Hard Drive Crash – Not If But When

Posted on | March 30, 2006 | Leave a Comment

Usually, itâ€™s going to come at the most inopportune time. Of course, if you work online, I canâ€™t really think of a time it would be convenient. So there you are blasting along all day, getting loads of things done, and now itâ€™s late, youâ€™re tired, and itâ€™s decision time. Really should do a backup, but heck, Iâ€™m sure itâ€™s fine, Iâ€™ll just do one tomorrow.

Then the next morning what happens when booting up? Oh gee, itâ€™s a friendly message saying the boot sector canâ€™t be found. And so it starts. Forget whatever you had planned for the day and probably the next several, because itâ€™s time to troubleshoot, repair and reload. Donâ€™t you just love technology?

If youâ€™ve lived on a computer for any length of time, youâ€™ve probably been there. Actually I was fortunate this time, because for some reason, Iâ€™d gone ahead and done the backup the night before. Donâ€™t know why. Hadnâ€™t done one in a week, but for some reason felt compelled. Sometimes, fate smiles a little before it kicks you.

Actually, couldnâ€™t tell right away if it was hardware or software causing the problem. Conflicting error messages didnâ€™t exactly help, but eventually narrowed it down to the drive. As lousy a predicament as this was itâ€™s still better than when the BIOS gave up the ghost on my last machine. That combined with conflicts with the RAM itself or the slots, sent that laptop to the graveyard. The cost of a new one just wasnâ€™t all that much more than repairing the old. Suppose I shouldnâ€™t complain since it did last several years.

So what happened? Who knows. I suspect heat eventually took a toll since I tend to be a multi-tasking junkie. Constantly running multiple local applications concurrently with around 6 to 8 browsers tends to get it hot enough to fry eggs. As handy as laptops are, they just canâ€™t dissipate heat all that well.

I was fortunate also, in not only having done a backup of data files, but also had access to another machine. At least mission critical activities could go on. However, itâ€™s just a pain to go through the repair process. Having spent time diagnosing, you then have to order and wait for parts to arrive. Then comes the rebuild.

If you use Windows, the initial reload isnâ€™t that bad. But if your install disk is a year or two old, like mine, you get the thrill of utilizing the wonderful Windows Update process for several hours of enjoyment. It canâ€™t pull down the latest stuff all at once and install. Oh no, first come the 40 to 60 patches for service pack 1a, then some more updates, and finally you get to service pack 2 and all itâ€™s layers. All together, plan on literally several hours to get through it â€“ and thatâ€™s with a high-speed connection. If youâ€™re still on dial-up, forget it.

In fact reloading software and data is a snap compared to getting Windows up and happy. Probably only 10% to 15% of the overall process. Drivers and setting up other external devices and connections may take another 20% to 25%. All the rest is Windows.

Any lessons to be learned â€“ or re-affirmed? You bet. They can be summed up in one word â€“ redundancy! Backups go without saying. Having a second drive would be good, but not near as much as another computer. Not many of us living on laptops bother with docking stations to sync with servers, but if youâ€™ve got, use it. Likewise, if you generally work off a server, youâ€™re pretty well covered, as long as you update to that server, and donâ€™t leave the latest version solely on your local machine.

For the rest of us whoâ€™ve become self-contained and wedded to total mobility, we need to stay self-reliant. You can do backups any number of ways â€“ the key is to do them. Some folks are fans of tape and other media systems for doing full and incremental backups, and that works pretty good as long as you donâ€™t travel a lot and access to those systems is convenient. I personally prefer CDâ€™s, DVDâ€™s or jump drives.

I donâ€™t bother backing up anything but data. Not including everything else makes the process much faster, and quite frankly if it canâ€™t be done quick, most of us wonâ€™t do it frequently enough. Make it easy by keeping all the files you work with in your own set of folders instead of letting Windows and other programs spread it all out according to their own strange ideas of organization. Much easier to be sure you get it all.

For the rest, keep all your original operating system, drivers, and systems software CDâ€™s handy, along with copies of all software you normally use. Since we buy so much software online now, also make sure you keep a record of any software unlock keys. One hint here â€“ write them down somewhere.

I hate writing things down â€“ thatâ€™s why I have a computer. However, I needed the unlock key to re-install Norton Anti-Virus before I got back on the internet, and I had stored that stuff in an Excel spreadsheet. Guess what? Canâ€™t read excel without the software installed, so had to stop and re-install MS Office so I could read the key.

Anyhow, things are up and running again, and nothing seems to have suffered too much due to the distractions of the downtime. Plus it was probably useful to have gotten yet another wake-up call reminder to not slack off on doing back-ups. So if youâ€™ve been ignoring some computer housekeeping lately, watch out, you could be next â€“ are you ready?