The end is Nigh for your Data

Thanks for the heads up Lotus - will have a look. :)

Not a bad idea DrMDJ. One reason to do it is to show "How To" use programs and applications to keep your computer a happy camper so to speak. :)

It would be interesting to know

a) Has this thread started by Philgo (which I'm not sure was intended to turn in to a full blown thread, but we took care of that;) :D ) encouraged people who had not been backing up to start doing so?

b) How many people actually follow some sort of backup strategy (be it full blown or just backing up certain files)?

Yeah, that sure would be good to know, also if anyone has any questions regarding backup strategy's then do feel free to join in, were here to help. :)

BTW, good idea for the new "toolbox" thread.

Regards :)

DrMDJ, I started one these threads a while ago and I got a message from someone thanking me.

They had just done a backup after seeing my thread and their HDD failed a few days later, it made me feel good anyway.

Your periodic reminders are good. I wish (and hope) they would spur everyone on to take some sort of action.

question for Philgo.

1) how do you handle say an hp machine that now a days has the restore cds on the hidden partition it creates ???

2) if your doing this process to a partition you create using ghost and then if c: drive fails how are you accessing the d: drive ???

what i have been seeing lately with hp machines is that when the c: drive goes it for whatever reason is corrupting the restore partition also. drive passes tests but the f10 to begin the restore function has been failing a lot lately on hp machines.

what i do with my clients instead of the backup procedure you detailed which is excellent is i use whatever burning software they have and do a set backup routine that backups all data including emails and address book, favorites and the such. i then stress the importance of them running the routine on a regular basis depending on how much data they keep adding to their system.

are you also keeping a copy of the image for your clients on your server or whatever in case the whole drive dies ??? if so are you not taking up a lot of your resources to store these images ???

dont get me wrong i think you procedure for protecting your system is excellent am just trying to get as much information as i can so i can help my clients.

gghartman, luckily for me I only rarely have to deal with branded machines, most of them have been built by me.

Most times for other people I just leave the image of their C drive on the second partition and on a DVD. If anything then happened to the other partition, I could manually copy the partition back to the drive and restore from there.

I haven't yet got around to automatting the process.

Philgo

How the heck are you making any monies now adays building your own machines and selling them. Companies like Dell, HP are selling them so cheap these days that your profit margin has to be just about break even.

I knew I was doing something wrong, I didn't realise that I should make money:D

I was only doing it as a sideline for friends and family, but my family seems to be getting bigger.

You must be independently weathly. Amazing how the family can grow when you give such good deals.

Glad your oversees and not giving your systems away where I am.

I'm moving soon to a place called Sarona:D

its a long way from kent england so youd better sell a couple machine for a profit first. we unfortunately just re-elected bush so its going to get even more expensive living in america.

I wanted to resurrect this thread, because of what has happened to one of our members. He has been dutifully backing up his files, only to find that when he needed them, they were corrupt.

I read a magazine article where a large business had a server failure, and it was only then that they discovered that their tape backup had been corrupting the data on every tape. I gather it cost them a very great deal of money on that occasion. It costs some firms their entire business :eek:

There is a lesson for everyone here, it's no good just making a backup and forgetting about it, if the data is important, then check the integrity of the data as well.

even on tape backups there is usually a verify function which goes through the data and matches to the source to make sure it is correct and without errors. think your friend should think about turning that switch on.

Nonetheless, Spark's point is well taken (and often not done).