Not trying to revive a dead subject but thought it was funny that I ran across this a few minutes ago.
From an old Langa piece.
"A Couple Of "Doh!" Moments
It happens, but it's embarrassing: I had some major "Doh" moments in the last few days. I can tap-dance around them by explaining how I'd been working late and had averaged about 5 hours sleep for 4 consecutive nights--- but that's only making excuses. There were just plain mistakes:
Doh #1 happened after I'd been having trouble with my CD Recorder. I use it a lot--- almost daily--- for "burning" backup images of my hard drives. (See winmag.com ). But I moved systems around recently, added new software and replaced some hardware. The CD-R, which had been ultra-reliable for a couple years, suddenly started generating errors and was having trouble completing a recording session.
I have some large hard drives here, so I was still able to continue making daily backups and storing the files on a live drive. That's OK, but not ideal. It's far better to have your backups on a portable medium that's independent of any particular PC, and that even can be stored offsite, away from your PCs entirely.
I tried troubleshooting the PC that has the CD-R installed: The cables were still tight. No jumpers or switches had been changed. The system BIOS saw all the hardware properly, as did Windows. Hmmm.
I uninstalled and reinstalled the CD-R software. Nope; the errors kept happening. Hmmm.
I used a master backup (on a CD I'd burned when the system---including the CD-R--- was working properly); this put the system back into a known-good state. Nope; the errors kept happening. Hmmm!
Finally, light dawned: I unmounted the drive and physically removed it from the system. I gently pried the CD door open and manually extended the CD tray. Next, I blew in the case--- and was astonished at how much dust came out.
I'm not talking anything as benign as a "dust bunny." This looked like something that escaped from Jurassic Park.
Doh moment #1: Keep your equipment clean, Fred."
tc :-)
Now if I could just remember what I was looking for...hmmm |
