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crashed!
It appears that my hard drive has crashed. At the moment, I'm on Cyn's computer, but this is not pleasant. I guess I'll go out and buy a new computer tomorrow, and will soon be back to normal, except for one thing. I was horrified to see that I haven't done a back up since last freaking October.
Ten months ago. I seem to have lost every photo I've taken since Thanksgiving. Except the ones I've fixed up and uploaded somewhere. And I haven't fixed up many in the last couple of months. I didn't do anything with the pictures from the air show, for example, and I just deleted them from the card on friday. I do still have whatever remains on my three memory cards. Not sure if that includes the ones from our Chicago trip.
And of course there are other documents. I may have to take it to a data recovery specialist. I understand they charge through the nose.
October! I knew it had been a while, but I was guessing six months. But aside from that, I really blew it. I was uploading pics from this weekend, and I kept getting "out of memory messages". I deleted other files to make room, but it was still a bit of a struggle to get everything in. I knew I had to back it up and clear it out, but I was itching to look at photos. Then, I got the "no bootable device" message. I shut it down and tried it again, and it booted up just fine. The next day - nothing. If I'd realized just what "no bootable device" meant, I would have freaked out and started backing everything up. And not powered the thing down.
So back your shit up!
Ten months ago. I seem to have lost every photo I've taken since Thanksgiving. Except the ones I've fixed up and uploaded somewhere. And I haven't fixed up many in the last couple of months. I didn't do anything with the pictures from the air show, for example, and I just deleted them from the card on friday. I do still have whatever remains on my three memory cards. Not sure if that includes the ones from our Chicago trip.
And of course there are other documents. I may have to take it to a data recovery specialist. I understand they charge through the nose.
October! I knew it had been a while, but I was guessing six months. But aside from that, I really blew it. I was uploading pics from this weekend, and I kept getting "out of memory messages". I deleted other files to make room, but it was still a bit of a struggle to get everything in. I knew I had to back it up and clear it out, but I was itching to look at photos. Then, I got the "no bootable device" message. I shut it down and tried it again, and it booted up just fine. The next day - nothing. If I'd realized just what "no bootable device" meant, I would have freaked out and started backing everything up. And not powered the thing down.
So back your shit up!
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1. Use a cloud backup solution like Carbonite (http://www.carbonite.com/en/) to make sure files are *constantly* backed up as they are created. Once in a while, test the backup from a friend's computer - looking at what files have been backed up and restoring some files to your friend's computer and opening them up to make sure they work. The nice thing about a good cloud backup is that you can still get at your files, even if (god forbid) your house burned down and you lost your computer AND your backup tapes and tape reader or secondary hard drive. The downside - restoring GB of files across the Internet is slow. And I've found that few versions of files are actually kept by Carbonite - so if a file went bad (or I overwrote it - oops, forgot to save AS - and didn't immediately notice and restore from Carbonite) my info would be gone And I wouldn't store my most sensitive files out there, even though they claim encryption security.
2. Use an encrypted hard drive on a monthly basis to copy files from your hard drive. I have a reminder on my calendar(s) to do this. If you're paranoid about the house burning, keep it at work most of the month. Otherwise, ideally keep it in a media safe. Key feature to look for: that the backup software that comes with has an encryption option. Again, test your backup regularly.
3. Yearly, back up changed files to CD/DVD for longer term retrieval. Keep copies securely off-site if you are paranoid. Again, test your backups regularly.
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Calendar reminder is a good idea.
I have way too much stuff for CD/DVD. Photos are huge.
A friend just told me that he stores all his files on Dropbox.
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You can't be too careful.
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Be careful how you label your CDs. Some markers can eventually damage the plastic. They sell alcohol-based markers for that purpose, but I haven't had good luck with those. I use sharpies, but I only write around the outside edge of the disc.
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I hope you can recover a lot of the contents. My cow-orker last week had a laptop maluntion and had to get her hard drive transplanted into another laptop shell. She was largely successful, and now uses a Seagate multiGig storage device to back up (often)...
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