OT Nightmares of the Modern Age

[Sarah Fox]

Hi Alan,

If I understand correctly, Bill Gates automatically reformatted your
secondary hard drive for you???  (How nice of him.)  Depending on how
important the contents are and how much work and/or money you want to put
in, there are ways to retrieve the data.  It's not pretty, but there are
professionals who do this very thing (disaster recovery specialists or hard
drive recovery specialists, I think they're called).  There may be some
do-it-yourself software packages you can buy for this purpose.  If you're
lucky, you'll get back most of what you lost on that drive.

For the future, I've found the very best solution is to use your last
generation of computer, blow a bundle (maybe $100) on an enormous hard drive
that's at least a few times larger than the one in your main machine,
install that HD in your old machine, network the two machines, and only use
the old machine for backups.  That is, don't even run it otherwise.  (The
HDs will last virtually forever that way.)  Then do backups through the
network while you sleep at night.  Do them alternately -- Backup A and
Backup B.  Overwrite the oldest backup (say, A) while keeping the prior
backup (B) intact.  The next time, overwrite B while preserving A.  That
method would have saved you, because Bill's software would have been unable
to turn on your backup server and format its HDs through the network!  This
method will also save you in the event of a lightning strike that toasts
your main machine, HDs and all.

My data have always been critically important to me, so I've always been
rather anal about this stuff.  I've never lost anything too important yet,
in over 25 years.  (And yes, I still have programming I did back in 1977 --
on a Wang Z-80!)

Peace,
Sarah

----- Original Message -----
From: <tune4u@earthlink.net>
To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2003 12:19 AM
Subject: Nightmares of the Modern Age


> Lost my secondary hard drive this morning. Bltzfghbppppp .....
>
> Family finance data ...
> Family pictures ...
> All business correspondence, forms, etc. ...
>
> ... gone.  Just little blips in data heaven.
>
> Thanks for the bug in an otherwise pretty darned good system (XP), Bill!
>
> My message:
>
> Back it up! Back it up! Back it up! Back it up! Back it up! Back it up!
Back
> it up! Back it up! Back it up! Back it up! Back it up! Back it up! Back it
> up! Back it up! Back it up! Back it up! Back it up! Back it up! Back it
up!
> Back it up! Back it up! Back it up! Back it up! Back it up! Back it up!
Back
> it up! Back it up! Back it up! Back it up! Back it up! Back it up! Back it
> up! Back it up! Back it up! Back it up! Back it up! Back it up! Back it
up!
> Back it up! Back it up! B A C K   I T   U P !   ... 'till the cows come
> home.
>
> Other than that, life's a peach.
>
> Alan Barnard
> Salem, MO
>
> Gory details: Internet Explorer got all screwed up, wouldn't work right.
> Tried to reinstall latest version--Microsoft product downloaded from
> Microsoft site into Microsoft operating system. Got a Microsoft message
box:
> Product doesn't pass our digital signature logo something-or-other and
WILL
> NOT BE INSTALLED. (!)
>
> Backed up everything from C: drive (primary, has operating system) onto
> drive E: (the soon-to-be-obliterated drive). Ran System Recovery that is
> supposed to set up the C: drive exactly as it was the day I took it out of
> the big box.
>
> Didn't change ANYTHING on the C: drive. All the stuff's still there, all
the
> programs on it run, and Internet Explorer is still hosed. But it did wipe
> out the E: drive --- Very perverse: Some folders remained, some were gone
> and almost all folders were empty, wiped slick. Ran data recovery software
> and disk maintenance software ... nada.
>
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