One can never have too many backups
Sep 26, 2017 17:08:33 #
I suddenly encountered a few strange behaviors on my desktop Win 10 PC. This led to an unexpected inability to boot to Windows. My monitors had constant flickering and no desktop. I tried safe mode and a few other recovery methods - no success. This is an experience I had two weeks ago, over a period of 4 days and I've forgotten many of the details and steps I took.
I use Acronis backup software and am religious about backing up data and my 3 internal drives. I have 3 external drives for backing up. As an added measure of security I also backup my drives to the Acronis Cloud. I have unlimited storage. Now comes the fun!!
I have my C drive (OS) entirely backed up to one of my externals and the cloud. In the past, I've recovered my entire C drive with Acronis. This should be easy. Catch 22 - I cannot boot to Windows, so I cannot use Acronis to recovery my C drive. But, I've not lost the battle. I have an Acronis bootable media on a flash drive. I boot to it, open Acronis and attempt to recover my C drive from one of my externals. Looks easy, right? Nope - the files on the drive are corrupt and I cannot recover my C drive. (Initially I thought the external went "south" It did not I was able to refomat and am using it.) Wait, I have the drive backed up to the Cloud. It's a very large file and will probably take many hours. (Fortunately I have my laptop.) I initiate the recovery and go to sleep. I wake up to a stalled, timed out recovery. I try it 10 or 15 times with no success.
OK, so I'll use a Windows 10 bootable media. I can reinstall Windows, but I'll lose my programs. Wait! I'll first try reinstalling Win 10, load Acronis and try to recover the Cloud backup. Sounds good. I do a clean install of Win 10, load Acronis and attempt a Cloud recovery of C. No good - stalls out. While all of this is going on, I do no less than a dozen chats with Acronis over a period of three days, using my laptop.
Final solution: Reinstalled my programs - easy because my downloads folder, which contains all the installation files, is stored on one of my internal data drives (not C). Some of you may also want to consider that an option or at least make a copy of the folder and store it. It only takes me about 2 hours to get back up to speed. Not bad and I eliminated lots of "junk".
Conclusion: I purchased a 4th external (2 - 3 TB, one 4 TB and now a 6 TB) and backup my three internal drives on the new 6TB. I'll keep that in reserve as a "just in case".
Moral: One never has too many backups.
Requests: Please, please do not reply with suggestions about Apple products, Mac,.. I love Windows.
I'm not looking for responses with suggestions about what I might have done. It's done and I'm happy.
I'm sharing this to stress the importance of backing up your data and drives. I thought I had it covered! I did not!
Mark
I use Acronis backup software and am religious about backing up data and my 3 internal drives. I have 3 external drives for backing up. As an added measure of security I also backup my drives to the Acronis Cloud. I have unlimited storage. Now comes the fun!!
I have my C drive (OS) entirely backed up to one of my externals and the cloud. In the past, I've recovered my entire C drive with Acronis. This should be easy. Catch 22 - I cannot boot to Windows, so I cannot use Acronis to recovery my C drive. But, I've not lost the battle. I have an Acronis bootable media on a flash drive. I boot to it, open Acronis and attempt to recover my C drive from one of my externals. Looks easy, right? Nope - the files on the drive are corrupt and I cannot recover my C drive. (Initially I thought the external went "south" It did not I was able to refomat and am using it.) Wait, I have the drive backed up to the Cloud. It's a very large file and will probably take many hours. (Fortunately I have my laptop.) I initiate the recovery and go to sleep. I wake up to a stalled, timed out recovery. I try it 10 or 15 times with no success.
OK, so I'll use a Windows 10 bootable media. I can reinstall Windows, but I'll lose my programs. Wait! I'll first try reinstalling Win 10, load Acronis and try to recover the Cloud backup. Sounds good. I do a clean install of Win 10, load Acronis and attempt a Cloud recovery of C. No good - stalls out. While all of this is going on, I do no less than a dozen chats with Acronis over a period of three days, using my laptop.
Final solution: Reinstalled my programs - easy because my downloads folder, which contains all the installation files, is stored on one of my internal data drives (not C). Some of you may also want to consider that an option or at least make a copy of the folder and store it. It only takes me about 2 hours to get back up to speed. Not bad and I eliminated lots of "junk".
Conclusion: I purchased a 4th external (2 - 3 TB, one 4 TB and now a 6 TB) and backup my three internal drives on the new 6TB. I'll keep that in reserve as a "just in case".
Moral: One never has too many backups.
Requests: Please, please do not reply with suggestions about Apple products, Mac,.. I love Windows.
I'm not looking for responses with suggestions about what I might have done. It's done and I'm happy.
I'm sharing this to stress the importance of backing up your data and drives. I thought I had it covered! I did not!
Mark
Sep 27, 2017 02:31:00 #
Backup's/recovery is something a lot of people don't take serious until shit hits the fan
I've been stressed before. That extra external drive, is my insurance over the insurance. So I share your thought
Glad to hear it worked out for you
C
I've been stressed before. That extra external drive, is my insurance over the insurance. So I share your thought
Glad to hear it worked out for you
C
Sep 27, 2017 06:10:54 #
Sep 27, 2017 07:22:56 #
catalint wrote:
Backup's/recovery is something a lot of people don't take serious until shit hits the fan
I've been stressed before. That extra external drive, is my insurance over the insurance. So I share your thought
Glad to hear it worked out for you
C
I've been stressed before. That extra external drive, is my insurance over the insurance. So I share your thought
Glad to hear it worked out for you
C
Mark
Sep 27, 2017 07:49:05 #
berchman
Loc: South Central PA
markngolf wrote:
I have an Acronis bootable media on a flash drive. I boot to it, open Acronis and attempt to recover my C drive from one of my externals. Looks easy, right? Nope - the files on the drive are corrupt and I cannot recover my C drive.
I have been thinking of purchasing Acronis, but it doesn't seem to have done what I would have expected from it, namely, make an image of my C drive and restore it. Why were the files on your external drive corrupt?
Sep 27, 2017 08:14:44 #
Acronis, does do that and very well. I have recovered or increased hard drive size and recovered the image. I cannot tell you why they were corrupt. I do not know. It is possible that my unexplained difficulty with the Win 10 installation and subsequent incremental backup was corrupted. The file in the Cloud is not corrupted. I do not think Acronis is at fault and I highly recommend it as a backup system. I've used it for 10+ years.
Mark
Mark
berchman wrote:
I have been thinking of purchasing Acronis, but it doesn't seem to have done what I would have expected from it, namely, make an image of my C drive and restore it. Why were the files on your external drive corrupt?
Sep 27, 2017 09:53:35 #
I have a spare hard drive (no enclosure) and from time to time I make a full clone of my hard drive and put it away in a fireproof safe and I still do my weekly backups on an external drive. If my drive goes away all I have to do is swap drives and I'm back on line in less than 15 min. Never had to use it but I feel it is like insurance, might not ever use it but is great if you do need it. At one time my sister and I sent our drives to each other in case something happened to our computer or home, but we only did that once now We each have each other's very old hard drive with very old operating systems.
Sep 27, 2017 12:06:07 #
Sep 27, 2017 15:23:34 #
Sep 27, 2017 15:26:45 #
Thanks for the meaningless & unrelated comment.
Mark
Mark
Earworms wrote:
Ah, the joys of using Windows!
Sep 27, 2017 15:27:35 #
Thanks for the 2nd meaningless & unrelated comment.
Mark
Mark
BBurns wrote:
Another Wonderful Microsoft Moment!
Sep 27, 2017 15:41:12 #
markngolf wrote:
Apparently you missed the sarcasm. In IT where I was we had a nickname for glitches that sometimes occurred in the Microsoft environment, aka Undocumented features, failures for no apparent reason. Thanks for the 2nd meaningless & unrelated comment. Mark
As a parody on the old photo events, Kodak Moments, we nicknamed them Microsoft Moments.
Sorry for the misunderstanding. I was trying to state I felt your pain. I too, use Acronis and you are correct. You can never have too many backups.
Sep 27, 2017 16:38:52 #
WOW!!! What an effort it took. I agree that backups are important. I had my primary hard drive konk out on me last year and was hit with a blue screen virus back in July (IE: recovery X2). My backup drive had all my stuff on it and was able to recover my files and like you said, seized the opportunity to do some needed house cleaning... Glad you were able to save your files... (Yup, I like windows too...)...
Sep 27, 2017 16:55:46 #
Thank you for the explanation. I apologize for my sarcasm, too.
Mark
Mark
BBurns wrote:
Apparently you missed the sarcasm. In IT where I was we had a nickname for glitches that sometimes occurred in the Microsoft environment, aka Undocumented features, failures for no apparent reason.
As a parody on the old photo events, Kodak Moments, we nicknamed them Microsoft Moments.
Sorry for the misunderstanding. I was trying to state I felt your pain. I too, use Acronis and you are correct. You can never have too many backups.
As a parody on the old photo events, Kodak Moments, we nicknamed them Microsoft Moments.
Sorry for the misunderstanding. I was trying to state I felt your pain. I too, use Acronis and you are correct. You can never have too many backups.
Sep 27, 2017 16:56:44 #
Earworms wrote:
Ah, the joys of using Windows!
You're welcome. I have backups on an external drive, on USB sticks and on two computers, one a PC the other a Mac. I feel for you.
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