Phil Bradley - Internet Consultant. Internet search, web
design/optimization
Recovering from a hard drive or hard disk crash is not always a
problem. This short article covers some of the things you can do to ensure that
a hard disk failure is not a total disaster
About 3 months ago I bought myself a nice new Dell machine - an
XPS Generation 4 machine if you're interested. It's a very nice computer and I
was very happy with it. There was only one slight concern - every now and then
when I rebooted, it would take a few seconds longer than I thought it should to
get me back into Windows. Sometimes a program would also take a few seconds
longer to load than I felt it should. However, I dismissed it as probably
nothing.
Not too long ago we had a bad storm, and the power went out for
a few seconds, and then came back on again, and the pc rebooted. I tried to get
into a program to continue working, but the whole thing froze on me. When I
rebooted it took over 6 minutes to bring up my desktop wallpaper, and another
10 minutes after that to bring up the icons. I tried to get into Word, but it
took 45 minutes before the program opened and even then I couldn't load any of
my files.
This was not good news. I rebooted and went into the
diagnostics and setup programs and ran some tests. They all came back with one
message 'Sorry mate, but your hard disk is no more. Get yourself a new one.' I
rang up Dell Customer Support and they confirmed it - the hard drive was fried.
They arranged for someone to come out the next day with a replacement. Not only
was the machine still under warranty but I'd also paid extra for next day on
site support. Tip One: Get next day support. It costs, but it's worth it -
how long can you afford to be without your pc?
Engineer arrived and
after the usual cup of tea he installed the new drive and then said 'Have you
got your install discs available?' I said 'What if I haven't?' and he said
'Then we have a problem.' Luckily (or sensibly!) I keep all the discs in their
own little box, properly labelled. Tip Two: Keep everything to hand and well
labelled. It's a two minute job, but can save you hours of searching later if
you need them.
I let the engineer do all the basic re-install of the
operating system and software, while I kept an eye on exactly what he was
doing. He left with a cheery 'All you have to do now is put everything back!'
This, of course, is where we have the problem - what did I have to put back?
The short answer of course was 'everything else!' The first thing I did was get
back on the Internet; this was easy, since I have a BT Voyager router, so I
just plugged the pc back in, clicked on Explorer and there was the net again.
The first thing I did was download Firefox again, and reinstall my favourite
extensions, which took a while, but wasn't exactly hard. Next thing was to get
all my bookmarks back. Luckily I had copies saved in two places:
Backflip, and
My Bookmarks so it was just a question
of importing and setting them back up again. Once more, no big deal. I missed a
few of the more recent ones, but anything important I've saved as
Furled pages or I made mention of them in my
Weblog. Tip Three: Keep
backup copies of favourites or bookmarks. They're one thing you'll almost
always forget to do, but you'll really miss them if you
don't!
Having got that sorted, I then need to turn to other
important files. All my presentations were backed up on my webspace, so it was
just a matter of loading my FTP package
Filezilla and grabbing them
again. Most of them I already had anyway, since I store them on my USB memory
stick, just in case I need them. Tip Four: Get a memory stick and copy the
really important stuff onto it. They're not expensive and have a lot of space,
so it's worthwhile.
Most of my other files were backed up onto an
external hard drive. This was particularly useful since all I had to do was
plug it into my laptop and carry on working. I did however lose some files,
since I hadn't backed them up for a few days. Tip Five: remember to back up
regularly!
The thing that probably took the longest was just to
reinstall all the different packages that I use. Collecting them again wasn't
too much of a problem, since I had them on disc (see tip two) or I had the
install files backed up onto the external drive, so I didn't need to wander
around the net trying to find them again. Tip Six: keep installation
programs safe; if they're taking up space archive them, but don't throw them
away.
Of course, there was some stuff that I didn't back up, most
importantly of which was my email. Consequently, if you're expecting a reply
from me and don't get it, this is the reason! I just forgot the email; it's
something that I work with all the time, and I just missed the obvious! Tip
Seven: Don't miss the obvious. Check what you're doing during the day, and if
there's something you use a lot, make sure you've backed it up. Do not let
familiarity breed contempt.
However, having said that, I do use my
Gmail account quite a lot, so I still had access to some of my mail
there.
I had also forgotten to back up a couple of games that I was
playing, but that wasn't a big deal and just meant that I could start all over
again.
So, all in all, it was a nuisance that the drive died, but it
could have been much worse than it was. It's a pain to keep backing things up,
but it's even more of a pain not to. Tip Eight: If your hard drive died this
minute - how much of a problem would it be. Spend a few moments now working
that out, and then take immediate steps to ensure that if the unthinkable
happens, it's no more than a nuisance, rather than a full blow
disaster.
