Back It Up Now!

GuyuteGuyute Gamehenge
edited September 2004 in Science & Tech
I have to say this as a warning to everyone- I had my HD crash last week. "Total Head Crash" as I was told. I had not backed up ANYTHING in the last 3 months- My totally redesigned resume and cover letter that I spent 15 or so hours tweaking? Nope. My Favourites folder? Nope. My configs for the games that I play that had all of my key bindings? Nope. Priceless pics of my 2 -year-old daughter? Nope. You get the picture. Before this happened I was a total backup snob- I would harangue people everywhere about how important it was to do this relatively innocuous function now to save yourself much frustration later. So PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't make the same mistake I did!

The only thing of any importance that I saved was the 40 or so music CD's that I have archived on my HD, as I moved to my secondary drive just last week in case of this...I have a friend with a recovery program and THANK GOD it got back the pictures of my daughter! Everything else it recovered was really old stuff and a few registry keys...I just spent 5 days going through all of the files, all for the sake of 20 minutes of backing up before this happened...I had over 8000 htm files, 7000+ jpg's, 1200 zip's, etc. that I had to scan file-by-file. So please save yourself the pain and suffering...You never think this could happen to you, until you hear that dreaded sound of metal on metal...

Comments

  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited September 2004
    It would do well for people to remember this lesson that you learned the hard way. We do this on a corporate level and you can imagine the importance of some of the data. I can't believe some of the things that don't get backed up. Incredible.

    I've had customers in tears over lack of backups. It's a hard, hard lesson to learn.

    Just remember this, everybody: Your hard drive WILL die one day. Inevetably.
  • BlackHawkBlackHawk Bible music connoisseur There's no place like 127.0.0.1 Icrontian
    edited September 2004
    But what if you have too much data to backup and lack of monies to buy a bigger HDD? :screwed:
  • ketoketo
    makes note to self to sober up and back up in the morning. Thank you.
     Occupied. Or is it preoccupied? Icrontian
    edited September 2004
    makes note to self to sober up and back up in the morning. Thank you.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited September 2004
    then pick and choose the most important stuff and figure something out. But if you can't back it up, just prep yourself for agony down the road when your HD does (and it will) crash.
  • GuyuteGuyute Gamehenge
    edited September 2004
    omg I totally accidentally edited and deleted your post, Guyute... Sorry about that!

    Guyute was asking if partitioning would help prevent something like this in the future.


    *primesuspect

    totally redfaced....
  • NomadNomad A Small Piece of Hell Icrontian
    edited September 2004
    That's okay, Prime did that to someone at the 4th of July think D: omg teh secrets out

    Anyhow, I back up things for work, but other than that an HD crash would probably do me some good.
  • CreepCreep Hell Icrontian
    edited September 2004
    That's why I keep a seprate partition for windows and all my games, important files and the like are on different drives/partitions. Too many crashes taught me the hard way....
  • BlackHawkBlackHawk Bible music connoisseur There's no place like 127.0.0.1 Icrontian
    edited September 2004
    Yeah, I have 4 or 5 partitions but if the drive goes kaput, it's taking all the partitions with it.
  • TBonZTBonZ Ottawa, ON Icrontian
    edited September 2004
    This brings me back to when I first switched to Cable from dialup. I was a download whore for 2 months and had basically filled a 40Gb HDD. My drive died and I lost everything. This drive was only 3 months old. I still have the scars from that sad, sad day. :bawling:

    Back it up and back it up now.
  • gibbonslgibbonsl Grand Forks AFB
    edited September 2004
    that is why i have 3 HD

    1st is os and programs

    2nd is everything that i download

    3rd is a backup of the 2nd drive
  • test_tube_tonytest_tube_tony Dallas TX Member
    edited September 2004
    i know this all to well. i used to use maxtor hard drives because of the low price, but after i had 3 die, and my uncle had 2 die, i wised up and bought a western digital. ive had the drive running continuous for 4 or 5 years and its still going strong.
  • rykoryko new york
    edited September 2004
    the only time i had a hdd fail on me is when i used a cheapo 350w psu that came with a budget case. It ate 2 40gb western digitals after about 2 months.....luckily there wasn't much valulable info on the 2 hdd's.......and wd rma'ed the 2 borked hdd's for 2 new ones.
  • MountainDewMountainDew Kentwood, MI
    edited September 2004
    how long will a hard drive usually last? i know a crash could happen at anytime, but does anyone have an approximation?
  • GuyuteGuyute Gamehenge
    edited September 2004
    Mine was 30 months old. Maxtor 40GB BTW. I had heard the average is 2 years, then you can start expecting that symphony. My newer drive is also a Maxtor re-packaged as a Cicero (Future Shop's in-house brand) 120GB. I bought a DVD burner at the same time as I bought the HDD. You can bet I'll be bruning some backups now...the worst part of all of this was when my looks at me and says "YOU didn't back anything up?" *eyebrow lift*. Caught like a deer in headlights.

    PS Maxtor apparently offers a service whereby if it fails in the first 7 years they will replace it...you can be sure I'll be trying that option.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited September 2004
    7 years? huh?

    Most hard drive manufacturers replace failed drives in the warranty period. Standard warranty used to be three years. Hitachi is one year, Seagate and Maxtor are 5 years. WD is one year, I believe.
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