Pain in the patootie

Texas Ranger · September 27, 2006, 01:19:41 PM

Computer crashes on Friday, got it back last night after guru dry cleaned the hard drive and reset bios, only problem, lost all my sites, id's and passwords.

I am having so much fun. >:(

sawguy21 · September 27, 2006, 01:52:45 PM

That is why I save my information on disc ;D I'm not computer savvy enough to deal with these problems.

Bill · September 27, 2006, 02:37:54 PM

I've too have been a big believer in backups - a tech I know recommended one of those external drives - ( Maxtor but I suspect most are OK ) and once and awhile I now "copy" data from the computers hard disk to the external drive. Its saved me more from my own carelessness ( now where did I put her picture ! ) than from equipment failure - but none the less worth the cost of the unit as it only takes a few minutes every time I figure that I've put too much new stuff on the machine to risk losing.

Course if truth be known I can't remember the last time I saw a dry cleaner . . . computer or otherwise. ;D

SwampDonkey · September 27, 2006, 03:50:10 PM

I keep all my employee info, woodlot plans, timber cruises and GIS Maps backed up on CDROM. Earlier this summer, the power supply went on the old laptop (replaced now) so I had to make a visit to Staples for an upgrade and although I had to take some time to download all the software updates to Quick Books, I had all the sensitive data backed up on CD. I also print weekly payroll reports with every pay period so in case stuff goes poof (on CD even) I can get back on my feet in short order and not loose my employee data.

Texas Ranger · September 27, 2006, 04:20:02 PM

Yep, had all the business files backed up. But, I have some 11 counties (10,000 square miles) on the hard drive in DOQQ formate, I also have the CD's. I am spending today uploading all the CD's to the hard drive. Next will the topo maps for Texas, another day project.

sawguy21 · September 27, 2006, 04:29:28 PM

Oh! That does not sound like fun at all.

Texas Ranger · September 27, 2006, 04:34:46 PM

Yeah, Sawguy, but it wont happen again, I will buy one of the usb port hard drives and back the whole DanG thing up from now on.

JimBuis · September 27, 2006, 05:12:27 PM

You can setup an external harddrive and periodically make an exact copy of your computer's harddrive, programs, operating system, and all. If anything ever happens to your computer's harddrive, all you have to do is exchange the two and its like nothing ever happened.

Jim

Don_Papenburg · September 27, 2006, 10:54:22 PM

What about that nasty virus that screwed up the confuser in the first place? >:(:( :(

Texas Ranger · September 28, 2006, 10:10:42 AM

Guru says no virus. I bought the machine with Windows ME, when XP came out I upgraded. Only to find that there are conflicts between ME and XP. Machine was getting slower and slower, and then quit. BIOS were off, and too much of the hidden crud that some site load you up with, even with fire walls and viruse checkers. Still one problem, I have aerial photography of most of my work area on disk, trying to download to the hard drive and some disks cannot be read. Told guru, and he said bad discs, I still think CD Rom is bad.

SwampDonkey · September 28, 2006, 07:22:09 PM

Texas, I'de advise against using any UDF formatted Rewritable disks if that's what you are using. I had some aerial photos I downloaded off the net with the help of some forum members and irc pals that I lost when the UDF formated disk decided it wasn't gonna be read no more. :-\ I now stick with the old CDR or rewriteable formats. I also now have a SD card that holds 512 Megs, and no floppy drive at all in my new machine. I found floppies to be the least reliable of all. :

I've since recovered the aerial photos when Gerald, at the marketing board, said 'here take these CD's and transfer the photos on your PC'. ;D Well, I'm the one that loaded them onto their system this spring anyway from the government website. ;) They had a highschool student scanning old photos untill I told them to get them off the web already rectified and georeferenced for the NB grid on the GIS. I asked them how in the world were they going to find the photo they needed among 400 scanned images with no index of any kind. Besides, they were going to be pretty useless for GIS work being unrectified. :

rebocardo · September 30, 2006, 05:17:55 PM

> I'de advise against using any UDF formatted Rewritable disks

On the REAL website they advise against using the format because it is only for temporary use and the disks will go bad (not if). Besides the fact the newer REAL drivers you install when using the Real Player nukes the older (UDF) drivers and you can not longer burn the UDF disks anyways!

You can recover the files from a UDF disk, they list a few ways, or you can send it out to be recovered. Basically, the "strength" is lacking, the image of the old file is still there.