Where's Dustin????

[Kevin Connolly]

I'm looking forward to reading Dustin's Annual Genii Forum Year in Review.

[Doug Thornton]

I'm sure the masterful Dustin is putting the final touches on his epic work.
Or perhaps he's napping.
But the year's not quite over...
I always look forward to the Review too.

[Richard Kaufman]

Dustin suffered a catastrophic computer crash of both his desktop and his external backup drive.

He's trying to put the pieces back together. Lot of work lost.

Anyone out there know a miracle man at retrieving data?

[Dustin Stinett]

It's too late for that. Earlier this evening I sent the authorization to the group I hired that was able to retrieve about 80 percent of the lost data. (Unfortunately they are not charging only 80% of their fee!) The bad news is that I will not have it until after the first, so I am rewriting the review to the best of my meager abilities. Now I just have to survive the ordeal!

[mrgoat]

Too late now but you really need offsite back up too. I recommend crash plan. It's about five bucks a month.

[Kevin Connolly]

Sorry to hear about your computer problems. The delay only makes it more worth waiting for.

[Ian Kendall]

Ooft. Hard drive _and_ external? Was it a virus?

[Bob Farmer]

Having gone through many computer crashes, including external hard drive crashes (never buy a BOOK), I now use three backups in my office and also use Carbonite. They also have a plan where they will send you a new hard drive with all your data on it.

http://www.carbonite.com/

Also, just to cover all bases, I have a Canadian witch doctor and the Pope bless all my stuff.

[Richard Kaufman]

I have three external back-up drives, plus a fourth (4 TB) that is not connected, but to which I periodically back up everything.

[Dustin Stinett]

I have skipped the Pope and went directly to The Big Man his own self: Dr. Nedly Lostmore.

Ooft. Hard drive _and_ external? Was it a virus?

First one must understand that Dustin is not at all computer savvy. When this box says to do something (via something I trust, I'm not completely without skills), I do it. So when nothing appears that says I should do something, I don't think about doing it.

Though initially I thought that was the case--or I somehow pissed off North Korea too--there was no virus. The hard drive crash was just age--good old "planned obsolescence."

What happened with the external drive was pure user error. When I first installed it, I had Windows XP. When I "upgraded" to Windows 7 a few years ago, I thought everything was going along just fine. It turns out that this was not the case. Apparently my software needed new "drivers" and whatnot, but did I know that? No. Did I inquire? No. Did I actually CHECK to make sure that the backup was actually, you know, working? No. I was able to save things directly to it (and I did) so I thought the world was right, but the whole backup thing was not happening.

The external drive spins up now (initially it was not recognized by my new computer, so that's why I thought I had suffered an attack from North Korea) and what I saved directly to it is there. Just nothing else. And that "nothing else" is some really important stuff.

So it is a very expensive lesson that I have learned: Let's go back to typewriters.

(And you can help by considering adding to your Greater Magic collection through this fine offer that is still available here!)

[Andres Reynoso]

Sorry to hear that.

It would upgrade my backup paranoia.

[Joe Mckay]

Is the Lubor Fiedler book okay???

[Richard Kaufman]

It was lost unless the folks who have the hard drive can successfully retrieve it. But all the basic materials are still on hand, and it will have to be redone. Major bummer. But it WILL get redone.

[Joe Mckay]

That is terrible all round.

I feel sorry for Dustin if that is the case. And I will curse the universe that such an important project has hit a major hurdle.

Please update this thread when you know for sure either way.

Cheers!

[Dustin Stinett]

It is among the list of recovered files. It is the only reason I am agreeing to the fee that I will be forking over later today. It is well worth it to not have to start over!
[Insert Happy Dance here when AND ONLY WHEN I have the files!]

[Bob Farmer]

Dustin:

Use Carbonite--it's simple. Sign up. Push backup. Forget it.

[Ian Kendall]

Ouch. I used to run the Backup Team for the Royal Bank of Scotland (back when it was the fourth largest bank in the world), so I have that mentality. It sounds like you are getting your data back, which is spiffing. If it helps you sleep, if your heads didn't crash though the disc and no one did a DOD3 wipe, you'll be able to get things back.

Realistically, how much attention you spend to backups is proportional to how important the data is. Going forward, it's a good plan to save all important things in two or three different drives, either internal or external. The chances of two independent drives failing at the same time are very remote. Offsite is really for when your house burns down (although I'm expecting some flak for that one!)

[Joe Mckay]

Is there any word on whether or not the Lubor Fiedler book was lost?

[Dustin Stinett]

Hi Joe,

It was lost, but found again! Everything for the Lubor book was successfully recovered and I am back to work on it with THREE backups!

Dustin

[Chris Aguilar]

For documents important to me, I've been keeping multiple local copies plus also saving to cloud storage (something like google drive) while also e-mailing myself a copy of the files from time to time. It's saved my bacon a few times.

[Joe Mckay]

That is great to hear, Dustin!

[mrgoat]

Offsite is really for when your house burns down (although I'm expecting some flak for that one!)

I was burgled and they took my laptop and external drives. I lost everything. Years of photos, songs I'd written, everything.

I now have my laptop, and external drive, another external drive mirroring the first one (for when the first one dies) and cloud storage with crash plan.com - my brother says there are two types of people in the world. Those that have had a hard drive die on them, and those that are going to have a hard drive die on them.

It's so [censored] cheap nowadays, ($4 a month for crash plan and TBs of external drives for peanuts) it seems ridonkulous not to do it.

[mrgoat]

I have three external back-up drives, plus a fourth (4 TB) that is not connected, but to which I periodically back up everything.

Nothing offsite?

Sort that out Mr K!

[Dustin Stinett]

It turns out that my ISP (Cox) has a small (50GB) "cloud" backup that is free of charge. It doesn't get better than that for specific files. That's just one of my backups that I am using now.

[Bill Mullins]

When I log into my credit union for digital banking, there is associated with my account a "strongbox", to which I can upload a small amount (250 MB). But it's free, and for a nominal fee I can get more.

[Magic Newswire]

Though not as comprehensive as his always amazing post, you can hear him chat about it here;
http://bit.ly/MNW2014