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SwitcherX

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I lost everything
« on: September 07, 2014, 08:20:44 PM »
I built an i5 based system a little while ago with a blu-ray burner.  I bought some blu-ray discs last week and burnt a couple of disks of my irreplaceables from my external hd connected to my iMac.  The other day that hd died.  It was a mechanical failure so there's no possibility of recovery.  Anything that made it thru my my last hd failure is gone.  For the first time in a log time I have no porn on my computer.   :'(
« Last Edit: September 07, 2014, 08:22:41 PM by SwitcherX »
Switcher X
A.K.A. Tina Fey Eichmann

"Thank you herr professor Tina Fey Eichmann, nuclear brain surgeon and moustache jockey."
-- Mammeister


"SwitcherX, you were always Mammeister's favorite...you bastard."
-- Notty

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Palomine

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Re: I lost everything
« Reply #1 on: September 07, 2014, 08:33:47 PM »
So sorry to hear that Switcher.

Are you sure it's absolutely damaged mechanicals on the hard drive?

I don't know if it's worth it (since you backed up some stuff to DVD) but if there's anything important left on the drive that you want, recovery might still be a possibility. Again, maybe not worth the effort though.

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SwitcherX

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Re: I lost everything
« Reply #2 on: September 07, 2014, 09:07:23 PM »
Yeah, the drive is gone.  At least I saved all of the stuff that can't be replaced like family stuff, scans of records that might not exist anymore, etc.

It's weird when it hits you that all of your files fit on 2 dual layer blu-ray disks.
Switcher X
A.K.A. Tina Fey Eichmann

"Thank you herr professor Tina Fey Eichmann, nuclear brain surgeon and moustache jockey."
-- Mammeister


"SwitcherX, you were always Mammeister's favorite...you bastard."
-- Notty

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TheZookie007

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Re: I lost everything
« Reply #3 on: September 08, 2014, 03:02:32 AM »
I'm so sorry to hear that, man.

Since as the old Russian saying goes, "when your neighbor's beard catches fire, be sure and pour water on your own", now might be a good time for me to do yet another backup...
ACB, BK, CT, NG, SA: FU. FUATH. 100x.

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bignatslover

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Re: I lost everything
« Reply #4 on: September 08, 2014, 05:25:34 AM »
So sorry.  A lot of us have been there.  The good thing is that with today's file hosting and torrents, a complete re-downloading can be eventually accomplished.


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Palomine

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Re: I lost everything
« Reply #5 on: September 08, 2014, 10:45:57 AM »
I'm so sorry to hear that, man.

Since as the old Russian saying goes, "when your neighbor's beard catches fire, be sure and pour water on your own", now might be a good time for me to do yet another backup...

I agree with Zookie: important, less-replaceable stuff (be it personally-generated data or music or porn or whatever) should have at least TWO separate backups IMO. Ginormous hard drives are SO cheap, there's really no excuse NOT to just plug one in and drag everything important over to it just to have that extra peace of mind. Last time I bought one (feels like more than a year ago now) I got 3TB for just under $100. and they probably cost less now.

Personally, I stopped relying on optical media as a backup many years ago... home-burned optical media is NOT as reliable/durable as commercially burned disks (by a significant margin) nor, IMO, are home-burned disks even as safe as saving on a hard drive.

If your ONLY copies now are on those blue-ray disks, I'd copy THEM onto SOME hard drive pronto. Why tempt fate?

JMHO. :)
« Last Edit: September 08, 2014, 11:06:40 AM by Palomine »

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BustArtist

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Re: I lost everything
« Reply #6 on: September 15, 2014, 11:38:16 AM »
Oooof. That sucks. Been there. Had a hard drive fail about 7 years ago. We lost so many old family photos.

On my computer, I now have quadruple back-up!

1) I have an external drive that has a "clone" of the operating system, major applications, and important files. If my computer's internal hard drive fails, I can boot from this external and be back up and running immediately.

2) I have an external hard drive case that contains 2 drives (both 1.5TB) in a  RAID 0 configuration, which means it looks like a single drive. Anything copied to it goes to both disks (which gives me 2 copies).  I have an app that automatically (every morning at 2am) backs up any changed file.  This set-up ensures that if a back-up drive fails, I pull one out of the case, replace it, and the twin drive then copies everything back over to the new one.

3) I use Carbonite off-line (cloud) back-up.  Backs up slow all day long.  I do this just in case there is any damage to my computer and back-up hard drives (fire, flood, hurricane, Gary Busey).  For a measly $59 a year, it's weeeeeeeeell worth it.

It's not a matter of IF your hard drive(s) will fail, it's truly a matter of WHEN.  Make back-ups!


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TheZookie007

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Re: I lost everything
« Reply #7 on: September 16, 2014, 05:28:20 PM »
A couple of weeks ago, Gizmodo had a deal to get two 5 TB Seagate drives for like $200 or whatever. I would've jumped on that deal except I'm not a Seagate fan. I have been thinking of getting a Drobo but I hear there are other, as-cheap-yet-more-reliable systems that do the same thing.

ACB, BK, CT, NG, SA: FU. FUATH. 100x.

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mgpuf

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Re: I lost everything
« Reply #8 on: September 16, 2014, 06:00:36 PM »
Yeah, the drive is gone.  At least I saved all of the stuff that can't be replaced like family stuff, scans of records that might not exist anymore, etc.

What part of the drive has failed? The outer pcb isn't very difficult to replace in case that's all it is...

http://www.mdisc.com/what-is-mdisc/

Check out the above, for data you just aren't willing to jeopardize. The tech is pretty cool, discs last 1000 years.


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TheZookie007

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Re: I lost everything
« Reply #9 on: September 17, 2014, 11:02:05 AM »
Yeah, I got a sweet deal on an LG burner that handles M-DISC, Blu-Ray, DVD and CD. Strangely enough, I've never opened the box once. Maybe when I get around to replacing the SuperDrive on my Mac with a HDD caddy I will give it some use at last. M-DISC is one of the cooler WORM ideas to come down the pike in a while.
ACB, BK, CT, NG, SA: FU. FUATH. 100x.

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Palomine

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Re: I lost everything
« Reply #10 on: September 19, 2014, 12:14:23 AM »
I was at Fry's the other day and they had 4TB Western Digital SATA drives (I forget which color) for just $99 in 'NAS' packaging. I gather 'NAS' drives are just regular drives but they don't include the cables since they're intended to be used in Network Attached Storage enclosures (which generally have bays to accept SATA drives w/o cables required). Some computer folks probably have extra SATA cables lying around, or if you'd be swapping it for a smaller SATA, you could just reuse the cables from the old one. A WD 4TB regular drive (with cables/without 'NAS' label on the box was $129. (not on sale).

I didn't buy any, but I wanted to/two. ;)

Big hard drives are cheap... better to have a backup and not need it than to need it and not have one.

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Palomine

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Re: I lost everything
« Reply #11 on: January 14, 2015, 02:15:54 PM »
Just a cautionary tale worth sharing: I used one of my backups today and was very glad I'd made it.

Basically, a folder that I KNEW existed wasn't where it was supposed to be, and a quick search on the (physical) drive it lived on failed to locate it. I can only assume that I must have accidentally trashed it which, while unlikely, is probably the only reasonable explanation for why it disappeared: you know: you're rapidly clicking and dragging around, doing housekeeping, and sometimes you get ahead of the GUI (especially on a decade-old PC like mine) and inevitably, you make a mistake but since you've moved on to the next task, you're not even aware of it til later. That's what I assume happened.

In any case, luckily I had a fairly recent backup of that drive (within a few months, which isn't too old considering that folder wasn't used too frequently) so I recovered it from the cabinet in the garage where my backups live, plugged it in and saw the missing folder. Before dragging it BACK onto my PC, I used some of the filenames in the folder for keyword searches on my PC just to confirm that they were indeed missing (as opposed to accidentally misplaced, which happens more often). Then it was just a quick click-drag-drop to copy the stuff back and viola: problem solved.

I know we all get lazy with backups, and even if I had lost this particular folder it wouldn't have been the end of the world, but it sure is nice when you have a backup when one's needed.

Of course, now I can't help but wonder what else I might have accidentally trashed that I just haven't noticed yet.  ::)

Added later: my final sentence above illustrates my (justified IMO) paranoia: if I found evidence that some data was lost, then I worry that other data was lost and I just don't know it yet. Ignorance is not bliss: it never has been nor will it ever be. So, I brought a backup drive back out and used it to check some other items (comparing the contents/size of backup versions to the main/current versions on my PC). It was just a cursory check and did not turn up any additional lost data, and it certainly doesn't put all my worries to rest, but it's way better than nothing. Just another reason to backup more/often than you presently do: it affords you the luxury of information, as well the value of the backup data itself. 

keep-calm-and-backup-your-data-2
« Last Edit: January 17, 2015, 12:50:21 PM by Palomine »

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TheZookie007

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Re: I lost everything
« Reply #12 on: January 14, 2015, 10:27:23 PM »
Indeed! Backups save your ass!

In the next month or so, I intend to either get a Drobo or a Synology NAS unit. I'm leaning towards getting a Synology DS214+ which is very highly-rated, although the Synology DS213j is equally highly-rated but half the price. Then two Western Digital 4TB Red drives should round out the setup.

Meanwhile, I have a spare 3TB Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex drive lying around, so I've made a couple of backups/disk images using Windows 7's Backup and Restore widget. Eventually I'll make a complete disk image to a 2 TB HDD using my handy-dandy disk cloning widget and slam it into my laptop.

Good times...
« Last Edit: January 14, 2015, 10:29:05 PM by TheZookie007 »
ACB, BK, CT, NG, SA: FU. FUATH. 100x.

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SwitcherX

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Re: I lost everything
« Reply #13 on: January 21, 2015, 01:26:58 AM »

SON
OF
A
BITCH
!!!


I was editing my bookmarks and then the power went out.

My bookmarks file got nuked.  I had to resotore form a backup.  But I have to sort all of them again.  It'll take forever.

One step closer to getting rid of all computers in my life...  :(
Switcher X
A.K.A. Tina Fey Eichmann

"Thank you herr professor Tina Fey Eichmann, nuclear brain surgeon and moustache jockey."
-- Mammeister


"SwitcherX, you were always Mammeister's favorite...you bastard."
-- Notty

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bignatslover

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Re: I lost everything
« Reply #14 on: January 21, 2015, 04:41:27 AM »
I was editing my bookmarks and then the power went out.
I am starting to believe an anti-porn ghost is haunting where you live.  Maybe a woman from the puritan days.  Or a flat chick who hates boobs.