Backup!

[Scozzie]

How many times have I been told - Backup! I kept meaning to do it, but never got round to it..... and I'm now in deep doodoo! My computer crashed & fried itself, that's why I haven't been around for about six weeks. Techos tried to rescue as much data as they could (at a cost of squillions), they got my old mail, documents etc, but my genealogy records (on RootsMagic software) went off into cyberspace. I now have a new computer, with a separate hard-drive for backup! Now I have to find lots of files, and spend time re-entering all my rellies. I just hope I find them all.

Don't do what I did - BACKUP!!

[StewL]

Scozzie

My deepest sympathies, the same thing happened to me last year. I did manage to get an old ged file from a site, but it was the old one. I had added quite a few long losts since this ged. It was better than nothing mind you except it was one that had a glaring error in it

Thank goodness the files are stored in SP even though it took a while to trawl through them, going back often to ones I had missed

[DavidWW]

For the last 2 and a half years I've been very successfully using a so-called "one-touch" external hard drive as backup.

"One-touch" because, after the initial set up, it is literally that, - just one push of a button and a new back-up is created without any need for supervision. Most often, when I'm finished for the day, the last thing that I do is to hit the button and retire to my kip...........

All it is is an incremental backup. This means that, after it's installed, the software creates a back up of your complete HD, or multiple HDs, if you have more than one - in other words, everything on your system, not just the data files. If you've only got an USB1 connection this first backup can take a l-o-n-g time, - in my case 14 hours.

Thereafter when the button is pushed, the software creates an incremental backup by checking the "date stamp" on each file, and then just backs up the modified and new files, - I think it takes about 20 mins now (via USB2 I should note), - I'm not there to check.

When I bought my Maxtor "One Touch" 80 Gb external hard drive 2 and a half years ago it was around £90, but I'd anticipate that costs have come down in the interim. £60 or £70 might seem expensive, but not for the peace of mind involved.

Incidentally, whichever form of backup you use, have you checked that you can restore files from the backup . Most people haven't and sometimes receive a very unpleasant surpise when they have to use the backup and find that they can't access the files/data

If the current prices of such one-touch, external HDs are low enough then you may want to consider buying 2, and rotating them regularly, with one stored away from your 'puter, - at work or with a neighbour ............

(Question!, - in the event of the smoke alarm going off at 2 am in the morning, and flames shooting out from a room, what's the first thing that you will grab after warning everyone else and evacuating the house k [-o< , - you have 2.5 seconds to answer .)

As Scozzie had found, it is possible for experts to recover data from a HD from a "fried" system, but not always 100% of the data; and the cost is high, - I know someone in the UK, and it recently cost them a bit short of £500 .......... I also have a memory of rates being around £200/hr

David

PS A quick Google appears to show that the Maxtor 80Gb product is no longer available, but there is a 100Gb at around £85, and a 60Gb at around £65 (new mini-series).

N American prices will probably be around the same figures but in US$, but the bad news down under is that the prices will be higher than the equivalent sterling prices, in Oz$ or NZ$, unless you've got a good mate transiting through the US, Singapore or Hong Kong in the near future

BTW I hold no brief for Maxtor, - it just happens to be the product that I know and trust. I'm sure that there are other suppliers out there who offer the same product, but make sure that they are genuinely "one touch".

dww

[Scozzie]

That's the one David - a Maxtor III - cost about $150Aus. Himself (Mr Scozzie) tells me it has 160 gig

[DavidWW]

That's the one David - a Maxtor III - cost about $150Aus. Himself (Mr Scozzie) tells me it has 160 gig

That's a b****y guid price, - ca. £60, - for 160 Gb

As a matter of interest, what did your local expert charge for the data recovery?, - I'm an engineer by professional qualification, so "squillions" is a wee bit imprecise, and relative , but understood if you'd prefer not to say.............

David

[Scozzie]

Himself said it was "all up" $Aus650 (that didn't include the backup box). They didn't get the RootsMagic data, but managed to save FamilyTreeMaker. I wonder why?

[DavidWW]

Himself said it was "all up" $Aus650 (that didn't include the backup box). They didn't get the RootsMagic data, but managed to save FamilyTreeMaker. I wonder why?

Almost exactly £250, - ouch (Everyone please note that this cost greatly exceeds that of available external HD costs )

Such data recovery is highly dependent on the way in which the software involved is written. A neat example here being that FTM files were recoverable, but RM files weren't, - initially at least, anyway, - perhaps for a further Oz$1,000 or so, even the RM data would have been recoverable........................

Given that your local experts were able to recover other data files, including FTM, I'd very much suspect that it was a question of what they were able to recover in the time that they were prepared to spend for the Oz$650, as opposed to what was recoverable regardless of the time required .............

David

[Bryan]

David

nice point about having 2 backup devices and rotating them. For those of you who think the chances of something trashing both your internal and external disks is too unlikely for words - believe me if it happens you'll find them!
I've seen a power surge do exactly that leaving a couple of very useful door stops.
Personally I take backups to DVD and keep the latest one at work (including scans of all my BMD certs) but whatever you do - do something.

thought for the day:- "there are 2 kinds of PC user: those who keep backups and those who've never had a hard disk fail"

[setait]

Bryan wrote:

thought for the day:- "there are 2 kinds of PC user: those who keep backups and those who've never had a hard disk fail"

and you don't even need to have your hard disk fail. I managed to scramble my gene database file (not the software, just the data file) and it wouldn't unscramble. I'd got lazy about backups and the most recent one was a year old Although I've got hard copies of everything, it's taken a veeeery long time to go though every individual in my (year old) database and in my paper files to make sure that I'm back to pre-scramble state.


Sheena

[LesleyB]

hi all
My family database is backed up at the end of each day, both to my HD and another HD, and also every couple of days to a removeable memory stick which leaves the house with me!

Best wishes
Lesley