hard drive backup

[James Rambo]

I urge everyone to make a backup of your hard drive. I have been using the same computer to do all my work for 4 years now. loml uses hers to help to create files to transfer to mine that is used for the laser. I spent a few hours a couple weeks ago to create a file to be engraved on 4 marble plaques to be delivered the next Thursday. I ordered the plaques and spent time on other files to use at weekend shows in the future. The plaques arrived and a turned on the computer and nothing happened the hard drive had died nothing was recoverable and I lost all the last 4 years of files. PLEASE backup your information to a removeable drive. Dont lose everything.

[Pete Simmons]

I have been looking into a 2nd hard drive via a USB port such as "The Book".

I think I see how it works easily to backup data with many options.

What I want to do is clone an image of my present hard drive, op sys and all such that in a HD failure I can swap out the drives. I would bet having the OP Sys on the drive will mess everything up.

Anybody have any good ideas how to do this??

[Frank Corker]

James, I have been down that road many times. Most things can be recovered from a damaged drive, even when they don't work! That said, something as complicated will cost you dearly.

Before you discard everything as a complete loss, there are many programs on the market that will allow you to retrieve your files, success even when it has been accidentally formatted. One that I used with complete success, was on a disk I had considered to be completely 'dead', now I've been around computers since the eighties and this one really did the trick. where others had failed to touch. R-TT data recovery www.r-tt.com/

If you still have your disk and you haven't reformatted it, try the program.

[Ed Maloney]

I have no clue how you are going to sleep tonight.

I just tried to add memory to my laptop and lost my current email and other settings for various programs. The first thing I did was to make sure the laser and drivers were OK and they were. Made a back-up of my Corel files last week.

Everyone should learn from James's situation.

[James Rambo]

I sent the hard drive to a company in California they had it for 10 day e-mailed me the progress a couple of times they replaced parts two times and they said it is not recoverable. I opted for them to send it back to me. Maybe for a decent burial. I don't know what else. Paper weight maybe..

[Scott Shepherd]

One additional tip is to always buy a surge supressor/battery backup that insures their product. I had a battery backup/surge supressor from APC that allowed a power surge to come through and zapped two hard drives and my entire computer. I packed it up, sent it to them, they verified the unit had failed in a matter of a week or so, and then authorized my data to be recovered at about $4,000 in cost, along with replacing my entire computer, and they even replaced the battery backup/surge supressor free too. All in all, about a $6,000 claim and they paid it without a single debate over who's fault it was.

Some of the things are very picky, so read the details. I bought one recently and it said that to file a claim, the original packaging must be saved. So, it's stored away, safe and sound.

Make sure your data is backed up and make sure you have surge supressors in place, and that they are insured. Plug your laser into one, it'll cover that if a surge gets through and wipes that out too.

[Micah Kaufman]

I am new to the creek and thought I would add.... Ghost 10.0 is an off the shelf utility that will image your drive for backup purpose. I believe you can make an identical image of existing drive and boot from it if needed. You can schedule regular backups and/or schedule backups as "data changes". This is just one utility that comes to mind but there are many good backup utilities (some are freeware also but maybe not as user friendly) out there to avoid the angst of lost data.

[Bill Jermyn]

I religiously use ghost weekly to clone my hard drive as well. I have my hard drives installed in removable bays, and after I do the clone, I swap out the hard drives to make sure the new one works. It gives a lot of peace of mind knowing I always have an up-to-date backup. I highly recommend it.

[Frank Corker]

The Ghost program is well recommended. I have three 250GB hard disks in my computer and I weekly remove one replace with another 250GB hard disk and back stuff up onto that. The very important stuff I burn to DVD for permanent storage.

[Brian Robison]

I could be doing this wrong but....
I have a 80 gig external hard drive. I back up my Auto Cad, Corel, photos and music on. I back up 3 computers by just copying and pasting the folders I have them in. It doesn't take up a huge amount of space this way.
I really should back up my e mail addresses too.
I think if I lose everything else I'll be OK.
I don't store the external hard drive near the other computers in case of fire or theft.

[Phil Thien]

I sent the hard drive to a company in California they had it for 10 day e-mailed me the progress a couple of times they replaced parts two times and they said it is not recoverable. I opted for them to send it back to me. Maybe for a decent burial. I don't know what else. Paper weight maybe..

Which firm did you send it to?

Do you remember the brand of drive?

Were there any funny clicking noises coming from it?

[Matt Meiser]

Good advise above. Also make sure your backups are physically separated too. I do my backups to a computer in my shop which is physically separated by about 100' from the house. According to my insurance agent the chances of losing both buildings are negligible. We also burn important files (mainly digital pictures) to DVD and take a copy to my parents house about 5 miles away.

If you can, set up your backups to be automated--that way you never forget. And periodically verify that they are working. I was in an class one time where the instructor related a story about a company that found out they had 2 cabinets, one on site, and one off site, full of blank tapes. My backups copy the new files for pictures, music, downloads, etc. weekly so I always have a backup of everything there. Our personal files (my documents, favorites, desktop) get zipped (actually 7z'd) and copied weekly. I periodically clean those up and keep 1/month after about 3 months.

I developed my plan after attempting unsuccessfully to help one of my wife's friends recover data from their computer after a fire. The drive worked for a minute or two then died. The quote I got from a drive restoration company was something like $1500 MINIMUM. Their insurance would not pay for the service and they basically lost everything they had on the computer.

[Todd Schwartz]

I am in the computer business and see this all too often. Have been down the road of backing up to tape, backing up to hard drives, backing up to CD/DVD. My latest backup strategy and the best so far is to back up to an off site server. I came across a company that does this for free if under 2GB or $5 per month for over 2GB. You can tell it what to back up and when and how often to do the backups. The best part is that it is automatic, is off site and they are responsible for making sure your data is secure and available. I have no affiliation with the company, but just am a fan. Visit www.mozy.com for more info.

Todd

[Steven Wilson]

I have a NAS attached to my home network and use it to backup my home PC's. The NAS allows me to attach extra external hard drives and I do a drive copy from the NAS to an external drive at the end of the month and then store my external drive in an offsite location. For larger projects (video and audio editing) I burn those to CD or DVD and keep a copy of them off site. Ghost or EMC Retrospect work well for making the backups.

[Scott Shepherd]

Also keep in mind that CD's and DVD's have a lifespan that's amazingly short compared to what most people think. Most people tend to think CD's and DVD's are forever, in reality, I've seen reports where DVD's start breaking down in as few as 6 years. Chances are if it starts breaking down, it'll be a crap shoot if you can recover the data.