Importance of Backups

[b-guy]

The other night, while backing up my animation data, my external hard drive crapped out. Despite working with data recovery software, over 400GB of data was lost, out of 465GB.

Luckily, it was mostly backups.

All my writing, animation work, music, etc is still on my main computer, and has now been backed up to my tiny little portable drive and laptop until I can replace my main external drive. Unfortunately, I now I have go to my cousin's place in Mississauga and retrieve all my game and software CDs from box in her garage. (I'd backed all these discs up onto the external drive so I wouldn't have to lug a box of discs with me as I did my army thing.)

Unfortunately, I did lose all my class notes from second year,along with my main Machinima backup file. I should have a second Machinima backup on a portable drive I left with friends in Toronto, but until I get my hands on it I won't know for sure. I still have most of the machinima files I'd need to recreate the project, but the main backup had all the raw video footage and non-processes model data. On the flip side, beyond some little snippets for my current project, I don't see myself doing a full machinima project using the same software again...I'd need something newer.

**EDIT**

Holy crap! Through pure luck, I just stumbled across my master Machinima backup file! That little 18GB monster was lurking in the Documents folder of my desktop computer! I must have copied it over when I was extracting the Silverado modifications for Elite Force, for my current...project. Talk about good luck!

**END EDIT**

The moral of the story?

BACK UP YOUR IMPORTANT DATA, FOR FRAK SAKE!!!

[Star Traks]

The other night, while backing up my animation data, my external hard drive crapped out. Despite working with data recovery software, over 400GB of data was lost, out of 465GB....The moral of the story?

BACK UP YOUR IMPORTANT DATA, FOR FRAK SAKE!!!

Rational people would agree with you, however, being rational is rarely a requirement for being selected as a team leader or supervisor.

Hard to tell how many times I heard recent promotees chanting to the effect '...there is nonething wrong, the data is secure, everything is under control...'

[Mad Lensman]

My mantra in Life...

"To go forward, you must back-up......"

Now I just need to learn to live by it!

[Meneks]

Good thing I backed up my laptop (at least all the important stuff) some time ago because it finally decided to take a 'rest'. Okay, I knew something was going on; and have known it for a while. I could deal with the occasional kernal panic when the USB port was being used, but when it started to happen (for a different reason) when the machine slept, I knew I was in trouble.

So, seeing how I was to be going to the Big City for a meeting, I turned off the machine since early April and made an appointment at the Apple Store near my hotel.

And, unlike the vehicle that never performs that stupid intermittant fault for the mechanic, my computer subsequently died during the process to determine what might be wrong. Well, not quite died...it would start up, but at the end of the session, the screen would no longer work.

Guess what? My karma was very good...the (multiple year-old) laptop was shipped back to Apple to be fixed. And although it is utterly out of warrenty, the computer will be fixed for free. I'm still fuzzy as to why I do not have to pay anything, but I think the store thought they had something to do with the laptop mostly-death. On the other hand, I think some hardware component was already on the way out, and it just happened to finally die at an (in)opportune time.

Of course, it is highly likely that the harddrive will come back with nothing but an operating system on it, but, as the title of this thread goes...backups are important!

[Mad Lensman]

See karma does have it's uses - Had that been my lappy, it would've been good as gold for the techy, but would've died in a hideously expensive shower of sparks and electro/mechanical sparks as soon as I got the thing home again. Well done for the free fix!!!!

[borgcrazy]

Speaking of...
I'm thinking my hard drive is about to kaput on me (for good this time - it's making weird crackly noises and the system performance is starting to suffer, plus everytime I run CHKDSK, it tells me there are more bad sectors than the last scan...) so I was wondering what you guys recommend to replace it.
Things to keep in mind: I have a limited budget, and will likely have to save up over the course of the next few weeks/months to get a new drive and I have absolutely no idea what kind of hardware my current rig is running. I know there's a way to find out, but I've long forgotten how to look it up (and since the last time I did that was on Win98, that knowledge would likely be useless on XP anyway...) All I really know right now is that it's old, and the current hard drive - the one that seems to be slowly frying itself - is a 60gb Maxtor. I would rather not spend over $100, as that would take more time to save than I probably have, but would like to get slightly better capacity too, though I'm comfortable staying at 60 if it's affordable.
Any ideas? *looks pointedly at Mad Lensman.*

[b-guy]

Uhhh, in the US, 60 GB should be nothing. Hell, up here in Canada I can buy a Western Digital terabyte for $70, or a 500 GB for $50. (These are internal desktop PC drives, not externals or notebook.) Since everything is cheaper in the US (you bastards) you should have no trouble.

(Perhaps I never mentioned this before, but I've already finished one college course in computer systems technology and am now studying computer engineering at one of Canada's more prestigious universities.)

[Star Traks]

BC

Sorry to hear about your drive -
Trust me - replace the drive before it locks up [generally speaking once a disk is fryed shut - data recovery is not impossible but both stubborn and may not be 100%]
Try to connect via USB, mother board connections are a bear, our old 98 special 2nd edition motherboard had additional connections with bizarre pin numbers
Several options are as follows:
* initial low cost - http://www.tigerdirect.com - please note some items may require additional software drivers, connection/adapters, delivery lead time, etc. - also not all manufacturers are created equally - that's another story/thread for people such as Mad Lensman and B-Guy.
* moderate cost - buy a reconditioned/older model hard drive at a Micro Center, local computer supply center, etc. [you may not have a Micro Center in your area - you know other reputable computer source stores in your area] Usually connections are not a problem, needing new drivers are around 50%
* replacement in kind - cost and availablity varies - depending on what you need, this process could be either a breeze or problematic as a Kingon refreshment spa [Silverado episode where HT Klingon character gets treatment from an out of phase Egyptian culture].

Best of Luck with your drive !!!.

[borgcrazy]

I found a Western Digital Caviar 500 gb (IDE) at my local Staples for a mere $80, not bad since the 260 gb I was looking at online was nearly $70. It works fine so far, but as with all new hard drives, getting all my old stuff from the old drive to the new one is a royal pain in the derriere... Would be easier if I had a second tower and a network cable - could just transfer it all directly via Files and Setting Transfer Wizard, but as it is, I gotta save to disc(s) from the old drive, unplug it, plug in the new drive and transfer it off the disc(s). Yea, it's that much fun...

[mm3guy]

At a best-buy, I stumbled on a really nice open-box deal on a 1tb drive, it only cost about $85 and was worth every penny