Emmy, The Great Friend
Tuesday, August 23rd, 2005Dear [Emmy],
That’s really sweet. I need a great friend to act as a cheering section and sounding board, who really cares.
I’ll put your address in my address book.
Take care,
Tom
Archive for August 23rd, 2005
Picking a Good External Drive
Tuesday, August 23rd, 2005Dear [Lynn],
Maxtor and Western Digital (WD) drives are great. Seagates are good also but tend to be expensive, and I’m not convinced that they’re any better overall than WD or Maxtor. http://www.pricewatch.com/ lists both Maxtor and WD 200 GB USB drives for $94. By the time you finish paying shipping and tax, you’d probably be looking at $115 at most, quite a bit less than the $193 you’re considering spending.
On the drive size: Well, you want drives that can hold at least several complete backups. And with the price per gigabyte being so low these days, why not go large? Don’t get too big though because once you get up to 300 GB, the price per GB rises sharply. But 200 GB is a pretty main-stream size these days, and drives around this size are generally the cheapest per GB. I think 200 GB would be what you need and you’ll get it cheap as well.
Tom
Talking with Emmy
Tuesday, August 23rd, 2005Dear [Emmy],
Yes, our talks on Sunday and yesterday were nice. It felt like we connected on deeper levels than ever before. Nice to have a close friend like that.
Good luck in your job search.
Talk to you later,
Tom
Backing Up a PC: 2005-08-23
Tuesday, August 23rd, 2005Dear [Lynn],
Understood. Yes, you can use the ‘Backup’ utility that is part of Windows, to accomplish this scenario on each computer. Given all this, my approach to backing up would be just as you describe. Your strategy is sound.
On the recently-fried computer: A fried computer does not mean a fried HDD (hard disk drive)! Though the computer itself may no longer work, the chances are that its HDD is still okay. Your friend could remove the HDD to another, working computer, and if the HDD from the bad computer is indeed not damaged, she’d have complete access to the data on it.
If the HDD however is broken, its manufacturer probably offers a data recovery service. You send the drive to them, and they send you back the data they could salvage, either on tape, or on a new HDD. It depends on the vendor involved and why the drive failed in the first place. If the onboard electronics failed, the disks themselves are still ok and the data can be obtained by replacing the electronics. But if there was a head crash or one of the motors inside the sealed disk area failed, retrieving the data means disassembling the drive and putting the platters into a working shell. This is when you run into big bucks for this. On average, this service tends to be extremely expensive no matter the reason for the failure (in the neighborhood of $1000). So you see why people do backups religiously. 
Tom