Missing Operating System - Learn from me, backup your hard drives THIS YEAR!
Gasp. I returned from lunch only to find my computer in the middle of a blue screen.
Let me tell you folks, this is the computerguy-equivalent of finding your wife in bed with your brother. All the same emotions run through your mind (I would imagine):
- Oh, you dirty bitch.
- How could you do this to me?
- And now, during the holidays!?
I rebooted, and was welcomed by and immediately disconcerting clank and the ominous evil that followed:
Missing Operating System
Seriously people, drink that in. Really, wallow in the pitiful blackness that is the failed BIOS POST, accompanied by the omnipresent but almost subconcious whispering "f*ck you...f*ck you..." clack of what remained of your drive heads.
Here's the catch. I backed it all up (for the first time in months) THE DAY BEFORE. I backed it all up (the data) to my Iomega REV Drive.
I'm digging this drive more and more. Some poo-poo'ed the purchase, saying it was too expensive, and instead opting for other mini-harddrives (USB or Firewire) to copy their data to. I prefer a removable solution, one that I can put in a safety deposit box or fire safe.
Anyway, I'm about 40% done installing my programs as you can see by my Start Menu. I'll know I'm done when the Start Menu completely fills my 1400x1050 screen.
Back up people. Do it today. Do it now.
About Scott
Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.
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Although I'm not trying to take away from your message to backup. :)
My regime includes a custom batch file that backs up to a notebook 40GB USB hard drive. From there, once a week I archive to DVD. It's still not fully automated, but it gets backed up regularly. Backup is still far too complicated for the average user.
Ditto on the question regarding what software you use to perform the backups and restores with.
booted from a knoppix CD, ran e2fsck and was back in business :)
nick
* automatically backs up changed files (no need to say incremental vs. full, which I always found confusing)
* can backup to a compressed OR uncompressed image
I didn't Ghost because I have habitually thought of DATA and SYSTEM as separate "things." However, Ghost people have consistantly said that it's the bomb and it's better to ghost the whole drive.
I think I'll try Ghost next.
Darrel - I thought about the boot.ini thing, but this turned out to be a physical head crash.
- Nothing like actually testing your personal disaster recovery plan!
Additonally, Hard Drives are shock-sensitive, while the Rev Drive carts aren't as they contain NO DRIVE HEADS.
I added a second larger hd to my sistem and wanted to copy all of my data into it.
I have a hd with 2 partitions one with XP pro and the other with Win 2000; I have used Norton Ghost 9.0 to "clone" my disk by copying all data from one disk to the other, partition by partition, and setting the copy MBR feature. I then changed the jumper settings in the 2 HDs so that the new HD is the primary but what happens now when i boot to the new hd is that the operating system does not start after all the mobo checks have finished with no error; what could it be the problem?
Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me.
Ciao, from an icy cold Milan, Italy.
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did I mention the government is out to buy every blog?
/ sarcasm :)
w00t + 1 for backups