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View Full Version : At around 11:00am yesterday morning my evil nemesis struck...

FlyingPete
13th of March 2005 (Sun), 13:24
…whi;st I was out, my wife experienced a BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) after some ‘funny noises’ on our main desktop, she had to go out, and thought it best to wait until I got home to investigate, no need to worry me.

Well when I got home I recorded the info, a bizarre message about a thread failure, rebooted the machine, noting it was a little quieter than normal, the post took its time, and then I realised why:
BOOT DEVICE FAILURE - INSERT BOOT DISK

Uh oh.

As I my day job is as a consultant for an IT firm as their storage specialist I am often warning people about the perils of data loss, and the virtues of backups. I am also lucky I practice what I preach. This is my process to clear a CF card:
- Secure copy data from CF card to local hard disk
- Replicate the data to a scondary machine with mirrored hard disks (RAID1)
- Delete CF card contents.

I also run an offsite copy to a removable disk at least once a month.

Net result - not a single photo lost!
Moppie
13th of March 2005 (Sun), 13:40
Im getting nervous, very nervous...........

forunatly Iv taken a day off work, and I have a pile of blank CD's sitting beside the PC. :)
FlyingPete
13th of March 2005 (Sun), 14:12
forunatly Iv taken a day off work, and I have a pile of blank CD's sitting beside the PC. :)

Make two copies! I don't trust CD's personally, too many bad experiences with disks failing for no reasons. I have to admit though, this hasn't happened since I have used good quality disks and slowed my burning speed right down (I have a 52x, but run it no faster than 12x).
Moppie
13th of March 2005 (Sun), 14:16
Iv never used anything faster than 12x, despite also having a much faster drive.
And Iv been buying 10 packs of Mitsubishi disks from Dick Smith, when ever they are on special.
They best thing about them is the come with own slim case for each disk :)

Iv actualy got almost all my photos sitting on two drives at the moment, but space is a big issue for me, so I need to clear one of them.
tim
13th of March 2005 (Sun), 14:17
I don't trst CDs or DVDs for long term storage either. I keep my data on at least two hard disks, one of which should be a good distance from the first (ie at work). I have a portable disk too. I occasionally do a DVD backup, that's probably over kill though.
FlyingPete
13th of March 2005 (Sun), 14:33
I don't trst CDs or DVDs for long term storage either. I keep my data on at least two hard disks, one of which should be a good distance from the first (ie at work). I have a portable disk too. I occasionally do a DVD backup, that's probably over kill though.

IMHO, there is no such thing as overkill in data protection!
Avalonthas
13th of March 2005 (Sun), 14:36
Make two copies! I don't trust CD's personally, too many bad experiences with disks failing for no reasons. I have to admit though, this hasn't happened since I have used good quality disks and slowed my burning speed right down (I have a 52x, but run it no faster than 12x).

CD's can degrade over time. Dont use them for a longterm solution.
Citizensmith
13th of March 2005 (Sun), 19:44
CD's can degrade over time. Dont use them for a longterm solution.

But HDDs can also fail over time. Basically either has flaws.

I'm off to get myself one of them there magneto-optical drives. :)
tim
13th of March 2005 (Sun), 19:59
Don't keep valuable data on just one drive or one type of media.
timmyquest
13th of March 2005 (Sun), 20:25
Net result - not a single photo lost!

...kiss my...it's my own fault actually
FlyingPete
13th of March 2005 (Sun), 21:44
...kiss my...it's my own fault actually

Ah yes, well I did hear about what happened there :(

That happened to me once, I vowed never again!
timmyquest
13th of March 2005 (Sun), 21:45
Ah yes, well I did hear about what happened there :(

That happened to me once, I vowed never again!


hehe...i live, i learn
PhotosGuy
14th of March 2005 (Mon), 09:24
This is my process to clear a CF card:
- Secure copy data from CF card to local hard disk
- Replicate the data to a scondary machine with mirrored hard disks (RAID1)
- Delete CF card contents. For those insecure people like me, I modify the last step to, "- Delete CF card contents only before I need to use it." Sometimes that gives my an extra week of protection since the last card shot is the last card reused. ;-)
FlyingPete
14th of March 2005 (Mon), 13:39
Well I'm all disked up now, have a new Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 200GB SATA drive.

All my installs went well until it came time for Photoshop CS, when I went to activate, it would not allow me, tried their phone support, was on hold for one and a half hours, second in the queue, in the end I gave up.

This (*)#&) me off, because I pay good money for a legitmate copy of Photoshop CS, where it seems it would have been quicker if it had downloaded a crack instead. Surely the activation can see that it is almost the same hardware, none of my Microsoft products had any problems! :evil: