07-07-2018, 08:59 AM
Always nasty when a computer fails badly. Fortunately you were able to recover the disk contents.
For those of you who don't, ALWAYS have up to date backups of important files on a physically separate device. I had a recent failure to boot and couldn't recover the C drive. My clone turned out to be unbootable. Ultimately it didn't matter as I did a clean instal of windows and other software. Slow but sure. All my own data is on a separate D drive but even if this had failed there would have been no problem. I do weekly clones of the D drive with Macrium Reflect plus daily incremental backups to a set of memory sticks. All backups are kept in my garage which is over 20m from the house.
So I'm protected against:
Fire (unless it's a neighbourhood wide disaster in which case I've got more to worry about)
Flood (the backups are about 2.5m off the ground and I live virtually on the top of a watershed)
Theft
Disk/PC failure
Malware*
Accidental file deletion or overwrite**
*To a reasonable extent. If something like Cryptolocker got into my system and had a delayed action then the backup clone HDD might also be infected. I keep 4 HDDs and use them in rotation to give enhanced protection
**The commonest failure! So long it's not on a file created that same day before the incremetal backup I can easily revert to the backed up version.
For those of you who don't, ALWAYS have up to date backups of important files on a physically separate device. I had a recent failure to boot and couldn't recover the C drive. My clone turned out to be unbootable. Ultimately it didn't matter as I did a clean instal of windows and other software. Slow but sure. All my own data is on a separate D drive but even if this had failed there would have been no problem. I do weekly clones of the D drive with Macrium Reflect plus daily incremental backups to a set of memory sticks. All backups are kept in my garage which is over 20m from the house.
So I'm protected against:
Fire (unless it's a neighbourhood wide disaster in which case I've got more to worry about)
Flood (the backups are about 2.5m off the ground and I live virtually on the top of a watershed)
Theft
Disk/PC failure
Malware*
Accidental file deletion or overwrite**
*To a reasonable extent. If something like Cryptolocker got into my system and had a delayed action then the backup clone HDD might also be infected. I keep 4 HDDs and use them in rotation to give enhanced protection
**The commonest failure! So long it's not on a file created that same day before the incremetal backup I can easily revert to the backed up version.
www.borinsky.co.uk Jeffrey Borinsky www.becg.tv
