Crash Thoughts
Ejecting the external hard drive while downloading large files to it was accidental, and fatal (unless data recovery software or Terminal commands become more helpful).
Immediate thoughts after the crash:
- Work. All essential files are safe on internal drive. Last backup on internal parental drive is a few months old. Last backup on parental external drive is a few weeks old. Expected loss: 0GB/25GB.
- Music. All files lost at the exception of 6GB current playlist. Last backup on parental drives is a few weeks old. Expected loss: 4-8GB/120GB.
- Film. All files lost at the exception of 7.45GB current watchlist. Last backup on parental drives is a few months old. Expected loss: 20GB/100GB.
- Pictures. All files lost at the exception of Flickr uploads. Last backup on parental drives is a few months old. Expected loss: minimal.
- Other stuff (software, random stuff). All files lost. Last backup on parental drives is more than a few months old. Expect loss: quite serious, but nothing essential.
It’s basically like starting it all again from a relatively distant point in time, which actually has its appeal, if the transaction costs of reinstalling stuff and replacing the backup drive remain low enough. It will be a pain to reinstall and download identical files again, but not that much:
- All work files are safe right now. The only folder that is externally stored while not saved on the internal hard drive is also safe on a backup-of-backup hard drive (and remains downloadable).
- Essentials are recoverable online. It must be the first time I have to rely on the (vast and effective) potential of Gmail and Flickr as large-scale external backup solutions.
- Trivia has been irremediably lost. My recent collection of random pictures, quotes and other forms of Internet memorabilia has left this world and all others. How much do I rely on their possession?
Very little seems to be the answer, due to little reliance on personal possession, reasonable use of online storage, and a continuous stream of interests with little time to delve into past things anyway.
Lessons:
- Shit happens.
- Two external hard drives, or a partition, could help.
- Episode is quite liveable.
The most annoying thing is to lose organised collections of pictures of summer trips, which were already like a life bracket. There’s no trace of them now, it just makes them even more surreal. Next work backup on Monday.
I stopped worrying about this since I have started relying on the cloud.
My work files and small personal files are on Dropbox, synchronized between all my computers; my music is on Spotify; many of my pictures are on Picasa.
By the way, if you are going to reinstall a lot of software, I can’t recommend Ninite. Makes the process much, much faster.
Seems like we have both accidentally wiped years’ worth of photos…
I also have lots of data on Spotify, Dropbox, Flickr/Picasa. As for software, I keep a list of all software installed and uninstalled. And most of all this is re-downloadable, or restorable from friends. I am also trying recovering from TestDisk.
My final assessment is that I have lost less than 5% of my stuff, with 95% of that stuff in the trivial category and 90% of that stuff in the restorable-if-needed category. Work-wise, I might have lost some TeX documentation, which is another way to say I have lost nothing that I need to work properly.
The Monday backup means I am spending tomorrow re-organising my work files, so the crash will actually have a positive effect on work! And losing films is just as good an excuse I needed to get more drinks with friends at the pub.
A: Coincidental, innit?
Haha, sounds good! Good luck with everything anyway, although it doesn’t seem like you’ll need it much. I see that there are many bright sides to your bad fortune!