Both computers crashed at the same time...

Quoted message said:

zxcvbob

The new HP I bought my daughter for Christmas, and my old
IBM Thinkpad. Hardware problem in the HP and software
problem on the Thinkpad. I was using the HP for backup. I
had my important data files (financial records, etc) also
backed up to a CDRW, but I just realized I didn't have
another backup of my RECIPES folder. :-( I thought I had
one more backup copy at work, but I just checked and it's
gone -- I must have deleted it a few weeks ago. It's only
about 70 or 80 recipes, but they were all good ones that
I've tested.

I can recover a lot of the recipes because I've posted them
here or in
r.f.r. I sure hope HP doesn't wipe the hard drive when
they repair the system (it acts like a bad power
supply, so there should be no need to replace the
HDD or the operating system.)

Thanks for listening, Bob

You should be storing all files on a removable... in
duplicate for those important files you really need to keep
and stored in a shielded container. Nothing should be stored
on the PC hard drive.

---= BOYCOTT FRANCE (belgium) GERMANY--SPAIN =--- ---= Move
UNITED NATIONS To Paris =---
*********
"Life would be devoid of all meaning were it without
tribulation." Sheldon ````````````

PENMART01 said:

Quoted message said:

zxcvbob

The new HP I bought my daughter for Christmas, and my old
IBM Thinkpad. Hardware problem in the HP and software
problem on the Thinkpad. I was using the HP for backup. I
had my important data files (financial records, etc) also
backed up to a CDRW, but I just realized I didn't have
another backup of my RECIPES folder. :-( I thought I had
one more backup copy at work, but I just checked and it's
gone -- I must have deleted it a few weeks ago. It's only
about 70 or 80 recipes, but they were all good ones that
I've tested.

I can recover a lot of the recipes because I've posted
them here or in
r.f.r. I sure hope HP doesn't wipe the hard drive when
they repair the system (it acts like a bad power
supply, so there should be no need to replace the
HDD or the operating system.)

Thanks for listening, Bob

You should be storing all files on a removable... in
duplicate for those important files you really need to
keep and stored in a shielded container. Nothing should be
stored on the PC hard drive.

I agree with you; I just didn't realize my recipes folder
was in that catagory until I might have lost them. I thought
a backup copy on a relatively new different computer was
good enough. Luckily I had a 3rd (and 4th) copy of my
financial files on removable media.

I recently bought a cute little 2.5" harddrive enclosure for
a spare laptop HDD I had. ($20 from Tigerdirect.com) It kind
of looks like an aluminum cigarette case but it's only about
1/2" thick; connects thru and is powered by a USB cable.
That may be where my primary copy of important stuff lives
from now on.

-bob

"zxcvbob" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

The new HP I bought my daughter for Christmas, and my old
IBM Thinkpad. Hardware problem in the HP and software
problem on the Thinkpad. I was using the HP for backup. I
had my important data files (financial records, etc) also
backed up to a CDRW, but I just realized I didn't have
another backup of my RECIPES folder. :-( I thought I had
one more backup copy at work, but I just checked and it's
gone -- I must have deleted it a few weeks ago. It's only
about 70 or 80 recipes, but they were all good ones that
I've tested.

I can recover a lot of the recipes because I've posted
them here or in
r.f.r. I sure hope HP doesn't wipe the hard drive when
they repair the system (it acts like a bad power
supply, so there should be no need to replace the
HDD or the operating system.)

Thanks for listening, Bob

You will probably be okay, but I have seen cases where the
power supply went bad and took other components down with
it, including hard drives. That's one downside of using
something like a usb drive as your only backup -- a bad
power problem could destroy all connected devices. For stuff
that's really important, I'd still keep a CD backup and use
the spare hard drive as a current backup. Just occasionally
update the CD backup so that if, by chance, the hard drive
dies you've still got something to fall back upon. It may
sound like paranoid overkill, but I've seen people kill both
their machines and their backups -- or kill their machines
and find out that their backup didn't work.

Regards, Matt

zxcvbob said:

I agree with you; I just didn't realize my recipes folder
was in that catagory until I might have lost them. I
thought a backup copy on a relatively new different
computer was good enough. Luckily I had a 3rd (and 4th)
copy of my financial files on removable media.

Quoted message said:

I recently bought a cute little 2.5" harddrive enclosure
for a spare laptop HDD I had. ($20 from Tigerdirect.com)
It kind of looks like an aluminum cigarette case but it's
only about 1/2" thick; connects thru and is powered by a
USB cable. That may be where my primary copy of important
stuff lives from now on.

An external hard drive is an excellent medium for storing
backup copies of data. Being as though I work in the
computer industry and a significant part of my job each day
is backing up several terabytes worth of data each night, I
can assure you that its not a question of if people will
lose their data, but when they will lose it. All hard
drives fail.

Quoted message said:

You will probably be okay, but I have seen cases where the
power supply

went

Quoted message said:

bad and took other components down with it, including hard
drives. That's one downside of using something like a usb
drive as your only backup -- a bad power problem could
destroy all connected devices. For stuff that's really
important, I'd still keep a CD backup and use the spare
hard drive

as

Quoted message said:

a current backup. Just occasionally update the CD backup
so that if, by chance, the hard drive dies you've still
got something to fall back upon. It may sound like
paranoid overkill, but I've seen people kill both their
machines and their backups -- or kill their machines and
find out that

their

Quoted message said:

backup didn't work.

Regards, Matt

The climate where I live destroys a CD within a matter of
months if the CD is not in a case and the case is not stored
in some sort of cabinet. I am a computer tech by trade so I
know the risks, but I prefer storing data on a hard drive.
Every couple of years I buy a new drive and transfer the
data. Yeah, it takes a while to do it and it's a pain in the
butt, but it's much better than having your C:\ drive wiped
clean by the Road Runner "techs" (literally JUST happened to
me on Thursday) and trying to load things back on the drive
with corrupted CD's. Thank God my important data was stored
on a Hard Drive. I just piggy-backed it to my C:\ drive and
loaded the data I needed. Whew!

kili

In article <[email hidden]>,

kilikini said:

The climate where I live destroys a CD within a matter of
months if the CD is not in a case and the case is not
stored in some sort of cabinet.

<snip>

Quoted message said:

kili

Ouch! What's the problem where you live? Temperature?
Moisture? I ask cause I was sort of hoping that CDs were the
perfect medium for archiving data etc (for my laboratory).
So I'm not safe after all?

What is the safest way to save data?

Dave W.

--
Living in the Ozarks. For email, dot edu will do!

Matt said:

You will probably be okay, but I have seen cases where the
power supply went bad and took other components down with
it, including hard drives. That's one downside of using
something like a usb drive as your only backup -- a bad
power problem could destroy all connected devices.

I would not keep the backup plugged in, I would only plug
it in when I was using it. Can you tell I had a lightning
strike near my house a few years ago? Bye bye vcrs, tvs,
phones, melted phone lines, blah blah blah. Expensive
little lesson that actually almost cost me my life, too.
Now I have whole house protection on the electrical system,
but the phone one was not working out, so if we have
electrical storms in the area, I will usually disconnect my
phone and modem.

nancy

Nancy Young said:

Matt said:

You will probably be okay, but I have seen cases where
the power supply went bad and took other components down
with it, including hard drives. That's one downside of
using something like a usb drive as your only backup -- a
bad power problem could destroy all connected devices.

I would not keep the backup plugged in, I would only plug
it in when I was using it. Can you tell I had a lightning
strike near my house a few years ago? Bye bye vcrs, tvs,
phones, melted phone lines, blah blah blah. Expensive
little lesson that actually almost cost me my life, too.
Now I have whole house protection on the electrical
system, but the phone one was not working out, so if we
have electrical storms in the area, I will usually
disconnect my phone and modem.

nancy

I had a TV and a phone get fried by electrical storms and
neither one was in use at the time. But they were plugged
in. The TV went ZAP and gee, wouldn't turn on anymore. The
phone just sort of fizzled and wouldn't do anything after
that. Thankfully, my PCs are on UPS systems so nothing ever
happened to them.

I had a MIL who used to call me on the phone whenever we had
bad weather to ask if I knew we had bad weather LOL I kept
telling her, *stop calling me during a storm!* She couldn't
figure it out. Lady, don't you get it? It's like flying a
kite in a storm with a key attached. Ben Franklin we ain't.

Jill

"Dave W." <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

kilikini said:

The climate where I live destroys a CD within a matter
of months if the

CD

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

is not in a case and the case is not stored in some sort
of cabinet.

<snip>

Quoted message said:

kili

Ouch! What's the problem where you live? Temperature?
Moisture? I ask cause I was sort of hoping that CDs were
the perfect medium for archiving data etc (for my
laboratory). So I'm not safe after all?

What is the safest way to save data?

Dave W.

--
Living in the Ozarks. For email, dot edu will do!

Dave,

I live in Hawaii. There is so much humidity here that the
shiny, coated top side on the CD starts to corrode and peel
off, and it doesn't take long to do it, either! That coating
works almost like a mirror, so when it peels off, your data
can't be read even tho it appears to still be there on the
disk (if that makes any sense at all). Disks from a factory
with a painted coating work for longer periods of time, but
you still get tiny greenish spots on the data side of the CD
that you can see thru when you hold the CD up in the
sunlight. (I wish I could post a pic to show you!)

The problem is so extreme that I can't buy a 100 pack of
CD's because I can't use them fast enough before they get
corrupted at the bottom. CD's work well for people in
temperate climates, but here in Hawaii I prefer to back data
up on a regular basis with an extra hard drive well knowing
that there are two kinds of hard drives; those that have
crashed and those that haven't crashed - yet.

kili

kilikini said:

"Dave W." <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:dwesten-
[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

kilikini said:

The climate where I live destroys a CD within a matter
of months

if the

Quoted message said:

CD

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

is not in a case and the case is not stored in some
sort of

cabinet.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

<snip>

Quoted message said:

kili

Ouch! What's the problem where you live? Temperature?
Moisture? I

ask

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

cause I was sort of hoping that CDs were the perfect
medium for archiving data etc (for my laboratory). So I'm
not safe after all?

What is the safest way to save data?

Dave W.

--
Living in the Ozarks. For email, dot edu will do!

Dave,

I live in Hawaii. There is so much humidity here that
the shiny,

coated top

Quoted message said:

side on the CD starts to corrode and peel off, and it
doesn't take

long to

Quoted message said:

do it, either! That coating works almost like a mirror,
so when it

peels

Quoted message said:

off, your data can't be read even tho it appears to still
be there on

the

Quoted message said:

disk (if that makes any sense at all). Disks from a
factory with a

painted

Quoted message said:

coating work for longer periods of time, but you
still get tiny

greenish

Quoted message said:

spots on the data side of the CD that you can see thru
when you hold

the CD

Quoted message said:

up in the sunlight. (I wish I could post a pic to
show you!)

The problem is so extreme that I can't buy a 100 pack of
CD's because

I

Quoted message said:

can't use them fast enough before they get corrupted at
the bottom.

CD's

Quoted message said:

work well for people in temperate climates, but here
in Hawaii I

prefer to

Quoted message said:

back data up on a regular basis with an extra hard drive
well knowing

that

Quoted message said:

there are two kinds of hard drives; those that have crashed
and those

that

Quoted message said:

haven't crashed - yet.

kili

Living in the rainforest above Kona, I store my CDs in an
airtight Tupperware container and I have had no trouble. But
I am not a computer geek at all <g>. Do you think it matters
what kind of CDs you use? My 100 which I bought several
years ago from COSTCO are "data CD.R for computer writers".
TIA Thunder smithfarms.comsmithfarms.comOpen ↗ Farmers & Sellers of
100% Kona Coffee & other Great Stuff

"smithfarms pure kona" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

kilikini said:

"Dave W." <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:dwesten-
[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>,
"kilikini" <[email hidden]> wrote:

Living in the rainforest above Kona, I store my CDs in an
airtight Tupperware container and I have had no trouble.
But I am not a computer geek at all <g>. Do you think it
matters what kind of CDs you use? My 100 which I bought
several years ago from COSTCO are "data CD.R for computer
writers". TIA Thunder smithfarms.comsmithfarms.comOpen ↗ Farmers &
Sellers of 100% Kona Coffee & other Great Stuff

You know, I never thought of a tupperware container, but I'd
need one hell of a large one! Why didn't I ever think of
that????????????? (slapping forehead) DUH!

kili

zxcvbob <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

The new HP I bought my daughter for Christmas, and my old
IBM Thinkpad. Hardware problem in the HP and software
problem on the Thinkpad. I was using the HP for backup. I
had my important data files (financial records, etc) also
backed up to a CDRW, but I just realized I didn't have
another backup of my RECIPES folder. :-( I thought I had
one more backup copy at work, but I just checked and it's
gone -- I must have deleted it a few weeks ago. It's only
about 70 or 80 recipes, but they were all good ones that
I've tested.

I can recover a lot of the recipes because I've posted
them here or in
r.f.r. I sure hope HP doesn't wipe the hard drive when
they repair the system (it acts like a bad power
supply, so there should be no need to replace the
HDD or the operating system.)

Thanks for listening, Bob

That's awful, Bob! Back when the backup method of choice was
tape, I lost a drive and the backup tape was no good. I had
a few things on ZipDrive disks, but lost everything else. I
sympathize.

Wayne

jmcquown said:

Thankfully, my PCs are on UPS systems so nothing ever
happened to them.

I had a computer on a surge protector. Lightning killed the
surge protector *and* half the components in the computer.
That was an exceuse for an upgrade :-) Even though the
lightning hit the lightning rod on the apartment it still
had enough juice to fry electronics *and* one of the taller
trees nearby.

Anyway, I bought two APC UPS and several APC surge
protectors after that. One of the best $200 I ever spent.
Every UPS and surge protector has been hit by lightning
(once) and surges (many times) with no ill effect. APC is
more expensive but you get what you pay for.

Quoted message said:

I kept telling her, *stop calling me during a storm!*

How would a surge fry a cordless phone?

--
John Gaughan johngaughan.netjohngaughan.netOpen ↗
[email hidden]

smithfarms pure kona said:

Living in the rainforest above Kona, I store my CDs in an
airtight Tupperware container and I have had no trouble.
But I am not a computer geek at all <g>. Do you think it
matters what kind of CDs you use? My 100 which I bought
several years ago from COSTCO are "data CD.R for computer
writers". TIA

I'd look into dessicant packs too.

Brian Rodenborn

John Gaughan said:

jmcquown said:

Thankfully, my PCs are on UPS systems so nothing ever
happened to them.

I had a computer on a surge protector. Lightning killed
the surge protector *and* half the components in the
computer. >> I kept telling

her, *stop calling me during a storm!*

Quoted message said:

How would a surge fry a cordless phone?

Er, we didn't *have* cordless phones back in 1983 LOL

Jill

John Gaughan said:

How would a surge fry a cordless phone?

The base station for the phone can certainly be damaged by a
lightning strike or heavy current surge.

zxcvbob said:

The new HP I bought my daughter for Christmas, and my old
IBM Thinkpad. Hardware problem in the HP and software
problem on the Thinkpad. I was using the HP for backup. I
had my important data files (financial records, etc) also
backed up to a CDRW, but I just realized I didn't have
another backup of my RECIPES folder. :-( I thought I had
one more backup copy at work, but I just checked and it's
gone -- I must have deleted it a few weeks ago. It's only
about 70 or 80 recipes, but they were all good ones that
I've tested.

I can recover a lot of the recipes because I've posted
them here or in
r.f.r. I sure hope HP doesn't wipe the hard drive when
they repair the system (it acts like a bad power
supply, so there should be no need to replace the
HDD or the operating system.)

There are ways to recover your files if you're willing to
shell out the bucks for it.

Practice safe eating - always use condiments

Quoted message said:

John Gaughan said:

How would a surge fry a cordless phone?

The base station for the phone can certainly be damaged by
a lightning strike or heavy current surge.

It was eerie, when lightning melted my telephone wires and
burned out a bunch of other stuff, my phone rang really loud
and died. Almost like a last gasp. Like, BANG! (thunder)
Flash (lightning) and RING! Had to peel me off the ceiling.

nancy

In article <[email hidden]>,

kilikini said:

"Dave W." <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:dwesten-
[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>,
"kilikini" <[email hidden]> wrote:

<snip>

Quoted message said:

Dave,

I live in Hawaii. There is so much humidity here that the
shiny, coated top side on the CD starts to corrode and
peel off, and it doesn't take long to do it, either! That
coating works almost like a mirror, so when it peels off,
your data can't be read even tho it appears to still be
there on the disk (if that makes any sense at all). Disks
from a factory with a painted coating work for longer
periods of time, but you still get tiny greenish spots on
the data side of the CD that you can see thru when you
hold the CD up in the sunlight. (I wish I could post a pic
to show you!)

<snip>

Quoted message said:

kili

I always thought of Hawaii as a sort of paradise on earth.
Even paradises have their down sides, I guess.

Hmmm... Since you don't have a pic to show me I'll have to
run an experiment. I'll stick a CD in a Tupperware container
... but I'll fill the container with water first. That
should do it. Yes?

Regards

Dave W.

--
Living in the Ozarks. For email, dot edu will do!