Computers and Life... part deux

[Got2BeFree]

Do you know what ruins your day? Accidentally deleting the /Desktop folder. Not only do you lose everything in that folder, but you also lose things in other folders too.

It all started when I needed to replace a light switch in my garage. Since my computers are on battery backups, I just killed the power to the garage (which also has the computers). Later, I'm back on the computer and noticed the desktop on the secondary display was wonky, so I start cleaning things up. I go into Configure Desktop and start clicking. For some reason I chose the layout for "folder view" instead of "Desktop". Without thinking, I right clicked on the /Desktop folder on my desktop on the secondary monitor and chose "delete", not "trash". Well, all the stuff on my primary monitor, which is set to "folder view" disappeared! Whoops!

No problem, I thought, I just lost some text files, images, and pdf's. Most everything is kept on another drive since the hard drive meltdown back in March, and accessed through links on the desktop. So I copy over my 4 month old backup of /Desktop and that's when I noticed lots of config files in /.config also disappeared.

I've been spending the past few days getting everything set up again the way I like it.

My next Gambas project will be an app to routinely make backups of my home folder. I know, I can do it using cron and a script, but why do something simple when you can create a Rube Goldberg machine!

[Serban]

Hi, Sholzy!
I feel very deep inside, the feelings you speak about!
It so happens that I was born with a skill I never asked for: thelepathy...
That makes me very sensitive to anyone's feelings and it took me decades to learn something about this...
In communist Romania, asking questions of this kind, led to very bad endings, political jail being the nicest alternative.
So... How did I deal with:

• Drive failure. Had 8 of them already...

• Deletes. That's easy.

BACKUPS.
Use rsync, with LuckyBackup GUI.
Set up multiple tasks, and choose per directory, the ones you change most often. This is how I do it.
Since usually there is only one directory that has daily massive changes, i back it up daily, but takes only some 30" - 90".
If I am too lazy to do some cleaning, the data partition might exceed 4,5 GB and it takes some 180" - 240". That is about 4'.
Yeah. That's it: four minutes, tops!
You can also set some cron job, but I dislike that approach since it forces me to keep the computer running all the day and thus, wear off the components. Mostly, the storage. I already have had enough of that!
Here, in România, we have trouble with the power grid. Very short (mili secs ) voltage pitches, but very often and high values (more than 25% V and over 10% Hz). That is ugly.
I might have to get back to using UPS's, even if I use a laptop now.

DRIVE FAILURE.
That is AWFULLLY painful!
I already lost lots of valuable data so I gues you and I, are on the same page with this..
This is what I've done, so far and its less than two months since I prevented another two external drives failure...

• Download HDSentinel.

Both GUI and CLI do the same thing, but it seems that the CLI does a nicer report, so I use both.
Watch for the "Estimated lifetime". If usage time it is over 20,000 hours, get prepared for a full backup: same LuckyBackup for daily data and CloneZilla, for /(Root)) and /home.
IF this is the case, STOP USING the /home directory. Move to a dedicated partition. I did it years ago and it saves me a lot of trouble, even if I never use it to store anything important. This is done at OS setup time, by choosing a dedicated partition. I use ext2, to avoid wearing off the drive.
Now, for drive maintainance, use GSmartControl. Look for the field that tells the number of hours the drive was powered on.
Again, IF you exceed 20,000 hours, get prepared for full backups.
Avoid keeping the externals working "just to have the files at hand". You'll end up spenting hundreds of euros on storage media and countless losses of data will happen. I've been there, so I know exactly how this goes and where it leads.
Data recovery?
Two caveeats:
1. Recovering 1 TB of lost data, takes something from 40 hours to an indefinitre number of hours, depending on the status of the damaged drive.
It took me some 180 hours trying to recover an archive that was very painful to lose, on a 2 TB drive. I failed. All gone. The data, the time, the nights I spent watching for power failure. I guess you can figure that out.
2. You need storage that equals at least same amount of space as the source drive, and at least +10%, for file operations. Otherwise, you will end up with a "recovery failure" message from PhotoRec (testdrive, it's the same). And!... IF that happens after 180 hours of painful waiting...

BACKUP STRATEGY
(1) Open a text file, and write down a backup strategy.
(2) Print it on a page.
(3) Keep it in a safe place, where is handy to get to.
You'll find out why, after you prevent a massive archive loss.
(4) Keep in mind that "Lifetime warranty" has nothing to do with your age and EVERYTHING to do with the black marketing strategies.