Importance of data back-ups

[staffordjas]

Just another reminder to people that backing up your data is every bit as important as the data is itself.

I've had 2 forumites PC's in within 24 hours of eachother BOTH with completely failed hard drives. One luckily had nothing of importance to keep

Am I the one who had nothing important?

Son has just created a 'restore point' for me , incase of any other problems. Then he says he is going to save the info to his memory stick.

As I managed to lose everything that last time it broke down, there isn't much to save yet!

(Luckily just found out the photos of my old dog had been copied onto memory stick before the computer conked out,so managed to get them back on the computer now )


WMRcomputers........it's still working great after you doing such a good job on it

 

[Rikki]

I was the stupid person with no back ups of all my work stuff. I normally do back up files
such as photos but for some reason never thought to do my work stuff, I blame to many years of relativley trouble free computer use.

 

[wmrcomputers]

I was the stupid person with no back ups of all my work stuff. I normally do back up files
such as photos but for some reason never thought to do my work stuff, I blame to many years of relativley trouble free computer use.

I certainly wouldn't call you "stupid" rikki, and it is indeed things such as trouble free computers that build people's confidence to a point where they don't consider back-ups necessary.

I learnt too the very hard way that you ALWAYS need data in two places at any one point in time.... here's my story.....

I've pretty much always backed stuff up and kept my files on both my main PC aswell as some kind of backup media. I needed to re-install my main computer one day, so ran my usual complete backup so that everything was current, to an external hard drive.
Obviously I then wiped my main PC and re-installed the operating system. Note:- Data now only on backup drive at this point (it's only for an hour or two after all).
Next I reconnected my backup drive to copy the files back across to the newly reloaded PC. Simple enough? NOT when you connect it to another power supply with the exact same connection but wired backwards for a different make of external hard drive. OUCH!!!!
It sounded like a car reversing at 30 MPH as smoke pissed out everywhere and I realised that my data was cremated!! I'm talking wedding photo's, pictures of my kids when they were younger, past pets which have passed on etc etc etc. About 80Gb of my life, and I allowed it to be in just one place for long enough for a simple human error to destroy it.

Now, I consider myself to be reasonably intelligent, and I consider Rikki to be equally intelligent in his field of work which is why I would recommend you to anyone. We're by no means idiots, but we have to make mistakes in life to learn from them.

 

[wmrcomputers]

Have an idea but I'll start a new thread titled "DATA BACKUP OFFER" as it's going slightly off-rail from this original subject

 

[kyoto49]

Just done an incremental backup to my 1TB Hitachi external drive using their Arcsoft TotalMedia Backup software which comes with the drive.

Highly recommended, fast, simple to use

 

[John Marwood]

seagate - dunna touch em..

they ruined a years worth of my work ..

 

[shoes]

seagate - dunna touch em..

they ruined a years worth of my work ..

Sorry to hear that John That's very unfortunate, especially with a seagate as it's a very highly trusted brand for doing he exact opposite of what you have experienced.

 

[wmrcomputers]

i don't think you can fairly blame Seagate - unfortunately ANY hard drive no matter how expensive can fail unexpectedly, even after just a few months!
You can spend £20,000 on a semi decent car and break down driving it home from the garage. These things can and do happen unfortunately, hence my reason for starting this thread as a reminder to people of how much their data might mean to them and if so to do something about protecting it.

 

[John Marwood]

i don't think you can fairly blame Seagate - unfortunately ANY hard drive no matter how expensive can fail unexpectedly, even after just a few months!
You can spend £20,000 on a semi decent car and break down driving it home from the garage. These things can and do happen unfortunately, hence my reason for starting this thread as a reminder to people of how much their data might mean to them and if so to do something about protecting it.

Erm

Actually, I think I can blame Seagate, their product failed within a few weeks of purchase and cost me a lot of money

 

[Gramaisc]

Possibly being Devil's avdocate here, but did you really do a year's worth of work in a few weeks?..

 

[John Marwood]

Possibly being Devil's avdocate here, but did you really do a year's worth of work in a few weeks?..

Yes sir

Tis the nature of my work

 

[wmrcomputers]

Erm

Actually, I think I can blame Seagate, their product failed within a few weeks of purchase and cost me a lot of money

Again though, a hard drive is a moving part, so therefore they can and will fail - even new one's! Your data should be in 2 places (or more) and never rely on just one - so if you lost extremely valuable data you still have to accept overall responsibility regardless. The manufacturer is only liable to replace the drive and can't be held responsible for lost data. No doubt they did (or would have) replaced the defective hard drive if asked to do so.

So how did such important work only end up being on one drive without a backup? Sorry to be nosy but again this helps others to learn from our mistakes - the entire purpose of this thread.

 

[Gramaisc]

Possibly being Devil's avdocate here, but did you really do a year's worth of work in a few weeks?..

Look at the time I posted that - it's a wonder I wasn't the Devil's avocado...