Genetic Computer Death
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| ColonelPanik Jan 12, 2008 5:30 PM EDT |
First my son-in-law has a laptop die with all the final papers for his Masters.
Then my wifes lappy melts, yes it got so hot the case deformed.
Next it is my daughter who losses a desktop (married to the guy with the dead
laptop)
Of course the children did not have anything backed up. My dear wife was
backed up, but thats because she has lost stuff before.
Tonight my other daughter called, bad news, dead laptop. More bad news,
nothing backed up. Still more bad news, she is a lawyer and mucho secret
law stuff is on the HD. Worst news, her hubby is a MSCE/A+ he can't use
Knoppix at all. One family 4 dead computers in less than a month, is that a record? If you can't back up you shouldn't drive a computer. |
| pat Jan 12, 2008 5:47 PM EDT |
I wish my laptop would die so I could get a new one... |
| montezuma Jan 12, 2008 6:16 PM EDT |
I can see why your name is Panik! |
| Sander_Marechal Jan 13, 2008 1:33 AM EDT |
Shameless self promotion: http://www.jejik.com/articles/2006/07/easy_local_and_remote_... You should make backups fully automatic. People are inherently lazy so manual backups don't really work. There is a windows version of rsync, and instead of a server you could use an USB hard drive or a small NAS (like the netgear SLUG). Skip the second step (remote backup) if you have a slow internet connection. |
| jezuch Jan 13, 2008 3:19 AM EDT |
Hmmmm, does laptop meltdown automatically mean hard drive meltdown? If not, most probably most of that data is still intact... hopefully. Anyway, ditto for backups. But sadly, I don't think my mom would understand their importance ;) |
| ColonelPanik Jan 13, 2008 6:20 AM EDT |
jezuch, Right you are, it was a MoBo problem and Acer did a great fix up without
reformatting the HD. But it was the only one already backed up. Snader, Thank you for that PR release. I am sending it on. |
| hkwint Jan 13, 2008 6:30 AM EDT |
Colonel, my condolences to your losses. Funny thing is, I didn't new self-cremating lappy's exist. If the hubby of your daughter - the one with the MCSE - is not able to operate Knoppix, now is the perfect time to learn it, it seams. One of my two Gentoo boxes is pretty dead now too. But at least I myself am the one to blame, since I entirely 'murdered' it myself by screwing up EVMS, the filesystem I recommended to anyone before... Not anymore now. Yeah, 10.000 files are 'saved' because they're still on it, but the names and places in the file hierarchy are lost - there are only files with names with long numbers now, and for some reason the md5sums don't match the md5sums of earlier of all my important files (this happened to me earlier, that's why I calculated md5sums of every file). So probably the files that are rescued are damaged too - ReiserFS spent about three hours on tree rebuilding yesterday. Luckily most of my music collection isn't screwed (it was on its own partition, which ended up being less screwed than my /home partition!), and this screw-up is a very good time to finally stop using EVMS and start using another distro (tired of Gentoo, but a bit disappointed with the rest). Actually, I was trying to 'merge' the files of two EVMS arrays when I screwed up _big time_. Since I have two Gentoo boxes, a lot of files are on the other one too, but not all of them sadly, and the one I lost was my 'weekdays' box; the 'weekend' box is still fine. Now, I'm back to work, seeing what I can pull out of the ashes of a failed EVMS RAID0 array... The advantage of this disadvantage is I know a bit about mdadm now, which I used because the darn EVMS wouldn't start my RAID0 array. Forcing with mdadm --assume clean and using --create for an existing array wasn't the brightest idea though. |
| Bob_Robertson Jan 13, 2008 7:07 AM EDT |
[url=http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=SPU35160&btnG=Google Search]http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=SPU35160&btnG=Google Se...[/url] If I didn't already have a backup "routine" in place, I'd jump at one of these. I didn't know that the USB port could drive a 7200rpm disk of any size. |
| gus3 Jan 13, 2008 8:41 AM EDT |
Quoting:My dear wife was backed up You keep a backup wife, too? I guess you are serious about your backups! |
| tuxchick Jan 13, 2008 11:30 AM EDT |
Quoting: You keep a backup wife, too? I guess you are serious about your backups! Dang, I never thought of that, and I'm very careful with my backups. That's what I love about LXer, always learning something new and wonderful. |
| tuxchick Jan 13, 2008 11:43 AM EDT |
Oh, the other lesson I've learned is don't let Colonel Panik near my computers. Or his MSCE (giggle) son-in-law. |
| ColonelPanik Jan 13, 2008 2:03 PM EDT |
TC, Hey now, I didn't marry the d00d my daughter did. Look I am living near New Orleans
and these problems happened in Albuquerque and San Francisco. Not guilty. And so far we have a net gain of 2 new Linux users. Linux saved their bacon so now they use Linux. Don't think it is cost effective but we did gain. |
| hkwint Jan 14, 2008 11:35 AM EDT |
Quoting:Look I am living near New Orleans and these problems happened in Albuquerque and San Francisco. Not guilty. That's how the MPAA becomes what it is today: They fled from New York because these pirates wouldn't pay for Edison's IP, and in LA Edison's IP was not yet enforceable due to the distance and the lack of Edison Lawyers in LA. Looking of what became of the MPAA these days (In one word: Hollywood), I advise you to look after your daughter! |
| ColonelPanik Jan 14, 2008 1:13 PM EDT |
My daughter in CA is a lawyer, we are going to sue the MPAA.
Of the 50 states in this union my present home is in the only state that does
not have it's law based on English law. It is the French that gave us our bad
food and law. Now that I think of it, maybe I'll sue Europe also. iMPAA iHollywood |
| DarrenR114 Jan 15, 2008 11:58 AM EDT |
I´m still trying to understand what´s so difficult about using Knoppix? 1. Get Knoppix LiveCD 2. Start subject PC and boot from CD (I´m assuming that the operator knows how to insert a CD into the drive and then boot from it.) 3. When the desktop finally settles down, click on the handy dandy harddrive icon. If there is no icon, or Knoppix can´t open it - then you´re probably SOL. 4. Insert a handy dandy USB Memory Stick - even an MSCE should be able to figure out how to go to Best Buy and get one. 5. Copy´n´paste from the harddrive to the memory stick. There´s no excuse for even MSCEs not knowing how to use Knoppix for emergency recovery. When I bought my Toshiba Satellite back in 2003, the support techs at Best Buy, in Boca Raton, used Knoppix to verify it before selling it to me. It was their tool of choice in checking out PCs brought to them for repair. Maybe that should be the theme for the next series of Geico commercials - So easy that an MSCE can do it. |
| tuxchick Jan 15, 2008 1:08 PM EDT |
Well darren, at five steps that's four too many for an MCSE. And you did make a questionable assumption in step 2. :) |
| hkwint Jan 15, 2008 2:37 PM EDT |
Probably, what the MCSE shouldn't do - boot the familiar Windows environment - is more difficult for him / her than what he/ she should do. |
| Sander_Marechal Jan 15, 2008 2:53 PM EDT |
Quoting:There´s no excuse for even MSCEs not knowing how to use Knoppix for emergency recovery. Last time I used knoppix, there were three issues. I don't know if they still apply to Knoppix. The last one certainly does: 1) No out-of-the-box write support for NTFS. You have to enable in manually because NTFS write is still considered unstable 2) Hard drives aren't automatically scanned and mounted 3) A Windows virus scanner needs to be installed manually So it's not that easy for someone who's never used Linux before. Perhaps using a special recovery Live CD would make it easier for them. One that does/has all the above automatically on boot. |
| rijelkentaurus Jan 15, 2008 3:17 PM EDT |
Quoting: 1) No out-of-the-box write support for NTFS. You have to enable in manually because NTFS write is still considered unstable No longer an issue, I think. Quoting: 2) Hard drives aren't automatically scanned and mounted Good...but there will be icons on the desktop for each partition, and they will mount by default to read-only. There is a check box in the properties to mount read/write. If you don't need to write to the disk (perhaps a damaged disc you only want to rescue data from), there is no point in mistakenly writing over something. In that case, you need read-only capabilities. |
| ColonelPanik Jan 15, 2008 3:34 PM EDT |
MSCEs works as well as vistA, eh? That whole thing of m$ certifying anything is a joke. But, I said to my daughter, I do not do windows, if you want to install Linux I can help. Thats the bottom line, do NOT support m$ and push Linux! |
| azerthoth Jan 15, 2008 3:38 PM EDT |
My wife already knows that one. She got a Vista laptop which I told her will get linux the first time she asks me to fix it. |
| ColonelPanik Jan 15, 2008 3:42 PM EDT |
w00t |
| ukguy264 Jan 16, 2008 8:37 AM EDT |
Here are a list of things you should absolutely not do if you need to retrieve data from a hard drive. If however you do not have online backup and can not afford after the fact professional recovery, you may use the "do not" list in a fashion not recommended (: http://www.backupanytime.com/Data_Retrieval.htm |
| gus3 Jan 16, 2008 9:21 AM EDT |
I couldn't try any of those. The extent of my geeky toys is my Leatherman. I don't have a clean room or a humidity-controlled facility. |
| ColonelPanik Jan 16, 2008 1:07 PM EDT |
ukguy264: liked the link. If I can't save it with Knoppix I just tell em its dead!
The End. gus3.1: If you can not fix it with that Leatherman it just isn't worth fixing. One thing you should all remember: "You can fix anything if you monkey with it long enough." Another thing to remember: "If you monkey with something too long you will break it." |
| gus3 Jan 16, 2008 8:26 PM EDT |
Heh. My Leatherman took apart a beat-up H-P PA-RISC system. It took 3 hours (and over 20 screws off just the back side of the case!), but I found two memory modules that had fallen out, and another two that weren't seated properly. Would you believe the H-P on-board diagnostics told me about all that? Yes, even the improperly-seated modules. I have yet to see a PC that will tell you all that. |
| azerthoth Jan 17, 2008 2:44 AM EDT |
ColonelPanik, you forgot one of the infamous gov't euphemisms, "If it ain't broke, fix it until it is" |
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