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Recovering from SSD C: death

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peter2

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12 January 2008
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My SSD C: drive recently departed. It was sudden with no warning. I've replaced the dead drive with another SSD so I need to organise myself and the computer for the next SSD failure (1 - 4yrs). As the C drive is the heart of my computer I've lost everything.

Clearly I should have organised things better but this is my first drive sudden death ever. My TRS-80 and Apple Macintosh are both in operating condition.

Windows has been backing up the drive every week unto another drive (E and there's a list of every weekly back up on the E drive. However when I attempt to restore any of these files or folders windows doesn't appear to do anything other than tell me it put them in another location (not the original one). I can't find them anywhere. Clearly the Windows back-up and restore process is no good. Looks like I have to do it myself. There must be many ways to back-up all the programs and associated data.

Q1: What are your effective methods for doing this?
 
I've also lost my email software and notice that it's been unavailable to download since 2012. I was using Live Mail. It was good enough for my basic needs. I downloaded another email software called Thunderbird. It seemed like a workable solution however it has a hidden trap that I fell into.

My email is collated by Telstra Bigpond and passed on to me. There were 1900 emails at Bigpond and I downloaded them all into Thunderbird. Great, I'm happy to see them and I was going to use them to rebuild my contact list. Before I started this I thought I'd do the right thing and delete all 1900 emails at my Bigpond site. Did this and opened Thunderbird to find that all 1900 emails were deleted from my computer. Bugger, Thunderbird must be synced to my Bigpond account so when I deleted the email from Bigpond I was also deleting it from Thunderbird. Fantastic, wish I'd known that.

Q2: Would someone please advise me of a simple but effective email handler that is not web-based?
Live mail was good in that it allowed me to read an email without "opening" it.
 
peter2 said:
Q1: What are your effective methods for doing this?
Click to expand...

I backup everything important to the cloud, either Dropbox or Google Drive. Both have free accounts. Dropbox gives you 2GB free while Google Drive gives you 15GB free, which is more than enough for my needs.

Both cloud drives appear as folders so copying files to and from your PC is as easy as copying files from one folder to another. I don't do automated backups, just regular manual ones.

Software and other applications can always be re-installed after a hard drive crash, so the only files I backup are ones that cannot be replaced. This does not amount to much storage space.

peter2 said:
Q2: Would someone please advise me of a simple but effective email handler that is not web-based?
Click to expand...

I've used Thunderbird by Mozilla (developers of the Firefox browser) for years and I wouldn't use anything else now simply because I'm so used to it.
 

For backups I don't use Windows inbuilt backups at all. There are plenty of 3rd party solutions around, but if you go in that direction, that needs to be set up before you have a crises. So that won't solve your problem right now.

As for emails, Thunderbird is an excellent non-web client. It's open source, and arguably the best. It can be used with POP3 or IMAP. The problem as you've described it is how BigPond was aggregating other email sources and perhaps how you tapped into that. But there's no inherent issues with Thunderbird. Just your setup.
 
Q1: What are your effective methods for doing this?
Hi Peter, I run a Synology NAS box, 4 2TB drives in some kind of RAID array (don't ask I'd have to read the manual). The NAS box is my master and my laptop and desktop both run Synology cloud station, backing up to the NAS. So effectively I have a private version of dropbox, with three mirrored copies of all my documents. Although the NAS doesn't like to store email (outlook .pst files) for some reason. Yet to fathom that one. I regularly archive my email to a .pst. And my AmiBroker and Norgate data run on my C drives. I plan to try run that on the NAS on a VM at some stage. More complexity. Hope that helps.

Cheers.
 
@Joe Blow and @Zaxon Thanks, it seems that Thunderbird is one of the best. I want to stop the synchronisation between Thunderbird and Bigpond. I've spent the last hour trying to figure it out without success. I'm thinking I might have to convert my Thunderbird account to POP3 instead of IMAP. Would this stop the auto sync process?

OK I'm happy to not rely on the Windows backup process. It can continue in the background but it seems I'll have to something manually.

Would this work? Collate all important files into a folder on C and regularly copy all them to E and an external drive. This would see them on C, a copy on E and another copy on an external drive.

Cloud storage seems easy enough. I haven't signed on to microsoft, google, chrome, facebook, twitter etc ....

@Joe90 Thanks for your high tech response. If your C drive dies you've lost your EOD data and any custom indicators/templates. I've lost my US stock data and haven't looked at Norgate's options for re-loading it, yet. I've left this job for the weekend.

Of course the potential problem with manually doing something is the person. It's easy to forget or overlook something. If I stick everything that's important into one folder, all I have to do is grab the folder and copy to two drives. There should be some software that I can use to tag a file/folder as important and the software copy it to the two drives at the end of each day. Automate the process to take out the weakest link.
 

The main difference is that POP3 downloads the emails to your client and typically deletes them from the server. IMAP remotely accesses the server, where the emails actually permanently live.

If you want to be able to access the same emails from more than one device, like your PC and phone, then use IMAP. However, if you only want to access them from one device, such as your PC, then you have the choice of IMAP or POP3.

Just don't use IMAP and then delete them from the server, assuming that they're downloaded. By your description, this is probably what you did.

peter2 said:
Would this work? Collate all important files into a folder on C and regularly copy all them to E and an external drive. This would see them on C, a copy on E and another copy on an external drive.
Click to expand...

Ideally you want 3 copies of any file. 1) You're working copy, so C:, 2) a local backup, so E:, NAS etc, and 3) an offsite backup. Uploading them to a server works as type 3.

You can automate the whole process or do it manually. The choice is yours.
 
(Files only, and ignoring cloud options)

once a week is not enough imo..... i use daily (1 click) through desktop batch file (an icon) for my finance folder backup to SD card in notebook, but as above (easeus) or SyncBack Free are both easy to use - i use syncback with multiple internal pre set run choices - like backup to SD card or backup to removable drive etc - all 1 click once in program) but u have had advice on this and emails and stuff ......

so, this is i wanted to say .......

When i add a new drive i partition into C and D, so that all personal files are held in D ...... and programs in C. so if u get a virus that wipes the programs (so "main" C drive) it will prolly not touch (hopefully) the D drive partition. When u get it going again thru recovery usb or whatevs the D drive information should still be there.
 
Peter have you spoken to any "experts" regarding recovery other than google?
 
@Boggo Thanks I'll have look.

@HelloU Thanks, yes, the process must be very quick and easy once set up. I don't share files across multiple hardware, just a desktop and a laptop when travelling.

@IFocus No, I've found lots of bits and pieces restored throughout the new C: drive (in the download and favourites folders). The important bits like my custom coded indicators have not been restored anywhere and this is noted in the restore error log.

I'm slowly working through everything and the experience has shown me what is really important that must be backed up.

I'm also looking at the Acronis True Image software that can maintain a perfect copy of my C: drive externally.
 
@Joe90 Thanks for your high tech response. If your C drive dies you've lost your EOD data and any custom indicators/templates. I've lost my US stock data and haven't looked at Norgate's options for re-loading it, yet. I've left this job for the weekend.

You're welcome Peter. I don't think its particularly hi-tech, have a look at the Synology website for some background or I can PM you some go-bys on setting it up. The hardest part is parting with the $$$ at the local geek shop. Then setting up cloudstation and mapping drives for backup. I'm not exactly young and was able to figure it out.

Re the custom indicator's, yes that's one folder I backup manually from time to time. You're right though, I should map the c:\amibroker and Norgate data folders to a NAS folder as well. Norgate EOD data and historic data is reloadable under your subscription, I've had to do it a couple of times due to minor blunders.

The best part about the cloudstation app is that its automated. Apart from the OS and AmiBroker, most everything else is kept on D:\ and that is mapped to the NAS. Change a file on your desktop, its automatically mapped to the NAS. If you have a laptop as well, next time you connect that to the network the NAS will update the D:/ folder on your laptop. Still not the best solution, ideally you need an offsite backup as well to keep the purists happy.

Cheers.
 
Last edited:
if it helps, one click to backup my finance files from a desktop icon ........(but cloud for sync is the future - anyways)


xcopy d:\Finances\*.* f:\Finances\*.* /k /y /f



that is the single line of code i use for the batch file that sits on my desktop as an icon and one click copies all the files in my D drive Finance directory to my SD card/thumbdrive that is my F drive. (a batch file is just a plain text file that has a .bat file extension instead of a .txt extension (like .doc files are word files) but written with command words the computer understands.

note: change drive letters to suit your setup
my current switches (the /k/y/f things) do not do files in sub-directories but that is easily fixed with a change to the switches - google switches for the xcopy command

to make a batch file use notepad (easier than word if wanting plain text) to save the code line as a text file (.txt) on the desktop. then just change the file extension from .txt to .bat
when changing a file extension from .txt to .bat you should get a warning message - this is normal - if you have added .bat onto the filename and did NOT get a warning message then you have NOT actually changed the file extension and need to google how to change a file extension .....
 
If you have a desktop, install multiple disks in raid mode, data is automatically shared/copied between the hard drive and should one fail, no data is lost and you just replace the drive.
It protects only against mechanical failure, not virus or deletion, or a software corruption.
You still need to do backup, and it has a cost
Hope it helps
 
Thanks for all your comments. You made me realise how little I know about computer backup options. This is probably because I've had so few problems with them over the past 30+years. I haven't prepared for mechanical failures and now I know I must.
 

I love my Synology box. Having some level or RAID and then backups off of network drives Ive created on there, I have some resilience built in for backups. If your not tech savvy and Joe's post sounds confusing, you can get something simple up and running quickly, mostly through onscreen Wizards
 
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