I Just Can’t Win
Posted by David on Oct 29th, 2007
2007
Oct 29
I just wanted to give everyone a heads up that posting will be light for a few days due to a hard drive crash on my laptop. So far none of my tricks have had any real effect and I’m probably going to have to replace it.
This makes 3 computers in a row that have had hard drive crashes about a year after I got them. It’s not all bad news though, the warranty expires a week from today. If it had to happen at least it happened now.
I’ve also managed to come up with a temporary fix that should help me get to my files and back them up.
October 30th, 2007 at 11:05 am
The one constant about computers is that the hard drives WILL fail. If you haven’t had one lately, you will soon.
Sounds like you should be ok for a while.
Glad you keep backups. So many people say “backups, what are backups?” I talked to one person about backups and he said “that’s an interesting story”.
October 30th, 2007 at 11:30 am
Keeping backup’s is something I learned the hard way. As I said this is the third computer in a row to crash within 18 months of being bought. The second one was like the digital equivalent to a house fire. It was unexpected and I lost a lot of files. Ironically it happened just minutes after I got home from buying blank DVD’s to back it up.
On the upside the previous two have both worked well after that though (knock on wood).
The laptop is definitely going through a crash but I can get it running temporarily using chkdisk so I’ve managed to not just back it up, but to pull a current backup. I even got all my email and browser settings. I also still have the use of my laptop in a pinch, if I don’t mind waiting 45 minutes for it to startup.
October 30th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
I have a small network in my house and backup across the network. I bought a 250gb external drive and it just sits there and hums. All the computers use it as a backup (mine, my wifes and the “family” computer).
I setup a small simple “.bat” file to do the backups. It only backs up certain directories, anything else is skipped. I figure if I have a crash, I’ll replace the crashed drive and reinstall programs. Data is safe.
Low tech, but also low cost.
October 30th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
Just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s any less useful, just that there’s less to go wrong.
I actually just got around to setting up a wireless network about a month ago and have been using that for manual backups between the two computers (and DVD’s) and for wireless dial-up internet. Since then I’ve been following Windows Home Server with some interest. If it seems like people find it reliable and useful I’d consider getting one in the future.