15 years.....gone. Thanks Windows.

[DaOld Man]

What does the OS have to do with hardware failure?

[Xiaou2]

I took the same advice as someone already mentioned. I run two hard drives. One for windows and one for all my files. And everytime I reinstall windows, I make sure to unplug my files hard drive first

 Running two drives does nothing to prevent your data drive from eventual failure.
If your data drive failed right now... you would be just as pooched as him.   And
yes, Hard Drives DO fail.  Its not a question of  'IF'   its a question of  "When".

 Losing a windows drive might not be so bad,  IF you keep all of your Docs on the
data drive.

 
 Personally, I run over 4 drives:

1) OS drive
2) Backup OS drive
3) Data Drive 1
4) Backup Data Drive 1

and so forth for the other data drives.


 And even that isnt completely failsafe.   The probability is fairly low... but a backup
disc could fail the day you change it to be the live replacement.

[danny_galaga]

I took the same advice as someone already mentioned. I run two hard drives. One for windows and one for all my files. And everytime I reinstall windows, I make sure to unplug my files hard drive first

 Running two drives does nothing to prevent your data drive from eventual failure.
If your data drive failed right now... you would be just as pooched as him.   And
yes, Hard Drives DO fail.  Its not a question of  'IF'   its a question of  "When".

 Losing a windows drive might not be so bad,  IF you keep all of your Docs on the
data drive.

 
 Personally, I run over 4 drives:

1) OS drive
2) Backup OS drive
3) Data Drive 1
4) Backup Data Drive 1

and so forth for the other data drives.


 And even that isnt completely failsafe.   The probability is fairly low... but a backup
disc could fail the day you change it to be the live replacement.

i think youll find a few of us are saying we do that (except maybe for the backup OS drive). and yes, i found out the hard way. i thought i was clever in having the data separate from the OS with two drives. i was only thinking about windows crashing. of course, instead my data drive physically died    so now i have the data drive and a usb backup of that. the os i could care less about. i have the cd. and a backup cd...

[Xiaou2]

I backup the OS just cause I dont like to be down for a length of time.   
Imagine if you were waiting for an ebay auction to end, and your pc drive corrupted.
You might be able to get it re-installed in time... but maybe not.  Maybe you dont
even have a spare drive to install with.   

Windows may install in 30 min... but then you have to reload every single program,  get all the settings configured for each program,  do update patches,  and much more.
From scratch, it can take me a few days to get everything I want loaded and configured
fully.

 If my OS goes down from corruption, Im up in 30 seconds with the backup HD.  Can fix the problem drive at my leisure.  Its already saved me twice.  Once to a faulty drive... and once to a windows corruption.

 It may cost more the have backups... but its well worth it Imop.


 Btw - I do not do use Raid.  I hand copy data over at certain intervals.. and copy the
entire HDs at certain intervals.   I should remove the power the the backup
drives as well when not in use.  The problem with raid... is that if a Virus gets on your
system.. that is also copied to your other drive.  Same for corruptions.

[danny_galaga]

good point. i hate to lose out on ebay auctions. but ive gotten so used to not having internet for so long im more relaxed about. i too just copy over data, rather than use a tool. of course, now im using linux i suppose there is not much worry about a virus anyway.

ive nver used raid or anything like that. cant it check for viruses? or would that make it too awkward? and wouldnt you just be copying a corrupt/infected file by hand instead?

[patrickl]

RAID is not a backup method. At best you use RAID besides your actual backup scheme. RAID is a measure to improve reliability of the system (if a drive fails I just swap it and the system keeps running). In doing so indeed it makes backups slightly less necessary, but still.

[Level42]

What does the OS have to do with hardware failure?

It was the thread-starter who blaimed the OS, not me.

[Ginsu Victim]

I never blamed the OS for hardware failure. I blamed it for being retarded and doing something it wasn't supposed to. The hardware failure was totally unrelated.

[Zero_Hour]

This is an easy mistake to make, especially when installing when you have both IDE and SATA  hard drives. I learned it the hard way too, but I actually have the luxury of multiple machines with multiple backups so all I lost was the time it took me to restore my data. Glad you got most of your data back - that will definitely take some of the sting away.

[Ginsu Victim]

Yeah, it doesn't hurt as much now.