy everything to big D drive in backup computer (copy2) and also copy to externalHD (copy3) these copies happen every 2 or 4 hours (depending on where I am and what I'm doing). When I'm travelling I also use flash stick/DVD.

I also copy to online service as and when I feel like it, either all data and/or actinic snapshots.

As Duncan says its a matter of WHEN and not IF

[Luddite]

these copies happen every 2 or 4 hours

Does that mean you manually do it this often, or do you have a way of doing it automatically?