Wrestling With Computers

[kevin_standlee]

It's a rare rainy day here in Fernley, which is just as well because I spent the final day of this four-day weekend fighting with Lisa's CF-29 Toughbook, downloading 157 updates (not an exaggeration; that's the actual count, and it took about three hours for them to download and install), and otherwise try to get the machine back to a semblance of what it was before she dropped it yesterday. We sort of have been able to get most things back into it, but it has not been easy. This is why we use DriveClone as our backup system. Besides any data we might lose, configuring computers is such a pain that being able to swap in a replacement drive that has all of the settings the way we like it is a huge win.

I only wish my work machine could be cloned, but the security software they put on it makes it impossible; the hardware signatures don't match and the clone will neither boot nor even be readable as an external drive. Which is to say that the "security" features make it more likely that I'll lose data someday, although I do regularly backup the data files to an external drive.

Comments

[lindadee.livejournal.com]

Doesn't your firm use a network? I never have to worry about any work material on my work computer because it's all backed up to a network. Anything I don't care about I can save locally. I'm getting a new computer at work this week and while I do keep a lot of stuff on my work computer, I was able to copy anything I wanted from one machine to the other before actually receiving the new computer.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Well, there's a network, but it's so slow that most of what I actually work on is on my own computer.

I try to keep the important files backed up on the network drives.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

being able to swap in a replacement drive that has all of the settings the way we like it is a huge win.

...but you couldn't do that on this occasion? Because clearly downloading 157 updates is exactly the kind of nightmare you really want to win against...

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

In this case, with Lisa's machine, we could have done so — except that Lisa couldn't find a clone backup of the CF-29 drive. Ironically, about the time we finally got the new drive back to a semblance of normality, she found the last clone we'd done of the previous drive. In further irony, Lisa was taking the machine to go make sure she had everything on it so I could do a clone of the drive when she dropped and broke it. It actually appears that it wasn't the drive itself that broke but the caddy that's supposed to protect the drive; however, while getting the drive out of the caddy, we broke one of the pins, so it's moot: no drive and no caddy. Fortunately, she had a spare drive caddy, and we've ordered a replacement for the previous one, so eventually we should be backed up again. Maybe if there's a next time we won't forget where the backup clones are.