Today--my hard drive died

**timseh** · 2nd February 10, 07:13 AM

Wow, sorry to hear about that. For future reference, if you have a reasonably current OS on your Mac, an external hard drive is a good investment. With Time Machine backup built into the OS, you just have to plug it in, set it up and forget it. Backs up everything, automagically, every hour. It's saved my bacon more than once.

**McFarkus** · 2nd February 10, 07:17 AM

I had that happen a couple of years ago so I set up a new series of protocols (wow, that sounds so official) My hard drive is set to back up regularly to an external HD. In addition, I "send" important documents to myself at my gmail account and archive them there. All my photos go to photobucket where they are saved online.

**haukehaien** · 2nd February 10, 08:12 AM

I'm sorry to hear about it.

In my IT shop, we have a saying that there are two kinds of people in the world: those whose hard drives have crashed, and those whose hard drives are going to crash.

I have an external HDD that I backup to twice a week, use Firefox and Xmarks for bookmark backup, and DropBox for important files; but I should still backup my external drive more often.

One other thing to remember if you're making backups: if you haven't successfully restored/recovered a file from a backup, your backup process is incomplete.

**CMcG** · 2nd February 10, 08:12 AM

For those of you who mentioned CDs or DVDs as a backup method, keep in mind that the life span of a burned disc can be as little as a couple years. I've had numerous burned discs fail and backing up your backup discs can be a real pain.

Here's an interesting article about data storage integrity.

**sanddog28** · 2nd February 10, 08:24 AM

Originally Posted by CMcG

For those of you who mentioned CDs or DVDs as a backup method, keep in mind that the life span of a burned disc can be as little as a couple years. I've had numerous burned discs fail and backing up your backup discs can be a real pain.

Here's an interesting article about data storage integrity.

Understandable that they go bad after a couple of years but if you're only backing up every couple of years you might as well not back up at all. Realistically the bare minimum should be bi-weekly and that is if your using optical discs simply to help with the price, as I would suggest only using either cdr or dvdr and not re writable to avoid the chance of them going bad. Once you take the step up to an external hard drive usually every other night or nightly is the right answer.

Originally Posted by haukehaien

I'm sorry to hear about it.
One other thing to remember if you're making backups: if you haven't successfully restored/recovered a file from a backup, your backup process is incomplete.

I couldnt agree more, once your back is in place and running for that first week take your first off day sit down and learn how the restore process works. This is the best way to ensure you are backing up what you want.

**ali8780** · 2nd February 10, 10:24 AM

!! Oh no--I just realized I had my writing on there too! Two whole novels that I was working on (and loved by the way).

I think I'm going to go throw up. And then curl in the fetal position and cry for a few days.

**Foosinho** · 2nd February 10, 10:36 AM

Originally Posted by M. A. C. Newsome

Backing up your hard drive is one of those things that everyone knows they ought to do, but very few of us actually do it regularly. I know I sure don't.

I recently lost a 1.5TB array to a disk failure... one that should have been caught by the drive controller, but wasn't. That drive was nearly 60% full; I lost just under a terabyte of data, including photos of one of our horses from when he was a little colt up in Canada before we got him that had been emailed to us.

I had been lax on backups.

Thankfully, we were able to recover some data that had been stored elsewhere, shared on the web, emailed to people, etc. But I lost pretty much every digital photo I had taken in nearly 5 years, not to mention my resume, old files that had been migrated from old machines for nearly 15 years, etc.

My backup procedure is automated now (the joys of Linux and crontab!). I use rsync to create rolling backups of "important" files on a separate hard drive in my server every day, keeping 7 daily backups, 4 weekly backups, 12 monthly backups, and 100 yearly backups (I will clearly be dead before I get to the point that I need "century" backups). This protects from an individual drive failure, but it doesn't protect from a voltage spike that somehow overloads the UPS and fries the machine, or a house fire, etc. I have a 1 TB encrypted USB drive that I'm setting up for monthly backups to. That will give me something I can grab on my way out the door in an emergency that will ensure I have electronic copies of important documents/photos. I keep the drive in a giant waterproof box ("Otterbox" is one brand).

I'm working on setting up a computer to install at either my parents' house, or my inlaws', that I can connect to remotely to automatically make incremental backups overnight. That way if my house burns down while I'm not home, I'm still not completely sunk.

The ironic thing is that I've been burned by drive failures before, yet I still trusted a technological solution to provide some protection from drive failure when I should have just been backing up. Twice burned, thrice shy?

(I back up my work laptop daily too - to my home directory on a governmental computer system that gets fuel for it's generators at a higher priority level than the state patrol in an emergency. My work data will survive the end of the world - at least until the gas runs out. Not exactly sure why I'd need a copy of the slides for a seminar I'd previously taught when the world is being run by guys with mohawks wearing lots of leather, but there you go.)

So, I commiserate with the OP. It sucks. (Just saw your note about the novels - that's a real bummer.) It'll happen again. Adjust your behavior appropriately.

**Tobus** · 2nd February 10, 11:07 AM

Originally Posted by ali8780

!! Oh no--I just realized I had my writing on there too! Two whole novels that I was working on (and loved by the way).

I think I'm going to go throw up. And then curl in the fetal position and cry for a few days.

If your information is that important to you, there are companies out there who can retrieve the information. It's still there. It's a tad on the expensive side, but if it's worth that money to you to get your information back, it can be done. I would call around to some computer places; they can hook you up.

**vmac3205** · 2nd February 10, 11:14 AM

My PC is in the shop as we speak. I'm limping along with Iphone and Captcas's computer, but I need mine to post photos.

**sanddog28** · 2nd February 10, 11:21 AM

Originally Posted by Tobus

If your information is that important to you, there are companies out there who can retrieve the information. It's still there. It's a tad on the expensive side, but if it's worth that money to you to get your information back, it can be done. I would call around to some computer places; they can hook you up.

I couldnt agree more, and from the sounds of you reactions i would certainly consider finding a good data recovery company. Data recovery is one of those things that you dont want to try to let someone play with it locally and if that doesnt work try to get someone else to look at it, what information is left on the drive is in a very fragile state depending on the type of failure within the drive. Locate a reputable company and send them the drive.