Oh no! The hard drive just Crashed!

A guide for the unthinkable...

By: Doc Ken Mechail

It could never happen to me. I keep my machine clean, I run Norton Disk Doctor (or Scandisk) and Speed Disk (or Defrag) on a regular basis. I delete old files I don't use or at least move them off the hard drive to floppy storage. I don't need to back up my hard drive. Besides, backing up takes time and a tape drive or Jazz drive costs cash. I'll never need a back-up anyway.

Sound familiar? The good Doctor here followed a similar belief system. The good Doctor was, funny enough, testing speed-of-transfer in his tech staff's station, determining how fast various system configurations back up across a network when, BOOM. Important little hint, if you own a 540 MB hard drive and are operating it in NORMAL rather than LBA mode, do NOT let it get too close to full. Why?

Some hard drives are quirky. A 540 MB is slightly larger than the old standard limit of 1024 cylinders. If you run a 540MB drive in normal mode, when you pass roughly 500 MB or so of information stored on the drive, anything further added to the drive may "loop" back to the beginning of the drive.

Hint

Check your CMOS settings if your hard drive capacity exceeds 540MB. Check to make sure LBA mode is set properly in the CMOS setting.

What will that loop do? It'll wipe out your partition table and your FAT (File Allocation Table). What will happen as a result of this particular overwriting you ask? All your data and programs on that drive are inaccessible. As in, gone.

The drive will then need to be wiped and restarted. The good Doctor will never again assume that a drive has been set up as LBA mode unless he actually sees it as so in the CMOS settings.

I had had a tape drive connected to that very station conducting tests the previous day, and I almost backed up the hard drive then, but as job demands required I actually do some work, I continued with the time trials. I was copying a large file when the overrun came.

But there are actually plenty of other ways to lose data. An errant delete or format command, an incompetent showoff, claiming he's going to show you a neat trick with your computer, a sudden power outage while writing to the disk, any number of computer viruses, power surges, water damage (due to flooding or fire-related sprinklers), spills and accidents, maliciousness, or equipment failure for older equipment.

Data on the computer system's hard disk can easily be backed up. In this way you can be assured that your important data will not be lost if you have a hard disk failure. Making total system backups is important on any system.

We recommend you make total image backups of your computers hard disk frequently. While file backups can recreate a file, total backups provide correct starting points. Ideally, you should make a total backup of the hard disk at the end of each day; if your system is lightly used - supporting no critical transaction processing, once a week might suffice. In any event, the more frequent your total backups, the easier your job following a hardware or system failure.

I recommend using a series of tapes -- called the grandfather technique. Using an extra tape on Friday, then another extra at month end and another extra at year end. Then, keep a grandfather tape home, and one in a safe deposit box. Keeping it OFF-SITE, in case of catastrophe such as fire or thieves. Keeping one backup away from the computer's location helps keep its data safe.

For more info about Back-Up devices, call your Friendly Sales and Technical Staff here at Electrosonics!

Phone: 586-415-5555 Orders: 800-858-8448
Eamil: sales@electrosonics.net

Till next time Doc Mechail

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