20 replies to this topic

[WreckWench]

Well today started out early for me...about 5:30am so that I could get my day job done and a bunch of stuff I needed to do for SD. Afterall, tonight is our wild and crazy Happy Hour with such awesome out of town guests as ScubaPunk as well as the awesome DFW area SD gang!

At about 6:01 am our neighborhood lost power. Confirming my worst suspicions it was not storm related but rather the substation had gone down which meant a long wait at best. (The last time we lost the substation we were without power for almost 3 days.)

At about 9:55 the power came back on. After returning flashlights and candles to their proper home I started the arduous process of relogging in. I expected that the abrupt power failure would have caused windows to shut down improperly but I did not expect it to hose up the operating system completely. After vainly attempting the standard reboot, unplug wait reboot cycles we proceeded to try re-installing windows-xp. Unfortunately the system would not recognize the disk in the drive and in the proverbial computer terms...it was 'toast'.

So I am trying to see if the backups I so religiously run everyday have actually worked. However I have to install the base programs I use on the back up system I have for such an occasion. Boy all this set up work takes forever and I still don't have access to anything but the internet and my pm's.

So please bear with me as I struggle to get stuff done today and whoever has the 'stiff on'e at the DFW SD HH tonight...I think I have first dibs on it!!!

[zendiver]

K, with all that valuable information on your computer, you REALLY should think about getting a GOOD Power Backup that will shut-down your computer manually when power is interrupted.

Just a suggetion.

[AliKat]

Yea, I have to agree with ZenDiver. I can't tell you how many home PCs got fried on Guam due to these kinds of power outages...which by the way, happened multiple times a day

Hope your day has gotten better

[chinacat46]

I hate it when that happens. The power around here seems to go off for no reason at all at times. A couple of years ago I blamed it on the grocery store but they've been there long enough now that they should have figured out the power grid. Good luck rebuilding and I hope your backups were complete.

[cmt489]

I hope those backups work well for you Kamala!

[freedivers]

Well today started out early for me...about 5:30am so that I could get my day job done and a bunch of stuff I needed to do for SD. Afterall, tonight is our wild and crazy Happy Hour with such awesome out of town guests as ScubaPunk as well as the awesome DFW area SD gang!

At about 6:01 am our neighborhood lost power. Confirming my worst suspicions it was not storm related but rather the substation had gone down which meant a long wait at best. (The last time we lost the substation we were without power for almost 3 days.)

At about 9:55 the power came back on. After returning flashlights and candles to their proper home I started the arduous process of relogging in. I expected that the abrupt power failure would have caused windows to shut down improperly but I did not expect it to hose up the operating system completely. After vainly attempting the standard reboot, unplug wait reboot cycles we proceeded to try re-installing windows-xp. Unfortunately the system would not recognize the disk in the drive and in the proverbial computer terms...it was 'toast'.

So I am trying to see if the backups I so religiously run everyday have actually worked. However I have to install the base programs I use on the back up system I have for such an occasion. Boy all this set up work takes forever and I still don't have access to anything but the internet and my pm's.

So please bear with me as I struggle to get stuff done today and whoever has the 'stiff on'e at the DFW SD HH tonight...I think I have first dibs on it!!!

I hope the External HDD you said you had backed up to actually had what you needed as far as recent files...

[sunshinediver]

I agree with the UPS backup suggestion. Good luck with it...unfortunately, "technology happens!"

[finGrabber]

K, with all that valuable information on your computer, you REALLY should think about getting a GOOD Power Backup that will shut-down your computer manually when power is interrupted.

Just a suggetion.

ZD,

she had a battery backup until a power surge last week took it out! I think a trip to Home Depot is in order to get a replacement surge protector, though. I think this surge probably ruined her surge protector too

[AliKat]

K, with all that valuable information on your computer, you REALLY should think about getting a GOOD Power Backup that will shut-down your computer manually when power is interrupted.

Just a suggetion.

ZD,

she had a battery backup until a power surge last week took it out! I think a trip to Home Depot is in order to get a replacement surge protector, though. I think this surge probably ruined her surge protector too

I guess when the surge fries the surge protector, you're just hosed!

[finGrabber]

K, with all that valuable information on your computer, you REALLY should think about getting a GOOD Power Backup that will shut-down your computer manually when power is interrupted.

Just a suggetion.

ZD,

she had a battery backup until a power surge last week took it out! I think a trip to Home Depot is in order to get a replacement surge protector, though. I think this surge probably ruined her surge protector too

I guess when the surge fries the surge protector, you're just hosed!

Her computer is on a surge protector and still got fried. So, I'm thinking it needs to be replaced as well

[dustbowl diver]

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[ddierolf]

external hard drive and a APC smart ups! just a suggestion.

[WreckWench]

Kim is right!! After a number of hits it seems that your surge protector just can't do its job!! Hmm....seems like many things in this world...er...whoops! wrong thread!!!

So the surge protector has now been replaced and the battery backup that fried out as well is also replaced. It appears my data on my hdd is valid...had to load the applications on my completely redundant networked backup pc in order to look at the data. Just finished loading the email client and resetting up those accounts. (Yep I remembered to keep a copy on the server so I can get them back onto my main system after we trouble shoot the windows xp failure on it. Ok! Ok! so actually Tolly ensured that I did that part properly!)

So basically I am now up and running...and now its time to hurry to the Happy Hour! At least I can be a lot happier knowing it only took me 10 hours to be able to start work today!!!

And on a serious note...

The question of just how secure is SD's data has come up and I thought I'd give you an update.

1. The financial data in the new acctg program is backed up via a 3rd party online server as well as manually onto my harddrive.

2. The harddrive is backed up daily to an external harddrive that can operate stand alone or as a storage device.

3. Before going on a trip..the external hdd is dropped at a safety deposit box in the event of castastrophic disaster.

4. Emails are typically downloaded off the server however as I mentioned, they will be retained until I can download them onto my main operating system.

5. Of course the website and surface interval message board and databases are backed up 2-3 times a week given the size of the system and are stored in several places including the ISP's data warehousing.

6. And I have a completely networked second computer that I can switch too, download the data from the HDD and start working again. Well...NOW I can do that. I guess ya gotta have the applications in addition to the operating system to work as seemlessly as I had envisioned. But now I have both and I'm pleased to say that my redundancy and disaster recovery plan has worked, and will work even better should I need it again!


And I just want to thank Tolly for helping SD set up this plan. He is the brainchild of it and I am soooooooo relieved that it has worked!! I just wish I was quicker in loading and reloading stuff onto the other pc...now we know why I'm NOT in IT for a living!!!

[HAWKEYE1251]

Just as an added second note for the benefit of redundancy, if your interested there is such a thing as a fail secure surge suppressor. It has a fuse in it that will go out in a surge. The primary failures of surge suppression is of course, caused by surge itself. Most devices are considered fail safe and they will continue to let power feed through them even if they are damaged. Fail secure types will not. They will break the power circuit and you are aware then they that may be compromised. Most times surges can hit back to back in tenthes of seconds. First surge takes out the suppressor and the second surge can then damage components. Fail secure will minimize this possibility. Nothing is 100%, but it does help tremendously.

But all that is way too serious. Have a great HH and one day I'm gonna make the trip up to big D for one of these. Have fun everyone!!!!!

[DandyDon]

Don't surge protectors come with a large replacement warranty for electronics they fail to protect?