[Ti] Mac is completely Down (Platinum Powerbook 1g mem)

[David DelMonte]

I'm in the same place as you Rod. Last week I lost three hard drives.  
I have a UPS device but something happened - I have no idea what.  
BUT. I was not only backed up once but several times. However these  
days, I have the following things to add to your comments.

1, One backup copy is not enough. Sometimes the restore function  
crashes the backup copy (notoriously with error -36) and it's easy to  
lose a single backup.

2. Files are getting bigger and bigger. I'm at the point where 300GB  
drives are not big enough for my multimedia data and backup is taking  
the form of putting chunks of data in different places. (The all eggs  
in one basket principle comes to mind).

3. I have to remember that while my wife and I have separate desktop  
machines, we share a powerbook, and the number of times we tread on  
each other is a pain. In the latest catastrophe, we lost four days of  
her email. Still stings even if I got the rest back.

4. I find it helpful to have a printed checklist of file locations  
and backup strategies.

That's all. Now to plug everything in at once and see what happens.

David


On Oct 1, 2006, at 12:59 PM, Rod Duncan wrote:

> Agree with both Lisbeth and John Griffin on this.
>
> First attempt to fully backup before attempting to use DiskWarrior.  
> I am not a huge fan of TechTool Pro except for identifying hardware  
> issues but couldn't and wouldn't try without DiskWarrior. After  
> Apple's Disk First Aid, a and then a separate DVD boot disk repair,  
> DiskWarrior is the next arrow out of the quiver. It has *always*  
> fixed every problem that other software utilities couldn't. It  
> needs to be run off any firewire connected Mac or bootable DVD for  
> your Mac.
>
> Granted, I am ALWAYS fully backed up with scheduled daily/nightly  
> mirror backups of all my systems. "What's the difference between a  
> car crash and a HD crash? With a HD crash, you know you're dead!"   
> I learned a valuable lesson after a close call with a HD failure.  
> Years ago, (Nov.1988) when a 60MB SuperMac external SCSI drive (yes  
> that was 60MB not GB) started acting flaky and had to return it for  
> warranty coverage. The drive via a Mac SE (with two floppy drives)  
> had been religiously and fully backed up with the use of *85*  
> floppy disks. Well, it had grown to 85 floppies (800K disks) with  
> its dynamic sized backup. I used an early DiskFit program which was  
> a forerunner to Retrospect. The warranty SuperMac drive returned  
> completely replaced, formatted and devoid of *any* of my previous  
> data. I sat down and ran DiskFit and fully restored the HD with  
> those 85 (800K) floppies. That close brush with disaster forever  
> burned the backup - BACKUP mantra into my mind. Also realized how  
> fortunate I was with not one floppy failing when needed. And we all  
> remember how notoriously unreliable floppies could be. I did use  
> Sony and TDK floppies and they were the best quality of the day.
>
> If you can't backup or don't have access to serious and more  
> expensive data recovery software. Don't erase (reformat) your drive  
> without using DiskWarrior. As many of us know it creates a new  
> directory and doesn't attempt to fix the old one. It is marvelous  
> software from Alsoft. http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/ read the  
> reviews on their site and directions for use.
>
> Apologize about the "memory lane" backup story but got feeling  
> melancholy. Must be the approach of fall.
>
> And finally... Good Luck!
> Rod
>
>>
>> I have nothing against DiskWarrior or Techtool, but I would not  
>> use any of them on a failing disk until I had done recovery effort  
>> for data I don't have a backup for.
>>
>> SubRosaSoft <http://www.subrosasoft.com/>
>> Data Rescue II <http://www.prosofteng.net/>
>>
>> Lisbeth
>> <http://homepage.mac.com/holisticum/> updat 050215
>> <http://www.got-a-mac.org> medlemssida för Got-a-Mac (Mug in  
>> Gothenburg)
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