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It happened again! - 7/11/2003 10:24:04 PM   
Belisarius


Posts: 4041
Joined: 5/26/2001
From: Gothenburg, Sweden
Status: offline 		Alright, my computer has fried the format of my primary HD again! :rolleyes:

I'll be out for a while until I get it fixed, waiting for new cables and stuff to arrive, and then to re-install the whole shebang. Fortunately, all my good stuff is on the secondary, which at the moment looks unharmed. :p

Since I'm on holiday, I'll be away for a yet to be determined number of days for a little R & R. :)

Have fun y'all. Catch you later, with a hopefully healthy machine.

_____________________________


Got StuG?
Post #: 1
- 7/12/2003 3:07:28 AM   
Hawk

 

Posts: 1311
Joined: 12/19/2002
From: Staten Island,New York
Status: offline 		Bel i feel your Pain......:( :(
I just got all my stuff back up and running......... Good Luck......;) ;)

_____________________________

=A82A=Hawk[Maj]|LP|
"All we knew was.....We were in this TOGETHER" ......Band of Brothers

(in reply to Belisarius)
Post #: 2
- 7/12/2003 7:15:03 AM   
Bernie


Posts: 1779
Joined: 3/15/2002
From: Depot HQ - Virginia
Status: offline 		Backup, backup, backup!

Everything important on my system is also backed up onto two different CD's.

Good luck Bel!

_____________________________

What, me worry?

(in reply to Belisarius)
Post #: 3
re:Backup, backup, backup! - 7/12/2003 7:32:26 AM   
Easy8

 

Posts: 324
Joined: 6/10/2001
From: Austin, Tx
Status: offline 		Can't emphasize backups enough. Backup often, and like Bernie said, be redundant. Keep multiple copies in different locations, if at all possible.

As an IT professional that deals with the public, I see catastrophic data loss on a daily basis. Not much fun trying to console someone that lost months of critical data due to a hardware failure.

Fortunately, I can VPN from my home systems to work over a cable connection and store critical files on datashares that are backed up daily and stored in locations miles apart. :D

_____________________________

"The problem with the future is that it keeps turning into the present" -Hobbes

(in reply to Belisarius)
Post #: 4
- 7/12/2003 7:44:01 AM   
Les_the_Sarge_9_1

 

Posts: 4392
Joined: 12/29/2000
Status: offline 		Do NOT use re writable cds like me.

Thought I had a bajillion scans safe last time I reformatted.

Guess what, I was wrong.

@#%%#^%#$#%^@#@*&$$#@^%@@

Oh well it was a make work project.

But from now on if it has value, it gets burned to a cd a normal one.

_____________________________

I LIKE that my life bothers them,
Why should I be the only one bothered by it eh.

(in reply to Belisarius)
Post #: 5
- 7/12/2003 10:43:35 AM   
Bernie


Posts: 1779
Joined: 3/15/2002
From: Depot HQ - Virginia
Status: offline 		[QUOTE]Originally posted by Les the Sarge 9-1
[B]Do NOT use re writable cds like me.

Thought I had a bajillion scans safe last time I reformatted.

Guess what, I was wrong.

@#%%#^%#$#%^@#@*&$$#@^%@@

Oh well it was a make work project.

But from now on if it has value, it gets burned to a cd a normal one. [/B][/QUOTE]

Good point Les. Many older systems can't boot from a CD at all, and even many of the new ones balk at booting from a CD-RW. However, for simple file storage, to restore from after a crash, CD-RW's work fine, provided you have a way to restore the system in the first place. Example, you can reinstall Windoze from it's CD, then copy over all your critical files. Anything needing to be reinstalled, because it writes to the registry, etc., can be reinstalled from the original zip or exe, which you have burned onto a CD-RW, right? :)

Actually, my system is a bit different than that. It's sort of a mini-RAID system, with hot swappable drives. Pop in a drive, write an image of another drive to it, pop it back out and back into the fireproof safe for storage. I do that a couple times a week, letting it do the image while I sleep. And, since I have three drives I do this with, there's always one that's safely tucked away, so even if the system is physically destroyed while in the process of making a new image, I still have a relativly recent full image safe and sound. This is in addition to my copying stuff that changes often to CD's.

_____________________________

What, me worry?

(in reply to Belisarius)
Post #: 6
- 7/12/2003 7:39:24 PM   
Les_the_Sarge_9_1

 

Posts: 4392
Joined: 12/29/2000
Status: offline 		Actually Bernie a cd rw is just as good as an ordinary cd, no difference at all.

No my trouble was in how clever I had gotten.

Always re burning data I wanted routinely compiled onto "specific" cd rw's.

#%#&%#&#^#^%)^%@!@#^%@#

Well the lesson was, it is better to just waste a friggin use once cd, than assume you can always keep track of what's on what re writables, and what has not been correctly put back onto them.

A make work project that went south on me.
Learned that lesson well. A person can be TOOOOO organised.

_____________________________

I LIKE that my life bothers them,
Why should I be the only one bothered by it eh.

(in reply to Belisarius)
Post #: 7
- 7/12/2003 11:30:45 PM   
john g

 

Posts: 984
Joined: 10/6/2000
From: college station, tx usa
Status: offline 		[QUOTE]Originally posted by Les the Sarge 9-1
[B]Actually Bernie a cd rw is just as good as an ordinary cd, no difference at all.

No my trouble was in how clever I had gotten.

Always re burning data I wanted routinely compiled onto "specific" cd rw's.

#%#&%#&#^#^%)^%@!@#^%@#

Well the lesson was, it is better to just waste a friggin use once cd, than assume you can always keep track of what's on what re writables, and what has not been correctly put back onto them.

A make work project that went south on me.
Learned that lesson well. A person can be TOOOOO organised. [/B][/QUOTE]

I read it in a usenet newsgroup (so take it for what it is worth) but cdr's and cdrw are still not accepted as archival media by the US government. Life expentancy is less than 10 years. If you will need it sometime in the future, the best choice is still magnetic tape.

Storage conditions play a big part in this as well, I still have Radio Shack model 1 disks that I can still read 25 years later, so if you take care of your disks, you might get better life out of them.
thanks, John.

(in reply to Belisarius)
Post #: 8
- 7/13/2003 1:19:59 AM   
Bernie


Posts: 1779
Joined: 3/15/2002
From: Depot HQ - Virginia
Status: offline 		[QUOTE]Originally posted by john g
[B]I read it in a usenet newsgroup (so take it for what it is worth) but cdr's and cdrw are still not accepted as archival media by the US government. Life expentancy is less than 10 years. If you will need it sometime in the future, the best choice is still magnetic tape.

Storage conditions play a big part in this as well, I still have Radio Shack model 1 disks that I can still read 25 years later, so if you take care of your disks, you might get better life out of them.
thanks, John. [/B][/QUOTE]

Magnetic media is still not a great archival medium. For one thing, it's self-erasing. How fast this happens depends on how it's stored, but it does happen.

The magazine I used to work for did an experiment one time. We needed to clean out our storage cabinets of software that had been sent to us, and was now gathering dust after having been reviewed. I took several disk cases that were designed to hold 50 5.25 floppies and did the following:

[list]
  • One case was stuffed full with 100 disks, as tight as I could pack them in there and not bend them
  • One case had 50 floppies put in it, snug but still with space between them
  • The last case had only 25 floppies put in, very roomy
  • 50 titles were left in their original store display boxes
    [/list]

    All of this was put into a wooden cabinet in my basement, with nothing else in it, and the closet was sealed with a padlock. (Each disk case had it's own shelf, and the 50 boxes were simply stacked on the bottom of the cabinet.)

    18 months later I opened the cabinet and started checking disks. Of the 100 crammed into one storage case, 87 would not read (87% failure). Of the 50 in the second case, 22 would not read (44% failure). Of the third case of 25, 2 would not read (8% failure). Of the 50 still in thier original boxes, all of them were readable (0% failure). The conclusion we came to was that magnetic media, when tightly packed together, has a tendancy to seek a balanced magnetic field, and will wipe out data doing so.

    (Note, no attempt was made to verify the accuracy of the data on the disks that could be read. It was simply a matter of putting in the disk and calling up the directory. If the directory came up, it passed, if not, it failed, so the actual failure rate, in terms of damaged data, is probably higher than stated.)

    _____________________________

    What, me worry?

    (in reply to Belisarius)
    • Post #: 9
    - 7/13/2003 1:50:54 AM   
    Les_the_Sarge_9_1

     

    Posts: 4392
    Joined: 12/29/2000
    Status: offline     		One thing that is being failed to be mentioned...

    I bought a computer, it used 5.25 floppies.

    Soon 3.5 were all the rage.

    Then double sided high density.

    Then zip drives

    Cds

    Cd rw

    The problem is this.

    If you put your data on a form of media storage, there is a strong chance in 5 years there will be few machines still commonly using that storage media.

    When was the last time a 5.25 floppy meant anything to you?

    In truth, there is only one really genuinely satisfying way to store data. Write it down on paper hehe.

    Books rule !! :)

    _____________________________

    I LIKE that my life bothers them,
    Why should I be the only one bothered by it eh.

    (in reply to Belisarius)
    Post #: 10
    - 7/13/2003 1:57:52 AM   
    Bernie


    Posts: 1779
    Joined: 3/15/2002
    From: Depot HQ - Virginia
    Status: offline     		[QUOTE]Originally posted by Les the Sarge 9-1
    [B]One thing that is being failed to be mentioned...

    I bought a computer, it used 5.25 floppies.

    Soon 3.5 were all the rage.

    Then double sided high density.

    Then zip drives

    Cds

    Cd rw

    The problem is this.

    If you put your data on a form of media storage, there is a strong chance in 5 years there will be few machines still commonly using that storage media.

    When was the last time a 5.25 floppy meant anything to you?

    In truth, there is only one really genuinely satisfying way to store data. Write it down on paper hehe.

    Books rule !! :) [/B][/QUOTE]

    The flip side of this is, of course, that the odds are pretty strong that anything you have stored on a type of media that isn't being used 5 years down the road, wouldn't run on that equipment anyway, even if you had it on the right media. Text and doc files excepted, of course.

    As for 5.25 floppies "meaning" anything, heck, I still have a whole case of quad density 8" floppies around here someplace... and the drive to use them. I think it's in the yard, holding up the transmisson on the Edsel...

    _____________________________

    What, me worry?

    (in reply to Belisarius)
    Post #: 11
    - 7/13/2003 3:06:00 AM   
    junk2drive


    Posts: 12907
    Joined: 6/27/2002
    From: Arizona West Coast
    Status: offline     		you two have way too much time on your hands

    (in reply to Belisarius)
    Post #: 12
    - 7/13/2003 5:47:39 AM   
    Bernie


    Posts: 1779
    Joined: 3/15/2002
    From: Depot HQ - Virginia
    Status: offline     		[QUOTE]Originally posted by junk2drive
    [B]you two have way too much time on your hands [/B][/QUOTE]

    Let's see...

    I own my own home improvement contracting business, I'm a freelance writer for three different newspapers, I have two novels in the works, I'm a member of the team working on the new MC that's being developed, and I just started negotiations to buy a restaurant... Yeah, I see your point... I could probably do something better with that 15 mins a day I reserve for showers. :)

    _____________________________

    What, me worry?

    (in reply to Belisarius)
    Post #: 13
    Bernie - 7/13/2003 5:57:13 AM   
    mlomax

     

    Posts: 162
    Joined: 11/25/2002
    From: Colorado Springs, CO.
    Status: offline     		After reading your reply and then looking at my meager life compared to yours owe great one, I was wondering what type of novels are you writing or is that a secret.

    _____________________________



    (in reply to Belisarius)
    Post #: 14
    Re: Bernie - 7/13/2003 6:12:21 AM   
    Bernie


    Posts: 1779
    Joined: 3/15/2002
    From: Depot HQ - Virginia
    Status: offline     		[QUOTE]Originally posted by mlomax
    [B]After reading your reply and then looking at my meager life compared to yours owe great one, I was wondering what type of novels are you writing or is that a secret. [/B][/QUOTE]

    Owe great one? Yeah, I just looked at my checking account, and the pile of bills on my desk... You got that one right! :D

    No secret, it's been a topic in the forums before, but it doesn't quite fit with the "macho wargamer" image... I write romance novels, poetry, and children's stories.. :)

    _____________________________

    What, me worry?

    (in reply to Belisarius)
    Post #: 15
    I'm Impressed. - 7/13/2003 7:25:30 AM   
    mlomax

     

    Posts: 162
    Joined: 11/25/2002
    From: Colorado Springs, CO.
    Status: offline     		From the book store and also my wife's book collection I haven't noticed to many men taking on Romance novel's. You go Bernie!!:cool:

    _____________________________



    (in reply to Belisarius)
    Post #: 16
    Re: I'm Impressed. - 7/13/2003 8:55:08 AM   
    Bernie


    Posts: 1779
    Joined: 3/15/2002
    From: Depot HQ - Virginia
    Status: offline     		[QUOTE]Originally posted by mlomax
    [B]From the book store and also my wife's book collection I haven't noticed to many men taking on Romance novel's. You go Bernie!!:cool: [/B][/QUOTE]

    You'd be surprised... More often than not, when an author is writing in a field where their gender might be an issue affecting sales (such as my writing romance novels), they publish under either a pen name (which I often do), or they use their initials instead of their first name (such as my poetry being published under B.W. Behling). Consider it camouflage. :)

    _____________________________

    What, me worry?

    (in reply to Belisarius)
    Post #: 17
    - 7/14/2003 1:47:36 AM   
    chief


    Posts: 1660
    Joined: 9/28/2000
    From: Haines City FL, USA
    Status: offline     		Bernie: Are you going to name your restaurant "The CRAB TANK", as a memorial to Bawlmore and SPwaw ???:D :D ;) :rolleyes: :cool:

    _____________________________

    "God Bless America and All the Young men and women who give their all to protect Her"....chief

    (in reply to Belisarius)
    Post #: 18
    - 7/14/2003 2:03:15 AM   
    Les_the_Sarge_9_1

     

    Posts: 4392
    Joined: 12/29/2000
    Status: offline     		Hehehe Bernie writing romance, oh well could be worse, could be what I have written (don't ask).

    Let's just say I write creative fiction and leave it at that. Hey the ladies like it, and that's good enough for me :)

    I am working on a more serious project though, a book that deals with the medical condition I live with, Fybromyalgia. Hasn't been moving forward much lately though.

    _____________________________

    I LIKE that my life bothers them,
    Why should I be the only one bothered by it eh.

    (in reply to Belisarius)
    Post #: 19
    - 7/14/2003 2:49:29 AM   
    Bernie


    Posts: 1779
    Joined: 3/15/2002
    From: Depot HQ - Virginia
    Status: offline     		[QUOTE]Originally posted by chief
    [B]Bernie: Are you going to name your restaurant "The CRAB TANK", as a memorial to Bawlmore and SPwaw ???:D :D ;) :rolleyes: :cool: [/B][/QUOTE]

    Actually, it will be (if it works out) a coffee house located close to Towson University. My partner and I have not settled on a name for it yet, but we have some good ones in mind. She's a massage therapist named Sue, so two names we've toyed with are a variation on the Spanish phrase "My house is your house" such as "Mi Cafe' y Su Cafe'" or, if I decide to offer a regular food menu, in addition to standard coffee house fare, and Sue sets up to do 10 minute chair massages while you enjoy your latte', we were thinking of "Rub-A-Dub-Grub" :)

    BTW, I came up with that last one while Sue and I were driving down a very twisty country road, and she laughed so hard we ended up in a ditch. :)

    _____________________________

    What, me worry?

    (in reply to Belisarius)
    Post #: 20
    - 7/22/2003 7:49:26 AM   
    Belisarius


    Posts: 4041
    Joined: 5/26/2001
    From: Gothenburg, Sweden
    Status: offline     		Just to close the thread, I just wanna say that I'm back online... for now at least... until my HD tells me otherwise. ;)

    JJ, I'll take care of my turn as soon as possible. :)

    _____________________________


    Got StuG?

    (in reply to Belisarius)
    Post #: 21
    - 7/22/2003 2:38:24 PM   
    VikingNo2


    Posts: 2918
    Joined: 1/26/2002
    From: NC
    Status: offline     		YOUDAMAN:D

    (in reply to Belisarius)
    Post #: 22
    Your dreams were your ticket out... - 7/22/2003 10:34:26 PM   
    Vathailos

     

    Posts: 346
    Joined: 5/13/2003
    From: In a van, down by the river.
    Status: offline     		Welcome Back :D

    (in reply to Belisarius)
    Post #: 23
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