Hard Disk Crash.

[silo]

Well, there you go...I knew sooner or later it was bound to happen. My HD crashed and I lost well over 300 hours with FsP. I was lucky I
was able to recover everything else! I find it amazing that the section hit the hardest is exactly where FS2004 was installed. In my
Program Files folder the last folder I can read starts with an "I". I'm trying to use different softwares and see if I can get something back
but in the meantime:

1) I bought a new HD and reinstalled everything. If I start flying again after creating a new company, will I be able to merge the new
database with the old one (if I will ever be able to get it back)? Or I will loose the new company once I cut and paste the old one into FsP?

2) Is the "Virtual Airline Demo" reversible, meaning is it possible to download my flights from there and put them back into FsP?

3) Is there any way to read my backed up database to see exactly how many hours I have in there without using FsP?

Thanx for the help.

[silo]

Yieppiaio! I was able to recover the database!

And that was the last piece missing. I was lucky this time....



Post Edited ( 11-17-05 15:48 )

[SaVas]

That reminds me I have a lot of payware I need to burn to CD *Not so joyous*

[silo]

A dvd burner would help, they are so cheap today. I know it's boring but you'll be glad if it'll ever happen to you.



Post Edited ( 11-17-05 16:40 )

[SaVas]

silo wrote:
A dvd burner would help, they are so cheap today. I know it's boring but you'll be glad if it'll ever happen to you.

Hmmm thats actually a good idea instead of having 400 freaking payware addon CDs lol

[DanSteph]

crash disk happen, I lost one time 6 month work... since I
burn CD-R but it become boring as backup size increase,
the backup take now a very long time with my old CD burner.

So after reading this thread I just bought a DVD Burner BenQ DW 1620Pro...

Congrat for recovery Savas

Dan

[Andreas Schmitz-Schunken]

Hello!

I have two 120GB Hds and use one as a "ghost"... This means both disks are 100% the same.... if one fried.... so what...

Cheers!

Andreas

[DanSteph]

Andreas Schmitz-Schunken wrote:
Hello!
I have two 120GB Hds and use one as a "ghost"... This means both disks are 100% the same.... if one fried.... so what...
Cheers!
Andreas

RAID5 or manual copy ?

Dan

[Dutch64]

Set up as RAID1 I guess?

[silo]

Raid is a very good idea but it slows down the system a bit. Well mirroring at least, if you do striping it should be actually faster but then
you don't have any back up. Not Unless you do RAID10 I guess. If you had a 2nd HD you could create a folder on it and keep it
syncronized with whatever you want to back up on the 1st HD.

Dan it was me who almost lost 316hrs of FsP! And guess why? 'cause I also got lazy in doing backups, even on DVDs!
By the way the burner you bought has got really good reviews here. Let us know how you like it.

Look Savas how many ideas here for backups. By the way congrats for reaching the highest level in FsP! I was browsing around and
noticed your post.

[DanSteph]

Protection of data whatewer you do is a difficult task.

If you don't create anything it remain simple, just keep the install CD
of the software you use and voila. If you create only excell and word
documents you need only a 3 1/4 disk to save them

But if you create prog, image, sound all things that take place and that you
can't recover because they exist only on your HD and take a huge place
it become a pain.

Professionnaly on the AS400 I worded during 10 years we simply made
a save on magnetic tape of all the working "folder" each night.. (one daily backup taking about 2 hours)
and the whole machine each month.
We had also a big "anti fire safe" storage for all those magnetic tape that we keep 10 years...

Not really practicall for a home user but the only reliable solution to keep safe backup.

The main problem of ghost HD (RAID1/5) is that they don't keep a trace of old
version of files... if you mess a file on the main disk it will be also messed on the ghost.
Say you have a project with a nice paint you worked 2 month on it... make an error
with brush that repaint all in black, save and voila. not trace of your two month work.
(of course no creators keep only one file, usually they save with incremental name
but the problem of that you fill your HD after some month only)

All other solution (tape, CD-R, DVD-R) take time and are boring, as they are boring
we tend to not make them often, you end usually with a backup two month old when
your HD fail... Not to speak about DVD/CD that you can't read anymore.

A second disk with manual copy ? mhhh yes but depend how you organise that it
become a pain after a while, and it take time and require manual intervention...
what if you forget a crucial file ? Also same problem as before...


In fact unless they find a new storage media with no mechanic that can save several
GB (or TB) on a very small box and that can transfert those TB instantly there is no
really practicall, fast and full safe solution yet for home user....

It would be soo cool: you insert the lilte box in a slot, you press a button, your whole
computer saved 2 seconds later... say 30 small box one for each day of the month....
too cool

Dan



Post Edited ( 11-17-05 22:07 )

[silo]

They are getting there...Samsung (I think) is developing a 32GB memory card for...mmmh...$1500.00 maybe?

http://www.cdr-info.com/Sections/News/De...wsId=14991

And toshiba has a 5GB solid state Hard Disk Drive , if I'm not mistaken.

I absolutely agree with you. When I started I was doing a backup a week. Than once a month. By the time the HD crashed on me my last
backup was 2 months old, at least.



Post Edited ( 11-17-05 23:28 )

[DanSteph]

silo wrote:
I absolutely agree with you. When I started I was doing a backup a week. Than once a month. By the time the HD crashed on me my last
backup was 2 months old, at least.

This is why for FSP as well as several other things I have developed my own internal
solution, for example DevBackup: one button at the end of day and you project is saved
with an automatic incremental name on another HD, no headeach, no custom format,
no config and take about 5 seconds only (the program open instantly, copy take 2-5 secondes).
I ended this years with 379 FsP backup and I never loose any FsP files and never forgot
to do a backup as it's really simple and fast.

Simplicity & speed that's the key for backups.

I think that most existing solution are huge, complicated, fat, slow and often
with custom format that you can't restore without using their product.
What really bother me is the time that many utilities take to launch... 5-15 secondes
is too much for me...

About flash card, capacity is here, now it miss transfert speed and low cost


PS: about utility I wonder where normal people save their 12'000 password for
various site ? plain text file ? third party program ? or do they use always
the same ?


Dan



Post Edited ( 11-18-05 00:51 )

[WBHoenig]

I have 5 gigs of docs and about 2 of FS, so I use an external USB 2.0 80 gig HD. Works like a charm

[silo]

Well Dan and WB don't forget that, altough a very practical and quick solution, you are still backing up to an Hard Disk. And they can fail at
any time without notice. My HD was working perfectly: no rattling or high pitch noices or any unusual sign...it just failed! I also have an
external HD for backups but I try to burn DVDs every once in a while for the most important files.

I had a customer last year, owner of a medium size business with about 20 PCs and a server. He called me one day crying that the
server wouldn't start. So when I got there and took a look, I gave him the bad news...the HD had failed. Now, the server was doing
automatic incremental backups to a second HD (external) so we didn't worry too much. This guy had bought the server from an unknown
local company about a couple of years earlier. They gave him a very small HD (30GB!!! for a server!!!), no RAID whatsoever, and most
importantly NO DISCS for reinstalling Windows or any other preinstalled software! So we now have an HD full of backups we don't have
access to, made with (I believe) BackupExec. He had to pay for the backup software again. And it took me forever to restore the company
files, comparing to a drag and drop or copy solution.

Regarding the passwords: try RoboForm for Windows. It works with FireFox, Mozilla, IE, and Netscape and keeps track of all your
passwords, credit cards, bank accounts, etc. and can be encrypted to keep them safe. Includes a password generator to generate
random text strings and pastes them to the clipboard for easy insertion in both the web page and RoboForm itself. Free version is full
function except that it keeps a limited number of passwords. Full version is only $35 with free upgrades.



Post Edited ( 11-18-05 17:01 )