Hard drive dead, no backup!

Most of you know that this blog discusses computer related topics such as troubleshooting, virus protection and system recovery. There are more topics as well and in the system recovery category, I guess I should discuss more on hard drive backups. About two weeks ago, my 1TB hard drive died and I was unable to recover all my data (more on this in a minute). I had no recent backup stored somewhere else so I had to realize that I had lost that data forever unless I were to pay for a data recovery company to attempt to recover my data for me but those places are usually very expensive. After thinking about that option for a few days, I realized that 99% of my data was not critical to begin with so I began to relax. My wife on the other hand realized the fact that most of our recent pictures of our family had been lost because she was copying them to my hard drive.Being in the IT industry for over 10 years now, you would think I would know to back up my data on a regular basis. Truth is, I do know it, but was just lazy enough to think it would not happen to me. Anyway......I learned my lesson.

So, after she told me that, I decided to attempt to recover the data. I hooked up my hard drive with an external USB connector that allowed to me to see some of the data but not all of it. I recovered most of the pictures that she saved but the rest of the hard drive was corrupt. She is happy and now I will discuss what I should have done from the start:

1) Backup data regularly! This is essential for critical data such as financial and personal documents. There are multiple ways to backup data and for the sake time, I would recommend for starters, just use an external USB hard drive. 

2) Backup your backup data regularly!  What does this mean? It basically means to keep multiple hard drive backups. Why, because that shiny new external drive that you just purchased could go bad at any time too. So the best way to keep your data safe is to have multiple backups available.

3) Take advantage of free online hard drive backup options.  There are multiple online backup sites these days so I will just recommend a few that I have heard of that again are FREE up to a certain amount of data. If you want to back up a huge chunk of hard drive data, you will have to cough up some cash to do so with these sites. 

 ***Warning*** Never use an online site to backup certain critical data if you do not feel comfortable that your data will be safe or not. (Most) of these companies do encrypt the data that they backup but it is online and using their storage servers so just be careful on what you decide to backup. A website that I would recommend is Sugarsync. They accomplish the following:

It will automatically synchronize/backup your documents and has the security features below:

- Files are transmitted encrypted (128 bit AES) via SSL using a once only key.

- At the SugarSync end they are stored encrypted on one server and the keys stored on another.

- The keys are random and not generated from email addresses.

- Keys are accessible to some SugarSync employees, hence also files could be provided by SugarSync in response to a court order or search warrant.

- There is no encryption key stored on your computer.

You just select folders to be synced using check boxes and exclude sub folders not to be synced. For those wanting a special folder like Dropbox (another popular option), SugarSync also provides one called Magic Briefcase and there is a non-synced Web Archive.

In the end, Dell replaced my hard drive under warranty since it was less than 3 years old, but recovering all of my data would have cost me anywhere between $300-$2,000 depending on how bad the condition of the drive is. 

What do you use for data backups? Would you consider using an online backup solution? 


     

HP System Recovery Actually Works

Most name brand PCs out there come with some type of System Recovery feature. I recently repaired a co-worker's PC by using the HP system Recovery option by pressing F10 during the initial HP boot screen. Basically, it was a last resort option for me. I tried every computer troubleshooting technique that I knew to fix this problem which happened to be the fact that the PC would not boot completely to the desktop. No icons or shortcuts, just a desktop background and that's it. I tried safe-mode, last-known good configuration, XP System Restore and nothing worked. I even tried creating a new user profile......same problem. I knew that I could still run the HP System Recovery option so I went ahead and backed up all of the data on another hard drive. I always back up the data first, just in case something goes wrong.

The next step was to restore the data. I reinstalled the hard drive, then powered on the PC. I pressed F10 to begin the HP System Recovery process. During the process, I was reminded that the data would be lost Windows XP would be reinstalled along with any original HP applications that came with the PC during initial purchase. All other applications would have to be reinstalled. The whole process took one hour from start to finish.

Then to my surprise, when I returned to check the PC, all of the data was still there! And the System Recovery process completed successfully. Maybe I did not read the entire warning message correctly but I thought the data would be deleted. It saved my 3 hours of restoring the data. Everything was then back to normal. My co-worker was happy and so was I!

Have you had any success restoring PCs? Let me know.

WhoCrashed tool diagnoses BSOD

During a recent Blue Screen of Death, (a.k.a BSOD), I was doing some research in Google when I came across a repair tool called WhoCrashed. When a system crashes, it leaves behind something called a “crash dump” usually in the form of a BSOD, (which means Blue Screen of Death). This crash dump contains information about what happened and in order to read it on a system you need to download and install Microsoft's debugging tools, its dependencies called “symbols” and run some commands. WhoCrashed is designed to read the crash dump files with a single click. Just open it, press “Analyze” and it will tell you what driver/hardware caused the BSOD.While it wont tell you exactly what happened, it lists a hardware error message or a driver file that failed which you can Google and find the cause of the BSOD.








Download from Official Site -716kb

More information: Resplendence.com

System Recovery Options

Today I wanted to discuss some computer system recovery options available to most people. Most IT departments probably have these tools readily available for use but home users may not know what tools are available out there. I am only going to discuss tools that I have personally used myself. I normally do not promote anything unless I know enough about the product or service being promoted. So, without any further delay, here is today's System Recovery Option:

EBCD is a bootable CD, intended for system recovery in the case of software or hardware faults. It is able to create backup copies of normally working system and restore system to saved state. It contains the best system software ever created, properly compiled and configured for the maximum efficient use.

EBCD will be very useful when you need to:

*** Copy/move files (with long names, not necessary in CP437 encoding) from/to the disk but OS which can handle them (windows, Linux...) cannot boot. In particular, you may create a backup copy of normally installed and configured Windows and later restore Windows from such backup copy. So, in the case of fault OS itself and all software and its settings can be restored in 5-10 minutes.

*** Perform emergency boot of Windows NT / 2000 / XP. When the loader of this OS on the hard disk is damaged or misconfigured, you are able to load OS using another, standalone loader from this CD.

*** Recover master boot record of HDD. This allows to boot OS after incorrect uninstallation of custom loader (LILO, for example), which made all OS on your PC not bootable.

*** Delete, move, copy to file (image) and re-create partition from file. Image transfer over network is also supported: so you may configure one PC and then make contents of hard disks of other PCs same as contents of the hard disk of the first one.

*** Change password of any user, including administrator of Windows NT/2000/XP OS. You do not need to know the old password.

*** Recover deleted file, even file re-deleted from Windows Recycle Bin, and, in contrast, wipe single file or a whole disk so that it will be impossible to recover it in any way.

*** Recover data from accidentally formatted disk. Sometimes it helps to recover data from the disk, damaged by a virus.

*** Recover data from a floppy disk, which is not readable by OS. Format 3.5" disk for 1.7 Mb size.

Download EBCD here: EBCD Homepage

I've use EBCD numerous times to solve PC issues at work and at home. I've been able to recover data for clients that could not be recovered any other way.

Do you know of any other System Recovery Options available?