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Disaster Recovery


LSW

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So anyone lost data? I know your out there and likely more of you will.

 

In our case my wife had issues and then the OS would not start and we were offered a recovery service...Oooops... it was not an OS fix it was a factory settings recovery. HP builds in a partition with this ability. I always delete it, my wife did not. So it overwrote all her data in separate partitions I had created and restored the computer to one partition and lots of junk programs.

 

Aside from Data, my wife is a photographer and lost almost 10,000 images of the last 4 years. Ouch!

 

So I take charge (she is a wreck at this point) and visit my old friends at Snapfiles where I start studying recovery programs and choose one that sounds right and got 5 stars from them and 5 from users. Its name is Recuva. It is Freeware, easy to use and figure out in a hurry. It recovered (as far as we can tell) all of her photos off the disk, about 10,000 from our flight from Germany 2006 to a photo of my daughter and some brown bears from last week. Granted, all 10,000 are in one folder so she will have to sort through them all... but heh! It also can recover images from digital camera cards or video cameras as well as of course... written data. It blew me away for a Freeware. NOTE: it will recover what you tell it to or everything. So say images, it gave us all her photos, but also every dash, button, graphic, background found on her PC from every program, game etc. Bit of a mess that, but small price to pay.

 

Of course if you have a camera you know each time you empty it the name/number scheme repeats, you have duplicate names (likely in different folders) so now you have a mess. Enter SnapFiles with AllDup, again pretty easy to figure out and a 5 star freeware. It allowed me to specify folders, set up filters like all images have DSC in them, then it lists the image name and as a tree, all images found and where they are. In the case of images you can click on each and a side window will show you the image so you can compare. Then mark which images and choose to delete, trash, rename or move to another folder as you wish.

 

So I strongly suggest Snapfiles (snapfiles.com/freeware/) for your freeware needs, if you need it they likely have it as well as payware. And for disaster Recovery: AllDup and Recuva.

 

Oh, and check out there Back up programs like DriveImage XL so you don't need those above and a external hard drive would be nice too, they are pretty cheap these days.

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That's good you were able to recover it all. I'm backed up on an external hard drive attached to computer and a 500 gig portable hardrive (size of a deck of cards) not attatched to computer. All my photos videos (pushing over 1 terabite) are backed up at Phanfare (online photo/video storage). After I had a similar experience I got paranoid.

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I used Advance File Recovery. It will recovery the folders as well. Of course some of the folder names gets lost but the files won't be all in one folder.

 

I have several backup methods but the external drive is my preference. I keep daily differential backups that dates back to 7 days and a weekly full backup.

 

I use Cobian Backup because I like the simplicity and it's free.

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Well she went out and bought a Seagate 1.5 Terebyte External HD at COSCO for $99.99. LOL My first PC was 8 GB (1999) and my external HD 250 GB top of the line back then (ca. 2001). Now my iPhone has 8 GB (older model) and my wife is now in the TB world of storage space.

 

We looked a few of them, mostly 500 GB range about the same price. Most all include backup software, auto-sync etc. They can be set to back up or backup/sync changed files whenever not in use. They will even track multiple computers so I will likely do mine on hers as well and use my External for storage.

 

So now when she is sure I have rescued all I can, we will reformat. It lost all the stuff, but does not seem to have formatted over it as it still has only 4 GB free of a (I think) 250 GB HD. So whatever is causing the trouble may still be there. I'm going to format the whole thing, install the damn HP OS and very first thing is format/delete the stupid recovery partition! Then zap all those garbage programs etc. HP forces on you. Get her base stuff installed and back up as well as image it for future re-installation. Then schedule regular backups for her.

 

I wish some law or law suite would force a return to giving us OS disks. I think it is criminal that we pay for an OS but only get a Retail Specific CD or even just a partition! I don't want THEIR choice of software, just the basic OS. Computers are just no fun anymore.

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I wish some law or law suite would force a return to giving us OS disks. I think it is criminal that we pay for an OS but only get a Retail Specific CD or even just a partition! I don't want THEIR choice of software, just the basic OS. Computers are just no fun anymore.

I agree with you. However, you don't have to buy a pc with the venders OEM OS slammed in it with it's own garbage programs. Just buy the barbone kits and get your own full version OS. If a manufacturer you like such as HP does not sell a computer without the OS, then just reformat the drive and add your own OS. Better yet, make the manufactuer's hard drive as slave and put in a new drive with your own OS that way if you should ever need support then all you have to do is make the boot sequence change and boot up the manf's hard drive. Otherwise, they will probably not give you support.

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Better yet, make the manufactuer's hard drive as slave and put in a new drive with your own OS that way if you should ever need support then all you have to do is make the boot sequence change and boot up the manf's hard drive. Otherwise, they will probably not give you support.

 

 

You sneaky little !&@$=@8, now that is a nasty little idea that I love! Brilliant!

 

My Laptop is more or less free of HP's stuff because I installed Vista from the upgrade disk sent to me (I bought it just before Vista came out so got a free upgrade). But to spend money on an OS when one came with the PC, my wife won't go for it, hence imaging it when I am finished. She could use a new HD though, it is only 250 GB.

 

I'll have to think about it, her tower power button jams, she has an older model square flat screen (I hate it, my laptops and both screens at work are all wide screen), she could use a new PC in general, give this to the kid. Course my Laptops are all busted in some way so need a new one in theory. If I get the new job, I'll have to grab a Mac while I am in Texas.

 

 

Oh, we do not have much in the way of computer sails in Juneau, so no empty computers to be had, they are all already set ones from Walmarkt, COSCO & Fed Meyers. Many internet places down south either refuse to ship to Alaska or charge us International shipping fees. If only those Canadians would finally move out or just join us as new states, they are constantly in Alaska's way. Generally I seem to have a choice between HP or Acer computers here. Everything is tougher in Alaska! tongue.gif

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