Curt
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 3736
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Posted: 2007-Jan-19 07:59
I finally had my first harddrive failure and had to replace it. What a PITB. For 12 years I seemed to escape having to deal with that crap until today and I'm still not finished with the computer setup. (I'm taking a break now to finish up later.)
I see people posting about reformatting their harddrives and they sort of pass it off as a common event in their lives. It's no fun by any means—too much crap to restore the puter to it's former glory. I sure do not want to go through that very many times in my life. I know there are going to be some stupid tweaks that will be necessary over the next few days here and there. PITB!!
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Hampstead
Joined: Feb 20, 2001
# Posts: 2015
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Posted: 2007-Jan-19 12:57
I use an off site back up facility at backuphelp.com
In the event of a hardware failure, theft, fire, etc you can retrieve your data and system settings automatically. I've found this to be a positive boon over the last few years.
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Curt
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 3736
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Posted: 2007-Jan-20 05:17
I also understand that there are disk imaging software programs that copy your user settings, installed software & configurations, etc so that it's not a pain in the butt to restore. But I didn't really know about that type of software until yesterday and don't really know how well it works either.
Anyone ever used disk imaging software before?
It's also called hard disk cloning software.
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Hampstead
Joined: Feb 20, 2001
# Posts: 2015
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Posted: 2007-Jan-20 09:36
I use a back up program that mirrors the hard drive to DVDs, but that would be no good if the office was razed to the ground in a fire so I make sure I have an off site copy too.
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Curt
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 3736
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Posted: 2007-Jan-23 12:45
That's true about the fire thing. A person could also buy a fire safe for computer media (I have two such safes) and keep backups there. The only problem with the fire safe solution is that you end up needing to buy more fire safes as you gain more software and backup disks.
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Hampstead
Joined: Feb 20, 2001
# Posts: 2015
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Posted: 2007-Jan-23 13:01
And - in a worse case senario - fire safes can still get hot enough for discs to melt inside them.
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Curt
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 3736
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Posted: 2007-Jan-24 11:40
Yeah I realize that could be a problem. However, “media” fire safes are specially designed to protect better than regular fire safes. They contain an extra barrier to heat for protection of disks. They also cost more than regular fire safes.
Me thinks I'll just walk into my last place of employment and take their media fire safe  They had a huge cabinet type safe that was several inches thick. Likely no fire would penetrate that huge hunk of a safe. It probably weighed a ton. Now, to get that thing into my house... hmmm... BTW, I'll need about 10 strong men, preferrably 10 bodybuilders or powerlifters.
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gwilly1
Joined: Jan 22, 2007
# Posts: 28
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Posted: 2007-Jan-24 15:11
One of the industry standards is Norton Ghosting - and the advice about keeping an offsite copy, either virtual or physical is very sound. Probably a lot easier than moving a safe...
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Curt
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 3736
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Posted: 2007-Jan-29 07:13
gwilly1, I was joking about the safe. 
Don't think Motorola is in the habit of allowing people to walk out their front doors with their property especially when a safe like they have likely costs in the neighborhood of $7k to $10k or more. It was nonetheless a safe I'd like to have.
The safe was like the last one pictured here: [link] ($12,456.00 variety, one huge hunk of metal and fire insulation)
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sem4u
Joined: Dec 16, 2003
# Posts: 262
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Posted: 2007-Jan-29 10:48
Norton Ghost is probably the best thing for backing up everything on your PC in one go.
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Curt
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 3736
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Posted: 2007-Jan-31 01:45
sem4u said:
Norton Ghost is probably the best thing for backing up everything on your PC in one go.
hmmm, norton, well... I'm hating norton because of their ad blocking software possibly costing me $1000's (maybe $10's of thousands) of dollars in adsense revenue each year. I won't support a software company that is killing my business like that.
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