|
Home »
Podcasts
» 2008 Podcasts
Listen to the podcast: Yes, it happens to
me too. Transcript This is Leo Notenboom for askleo.net. Like many of you, I maintain computers for other folks. In particular, I'm the IT guy behind my wife's business and of course her personal computer, a Dell laptop not unlike my own. She uses Outlook, and in the process of performing some maintenance on her computer the other morning I accidentally deleted her PST file which contains all her email. All 800 megabytes of it. And no, it wasn't in the recycle bin, this was a "permanent" delete from within a Windows command shell. "No problem" I thought, a little nervously. "I'll just restore from last night's backup." As I've mentioned here before, I have a fairly extensive backup system at home where in the wee hours of the morning important files are copied from machine to machine to machine, and some even off-site, ensuring that there's a fair amount of redundancy. One "central" machine, my primary desktop, then also does a true full backup using Acronis True Image Home. I've often said that it would take something like four machines failing simultaneously in two different locations for us to actually lose our previous day's email. By now you can see where this is headed. I looked at the backup of my wife's email. It was three months old. For reasons I'd figure out later were related to the wireless network card utilities, my wife's laptop hadn't been getting backed up for the prior three months. As you can imagine, this is where panic starts to set in. My only hope of recovery was an undelete utility. I happened to have a copy of a fairly simply undelete utility called Restoration, so I turned it lose. Much to my relief it did, indeed, find and recover the entire 800 megabyte file. Only then did I tell my wife what was happening. Needless to say, once the restoration was complete I then immediately backed up, for real, and corrected the problems that were preventing the nightly operation. I tell you my embarrassing story simply to remind you:
If it sounds like my backup approach is somewhat complex, well that's because it is. And the more complex it is, the more frequently it needs checking. If you're using a simple backup solution such as an automated tool, then perhaps you won't need to check as often, but I strongly recommend that you check. A backup that isn't working is almost worse than having no backup at all. I'd love to hear what you think. Visit askleo.net and enter 12304 in the go to article number box to access the show notes, the transcript and to leave me a comment. While you're there, browse the hundreds of technical questions and answers on the site. Till next time, I'm Leo Notenboom, for askleo.net. Related:
• Recent Comments
I back up regularly to my external Maxtor, but I also burned all my music and photos to DVD just in case. I also have taken to ordering the cd when I purchase a new game. My friend's computer just crashed and took all their games with it. Posted by: Margaret Louk at March 28, 2008 07:21 PMLeo, that is one of the best - and most effective IT columns I've ever read! Absolutely outstanding! We're all so bloody sharp, and so "in synch" with IT ... and then something very simple reminds us ... we're also HUMAN. Seriously - Congratulations on one of the most "human" IT columns/lessons ever. To answer Diana's question above, the only way to check is to do a real test: restore the data and see if it works. Better to practice now instead of when you really need it, right? Note that this requires some care and some knowledge of the files you're restoring, so you don't trash your system. I have 2 recommendations: 1) read the documentation that comes with the tools you're using, and 2) start out by restoring a simple file or directory that you can afford to lose. Posted by: Mike Williams at March 28, 2008 08:57 PMHi Leo a big thankyou and allso a pat on the back for printing this article and letting the rest of the world know that we are all human and not infallable, even the gurus we look to for help, and for pointing out that PC's dont allways behave as they should. Its no good saying "yes i regually backup",but do we allways check the backup.... i think not. You could have kept quite on that one but choose not to Top Man.. Posted by: Colin at March 29, 2008 12:40 AMMany thanks Leo for this sensitive and revealing article. I'm delighted that you managed to recover the situation.. As for checking that backups actually work, there's a useful feature in Norton Ghost called verify or integrity check. This goes through the motions of restoring a backup image onto a specified hard drive, but doesn't actually change anything or transfer any data. You can use this to check that your restore images are OK. I know you're a fan of Acronis True Image software (which I have also installed), but I don't think Acronis offers a verify facility - any other views? Posted by: Simon Brew at March 29, 2008 02:53 AMA while ago I installed CrapCleaner which unfortunately cleaned out more Cr*p than was intended. so much so my PC would not boot up and I had to use my backup which worked fine but as the last back up was three months previous I lost 3 months of e-mails. If I was to use "Restoration" as Leo did, would I be able to bring back those lost three months of e-mail? David I recommend a minimum of 2 independent backups! Wow, at least mine was only a system problem which was quite a learning experience, after I discovered my image was no good. Actually Acronis True Image does have a verify option but I had not used it. I learned, the hard way, to use it. It's now set on automatic. Posted by: Betty at March 29, 2008 12:50 PMI don't know if this is standard for everyone, but backing up the .PST Outlook file requires the program to be closed. I, too, found this out the hard way. I now have a backup tool (http://www.cobian.se/) than can close programs, do the backup then reopen (if desired). Like Leo said, check to be sure what you want to happen IS happening. Posted by: Bruce Watson at March 29, 2008 03:54 PM"I know you're a fan of Acronis True Image software (which I have also installed), but I don't think Acronis offers a verify facility - any other views?" Acronis does have a verify option. I don't know how it works but every time I do an Image backup I do the Verify Backup to make sure what I just did is good. About a month after I bought Acronis True Image I installed a program that added something to the IE toolbar to allow capturing video from Youtube. It messed up my system and the only way I could find to correct it was to do a restore from the Image I had done a couple days before. Acronis True Image saved me! It is a great program and easy to use.
Post a comment on "Yes, it happens to me too.":
|
Archives Advertisers |
