Computer Woes

[Netnorske]

Well....all I can say is...F**K... :(" title="" border="0"/>...!!!

My whole damn computer crashed last night....and you know it...I lost everything. Spent all day buying a new one and getting it set up with email, virus protection, office suite...money programs you f***in' name it.

Like an idiot...I only had a small portion of the stuff that was on there backed up. I lost all my good bike photos....all my good saved web locations....over 200 contacts in my Outlook folder.... :(.

I have nobody to blame but my stupid Norwegian self... :'(. I thought about backing stuff up just last week but noooooo......I had to go riding instead. I bought a 500 GB external drive with this new one....where was that last week? Christ...it was only $70 at Best Buy.... :'(.

This sucks BAD and I'm just kind of venting. I had so much unsaved stuff on there it's killin' me to even think about it. Learn you stubborn ones...from my feeble and costly mistake. Back up your stuff....NOW!!!!!

[Cajunrider]

That's tough Kris. I keep my storage drive backed up at least every 2 weeks. I have all of my banking, business, pictures, tax returns, you name it on that drive. If I lost it I'd feel as if I lost half of my lifetime. You could maybe get someone to recover your data if the drive isn't physically damaged. It may cost a bit but it may be worth a try.

[glwilson]

There are companies that specialize in retrieving information from "crashed" hard-drives. I don't know what the service costs today (10 years ago it was expensive) but I couldn't imagine that the price hadn't gone down.

Anyway... maybe some of the "tech-heads" on here know of a company that does that so you can get your info back -- at least maybe some of it.

Check it out Kris.

[cactusjack]

Here's some advice from a career IT man (me).

Go pick up an external hard drive. They are ridiculously cheap. If you live near a Fry's Electronics, watch the ads. You can find a 1TB drive for around $100. You connect it to your PC and it appears just like any other drive on the system. You can even partition it so you can create multiple logical drives.

Then download a program called "Delta Copy", it's free. You then set it up to back up whatever you need to on your internal hard drive: email, My Documents, pictures, MP#'s, whatever you want. Delta Copy uses rsync to perform incremental backups on whatever schedule you desire. This means after the initial backup, it doesn't back up the entire directory every time, it only backs up the files that have changed since the previous backup, so it's very quick.

Now you have a complete mirror image of the selected files on your internal drive stored on the external drive. It's very simple to restore them if you lose your data on the internal drive.

I have this setup myself and some of my files are backed up daily, others are backed up weekly. Works like a charm.

Professional data retrieval, ie: recovering "lost" data from a failed hard drive is extremely expensive. There are tricks, such as freezing the problem hard drive then connecting it back up and trying to read it. This works in some cases.

[ringadingh]

I have never backed up anything on my computer, I think I should before my luck runs out.

[trip]

Been through it Netnorske......sorry to hear this happened to you.

Glad you bought a 500gb drive to go along with the PC. That's going to be your best buy yet. Just do like CJ says and setup a backup....daily, weekly whatever, but just be sure and start backing up.

[kenb]

Backup regularly, especially if you use a laptop. You never know when a drop, coffee spill, or that emailed joke causes you to spit-take. I have Norton 360 and it regularly insists I backup. Only onto a disc. I may go to the external drive though.

[bosko]

Originally Posted by Netnorske

This sucks BAD and I'm just kind of venting. I had so much unsaved stuff on there it's killin' me to even think about it. Learn you stubborn ones...from my feeble and costly mistake. Back up your stuff....NOW!!!!!

That sucks man.

Gotta get me an external drive. Thanks for the heads up. I`m another one of those guys that lives on the edge.

[burkazoid]

NetNorske,

I haven't read the whole thread yet, so someone else might have suggested this already. You might be able to salvage some of your files (if the drive hasn't gone completely belly-up). Start-ups are particularly hard on a drive, but you might be able to slave out the old drive to the new one, and drag over your files. If you know how to swap out drives, then you already know how to do this.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Best,
B.

[burkazoid]

Originally Posted by cactusjack

Here's some advice from a career IT man (me).

Go pick up an external hard drive. They are ridiculously cheap. If you live near a Fry's Electronics, watch the ads. You can find a 1TB drive for around $100.

I'm going to go a step further than cactusjack, and suggest the Western Digital 2TB external drive. It has two 1TB drives in a RAID 1 configuration, meaning both internal drives are mirrored so that if one of the external drives goes out, you have a secondary built in. I think the last price I saw for one of these a couple of weeks ago was around $250.

[cactusjack]

Originally Posted by Trip

Been through it Netnorske......sorry to hear this happened to you.

Glad you bought a 500gb drive to go along with the PC. That's going to be your best buy yet. Just do like CJ says and setup a backup....daily, weekly whatever, but just be sure and start backing up.

I guess I missed the part where he mentioned the 500GB external drive... ???

[schoeney]

Kris,

You are living my fear. That sucks.

Greg

[ridemslow]

I've crashed before, and it is no fun at all. I like the idea of the external HD, But a new computer is outta the question. I really do not like the Vista version of windows. Lotsa bugs with it. Good luck getting back to where youwas pre-crash.

[Netnorske]

Thanks guys...I DID have my financial stuff backed up...and most (not all) of my document stuff.....but its all the great photos taken over the last year that I had not. Also, Outlook contacts, saved favorite web sites and stuff like that I lost.

I too am not thrilled with the new Vista operating system, but this is the way of the world now, better get used to it. What sucks is the stuff (software I have) that is not compatible with it...like all my HP photo imaging and scanning software. I'm lucky I got my printer to work.

Once I get things back to a somewhat normal state....I will (soon) get this external drive hooked up for sure! What a complete PIA .....not to mention the $$$. My crashed Comp was about an 8 year old Gateway (although upgraded 3 years ago). I just couldn't see replacing the HD in an old machine, that's why I just bought a whole new system.

Hopefully I can feel whole again in the not too distant future... :-/.

[mikesth]

Hate to be the naysayer, but IMHO you need two backups
I have two WD passports and they sync and are encrypted so it goes pretty fast. I also like the idea all my important stuff is encrypted. I do one of the backups at least every 30 days.

I have had an external HD fail after 5 years and had the duplicate - so just a word to the wise - it's cheap insurance.

Finally, get one of the fireproof safes and toss the drives in there. Better yet, toss it in the fireproof safe and then in your gun safe. You really will sleep better.

Thanks for bringing it up - your experience will help at least one other person start backing up.