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Pastimes : Dream Machine ( Build your own PC ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joseph H. Leiti who wrote (583)	5/4/1998 11:01:00 PM
From: Zeuspaul	Respond to of 14778

Backup Solutions Welcome to the thread and The Thread thanks you for the kind words:) I never did find a backup solution that I like. Harddrives always seem one or two steps ahead in size. I have always resorted to partial backup solutions (critical files) as my harddrives have always been bigger than available solutions. Tape has always shown some promise but I have had so many bad experiences with audio tape twined around spindles that I have stayed away from it. The serial nature of the tape also has some draw backs. Some of the newer tape systems address this with pre writing parts of files at the header of the tape (or something like that). LS120 drives will probably evolve as a backup solution for minimal systems as they replace the floppy drives (they are backward compatible). Support is in most new motherboards/BIOS and it almost seems a matter of time now. CDR drives work well for permanently archived data (stock data, record files) but one needs good planning as they are inflexible. This is probably the most economical solution now ( $2 +/- for 650 MB). I use this solution at work for permanent archives but hesitate at home. I do not want to have a bunch of CDR discs around with data that I can not alter. CDRW looks like a good possibility. I would like to see it mature some more before I move on this one. It will not be too long before the drive and media price comes down. Most of the installed base of CDROM drives will not read this media. Harddrive to harddrive makes the most sense to me. Preferably from one computer to another in a network solution. This is a good way to recycle an older computer. Looking ahead a few years. I think some storage applications will migrate onto the Internet with some type of remote storage. Zeuspaul

To: Joseph H. Leiti who wrote (583)	6/13/1998 1:07:00 PM
From: Zeuspaul	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14778

Backup Incentive From Anand's BBS anandtech.net Thread (will expire) anandtech.net JohnT posted 06-12-98 01:59 AM CT (US) I cannot express my depression right now. I have just had one of the worest accident anyone could have with their information. My 2 gigabyte harddrive complete w/ so much invaluable and personal information got NUKED by some idiotic partitioner. Hard to explain, long story, big old accident, sorta of my fault but not exactly. All my emails from over 7 years of emails, all my documents, word, excel, all my financial business documents, all my downloads, all my web pages, all my everything I own & build over the past 3 or 4 years are ALL GONE forever. I cannot BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED. The only thing that could be worse than this is to lose my arm or a leg & a step beyond that is probably my life. This is REAL PAIN. I am in need of some sort of comfort which I doubt I will find. This is so INTENSE man, I cannot express my feelings. arrrggh... JohnT ____________________________________________________________________ Been there and done that. Don't feel too bad, most people that get some sort of mass storage back-up usually do so after losing their hard drive. I learned my lesson back when hard drives were under 20mb. Any chance to un-partion your drive? Norton used to have a utility to recover info like that but it was pretty much restricted to ascii text and was a bit time consuming (I used it after my FAT got corupted). Better luck next time. ____________________________________________________________________ lanceman posted 06-12-98 09:54 AM CT (US) Geoff D is so right. I've had the same thing happen to me. Will no one learn to backup until they lose critical information? I think that's the most talked about maintenance activity you hear about...but do we ever listen? Nope. And then we lose our digital lives. JohnT, what software were you using? Partition software can be VERY tricky! So can DOS... I once had made a second partition with PartitionMagic, which worked great. But as I went to install DOS, it wanted to format the drive before installing. As it went through the instructions, I just clicked along...there was nothing on that partition so I didn't think anything about it. Only after it was done I realized it formatted my partition with data!!!!!! IT SUCKED!! Now I backup EVERYTHING at least once a week, and I backup all my critical files every two or three days. It's really not that time consuming either (once you do the full backup it's just a matter of backing up changed files). Sorry JohnT.... Lance ____________________________________________________________________ JohnT posted 06-12-98 11:54 AM CT (US) What happened was that I was testing 3 different motherboards w/ the ATX power supply & you know how they are. The power supply is powered up by the motherboard & that means there is a "soft" switch on the case (digital) & "hard" switch on the power box (mechanical). Anyways, because of the "BAD CACHE" on the Epox MVP3-E ATX motherboard, Win95 hangs up @ 100mhz Front Side Bus (66mhz FSB is stable). Ctrl-Alt-Del didn't work & I waited & got frustratd. I went over to the back & power down the system using the "hard" switch. Now, in the baby AT system, nothing happens to the computer except during boot up when I powered down using the hard switch; it'll just re-scan your disk during boot-up & everything is fine. Done that a million times. However, this time, Norton Disk Doctor (which replaces MS Scandisk) found a partition problem & ask me if I want to correct it. My first impression is "STAY THE HECK AWAY FROM MY PARTITION!!!" I instantly hit "NO" without any hesitation. I hit no, delete, & went & boot into 95. What I DIDN'T REALIZE WAS, Norton was asking me if I want to recover the lost PARTITION & restore it from previous one. When I hit "NO", Norton deletes it. I should have hit "YES" or "CANCEL". How was I suppose to know? I don't want ANYONE touch my partition under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. When I reboot, nothing came up. Now, realize that because I'm testing multiple motherboards, I thought the cache was bad or the cable is loose or whatever. I didnt' even know my partition got nukes after one hour of figeting & finally gave up; format a win95 bootup disk from another computer & boot up. I was in for a big suprise because I try to go to C: drive but all it gave me was my "OTHER" physical drive E: as C:!!! I instantly went into FDISK.EXE and try to view my partitions. My JAWS DROPPED SO HARD when I saw "NO PARTITIONS DEFINED". I could believe it at first but after another hour of trying to recover from that state of SHOCK, I realize what had happened. That's when I realize that message Norton warned about wasn't just any message it was a message for my DEATH WARRANT. Another thing I found about EPOX was that they didn't have the "VIRUS PROTECITON" ON as default in their BIOS. If they had, my MBR (master boot record) won't be messed around without my permission. THIS IS A SAD DAY FOR ME. I STILL CANNOT BEGIN TO COMPREHEND THE IMPACT OF THIS LOSS. Maybe in the few weeks the PAIN will grow stronger when I realize, I didn't have this, I didn't have that. sigh This isn't the worst accident; the worse for me was an high way accident losing control of my car at 70mph & lived through it. Still, this is As BAD as IT GETS on a person's PC. YES, I used FAT32. Tough luck for me. The Quantum disk that came w/ either have to use all FAT32 or all FAT16. I think I'll download one from the net (Quantum of course) & make my C: FAT16 at 1 gigabyte & the rest FAT32. I have 6.4 Quantum Fireball SE. The Maxtor 2.0 gig was the one I nuked. JohnT _______________________________________________________