Never again I use CDs for backup!
OK, here I am, back from a sleepless night. It took me 8 hours for data recovery. The problem was not to recover the 10 files worth 20 work hours, that was done in half an hour. The problem is rather that while the laptop is in repair (or while I buy a new one) I must work on the other computer. So, I needed the backup from last december copied to it. And that took 7.5 hours!
My trouble was a mixture of partly unreadable CDs which hang up during copying and Windows Explorer moodiness. Finally I had to copy many folders file by file because the folder could not be copied as such. Some files made trouble and therefore, I combined backups from different sources. I hope that my tired eyes did not miss any important file.
As I had completely restructured my folder structure and deleted unnecessary files before the backup last december, the CD showed me the new structure, new folder name and how many files were left after cleanup. When a folder could not be copied, then I took an older backup, searched for the old folder name in the old structure to copy it. Uarg! This MUST happen exactly after such a cleanup. Otherwise, it would have been easy to do the recovery! Of course, the files which I deleted last year, are now back into the folders, hours of work are lost.
At least, I became much faster when I understood the pattern: sub-folders are not copied from the CD with a 95% probability. So, copying sub-folders one by one I could save a lot of time. The main time sink was not the manual effort, but the waiting times when I had to tear out the CD and re-insert it and waiting until the computer understood that there is a CD in the drive. Or the waiting times when restarting Windows Explorer. :-(
I could not even listen to an audio book in parallel. I did not want to heat up the old laptop too much, but the CD drive of the new one was busy...
Best of all: CD no. 3 made me really sweat! Its second copy was unreadable all together. It was not even recognized as a CD. And copy no. 1 degraded by and by, due to the excessive data copying. Finally, I spent 20 minutes putting it in the drive again and again, to have it finally read. However, one newer folder was lost. I had to get it from the broken laptop. :-((
The worst thing is that I must consider my backup from last december as practically non-existent. The files were partly not readable and it was impossible to copy sub-folders. I lost both copies of CD no. 3. I must repeat the backup with another storage medium.
OK, and now I go and see my friendly hardware guys from the shop around the corner... When I researched their opening times last night, my main sorrow was that they open so late. Now, it rather is that they close so early!
My trouble was a mixture of partly unreadable CDs which hang up during copying and Windows Explorer moodiness. Finally I had to copy many folders file by file because the folder could not be copied as such. Some files made trouble and therefore, I combined backups from different sources. I hope that my tired eyes did not miss any important file.
As I had completely restructured my folder structure and deleted unnecessary files before the backup last december, the CD showed me the new structure, new folder name and how many files were left after cleanup. When a folder could not be copied, then I took an older backup, searched for the old folder name in the old structure to copy it. Uarg! This MUST happen exactly after such a cleanup. Otherwise, it would have been easy to do the recovery! Of course, the files which I deleted last year, are now back into the folders, hours of work are lost.
At least, I became much faster when I understood the pattern: sub-folders are not copied from the CD with a 95% probability. So, copying sub-folders one by one I could save a lot of time. The main time sink was not the manual effort, but the waiting times when I had to tear out the CD and re-insert it and waiting until the computer understood that there is a CD in the drive. Or the waiting times when restarting Windows Explorer. :-(
I could not even listen to an audio book in parallel. I did not want to heat up the old laptop too much, but the CD drive of the new one was busy...
Best of all: CD no. 3 made me really sweat! Its second copy was unreadable all together. It was not even recognized as a CD. And copy no. 1 degraded by and by, due to the excessive data copying. Finally, I spent 20 minutes putting it in the drive again and again, to have it finally read. However, one newer folder was lost. I had to get it from the broken laptop. :-((
The worst thing is that I must consider my backup from last december as practically non-existent. The files were partly not readable and it was impossible to copy sub-folders. I lost both copies of CD no. 3. I must repeat the backup with another storage medium.
OK, and now I go and see my friendly hardware guys from the shop around the corner... When I researched their opening times last night, my main sorrow was that they open so late. Now, it rather is that they close so early!
AndreaHerrmann - 11. Jan, 12:34
Most of my files are on my company servers. Once a computer broke and there was just one file from "yesterday" that I had lost. The backup in the company is done on a streamer with tapes and there is a grandfather, father, son system that is also checked from time to time.
BTW USB-sticks are also not reliable. Be aware of that.
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Apart from the negative news:
If a computer breaks it is very likely that only some essential files are damaged or something else is defect. If you remove the hard disk and attach it to another computer you can normally read the files. This also works with so called recovery systems where the whole system is on an USB stick. You use the BIOS settings to change the boot order. (Of course, only if there is at least some flickering light in the beast:)