Tom's Diary

Today’s Chores

• Cat duty.  DONE.
• Dispensing Mom’s meds. DONE.
• Launder a new winter coat I received for Christmas, a blanket, and a table cloth for Mom.  DONE.
• Shower.  DONE.
• Send out four pending memorial checks for the   WPSBC Alumni Association.
• Order three new hard drives for the DJ business.  DONE.
• Go   shopping   with Debbie.   DONE.

Log 

10:15 AM: I’m up.

11:10 AM:  [Emmy]  is watching KDKA TV’s locally-hosted show, Pittsburgh Today Live  on the DVR.  We currently have 65 recordings saved there to see.  So she’s going to have to get busy watching because the DVR is 95 percent full now, and we wouldn’t want to miss any episodes of   The Young and the Restless, due to the hard drive filling up.

02:00 PM: Worked the   DJ Gig: 2009-12-31   project.  While syncing the music hard drives, I discovered a   Hard Disk Drive Failure in one of the music library HDDs.  Not a show-stopper by any means.  But I now must order some new drives, to replenish my supply of spare drives, which  is now depleted. 

03:00 PM: No mail received today.

04:00 PM: In light of the   Hard Drive Failure   experienced today, I’ve decided to initiate the   Hard Drive Upgrades: 2010   project.

06:45 PM: Got back a little while ago from a    shopping trip   with Debbie.  Mom’s second party this week is well under way and has basically the same dishes as were served last night; taco dip, chips, crackers, shrimp, pop.  Someone brought a pumpernickel loaf with spinach dip as well, that tasted very good. 

07:00 PM: [Emmy] is listening to tonight’s Penguins hockey game against the New Jersey Devils. 

09:30 PM: Mom’s party is over now.  All has a great time, so I heard them commenting as they left. 

10:30 PM: Worked the   Hard Drive Failure: 2009-12-30   issue.  Since Seagate is closed for the New Years  holiday, I’ll have to wait until sometime next week to talk to them about the two failed drives I discovered today.

12:05 AM: Posted the list of added or revised posts to the   Tom’s Diary   blog.  Click   here   to see the list. 

12:25 AM: Well, I’m out of here for seven plus hours of sleep.  Catch you tomorrow, and do take care.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Diary Revisions: 2009-12-30
• DJ Gig: 2009-12-31
• Hard Drive Failure: 2009-12-30
• Hard Drive Upgrades: 2010
• Mom’s Status: 2009-12-30
• Shopping Trip: 2009-12-30

My current music library external disk drives are over 90% full now.  This, and the fact that one of them just failed has convinced me that it’s time to upgrade.  So, I’ve been hardware shopping today, online.

After perusing Amazon and eBay, it looks like the 1.5 TB external drives are currently the best buy.  Go above this in storage size, and the cost per GB rises significantly.  Go below this, and I’ll have to upgrade again too soon, as I have over 93000 old time radio shows (~1 TB) to add to the library as well. 

I’ve therefore selected the Seagate Desk FreeAgent 1.5 TB, USB 2.0  external drives.  These drives have a thin profile, which means that they’ll fit easily into my laptop cases that I take on DJ gigs.  Thus, I have ordered three of these now, and will get the others in February, 2010, once I’ve played with them a little and really gotten comfortable with them as good replacements for my current hardware. 

I’ll track this upgrade until I have at least six of the bigger drives, fully populated with my media library.  Follow the progress of this effort in the attached comments. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• DJ Gig: 2009-12-31
• Hard Drive Failure: 2009-12-30 
• Internet Shopping: 2010-01-06
• Projects Page
• Today’s Business: 2009-12-30
• Today’s Business: 2010-05-13

01:55 PM: While syncing the music drives, per the   DJ Gig: 2009-12-31   effort, one of my external USB hard drives would not completely power up when connected to the computer through my Adaptec USB 2.o hub.  However, my other drives, through the same port, powered up just fine.  The bad one would spin up, but the data / busy light repeatedly blinks on and off, in a slow, rhythmic pattern.  Thus, this drive never becomes visible in Windows Explorer, and in fact, does not even appear on the Computer Management console (Windows XP).

Inside the external drive enclosure box, I have a Seagate ST3250620A hard drive, which I purchased brand new in early 2007.  I believe this drive has a five year warranty.  But not used to seeing Seagate drives fail so quickly, I tried different power supplies and cables, and I swapped out the USB-to-IDE bridge board in the enclosure.  Unfortunately, none of these remedies solved the problem.  So it does appear that after only three years, the hard drive itself has gone bad.

This leaves me with just five properly-functioning and up-to-date music drives.  But I get nervous when this number falls below six.  So I’ll order more external drives presently, per the   Hard Drive Upgrades: 2010   project, as well as a replacement drive (under warranty) from Seagate for this enclosure.

A corollary issue is that while investigating the problem with the 250 GB external drive described above, I also discovered that one of my 200 GB drives (also a Seagate, model #ST3200822A) won’t fully power up.  So I’ll investigate warranty service for both these units.

I’ll track this issue until I have six working and current music drives once again.  See the attached comments for updates on my progress with this.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• DJ Gig: 2009-12-31
• Hard Drive Upgrades: 2010
• Projects Page
• Today’s Business: 2009-12-30

08:10 AM: I’m up.  Looks like a clear day so far. So my to-do list for today is as follows:

• Planning to work the  Gutter Maintenance Project   and caulk the gutter joints if they’re dry enough. 
• Also, I hope to install the rest of the roof vent on the shed for the   Shed Roof Replacement Project.
• Finally, replace the failed disk drive from yesterday’s   DJ Wedding Reception Gig.  This is the   Music Hard Drive Repair Project.

10:00 AM: Worked on the  Music Hard Drive Repair Project.  Trying replacing the hard drive with a new one to see if the improper power-up sequence persists.

11:00 AM: Worked on the  Gutter Maintenance Project.  Re caulked some of the problem joints.

12:15 PM: Worked the   Shed Roof Replacement Project.  Installed the rest of the ridge vent.

03:00 PM: Went shopping   with sister JoJo and her daughter. 

06:30 PM: Finished the final trimming on the  Shed Roof Replacement Project.

07:00 PM: Worked more on the   Music Hard Drive Repair Project.  Repairs are complete.

10:12 PM: Weekly blog site backups   complete. 

10:30 PM: Talked with  [Emmy].

11:00 PM: Today’s repeating song (a repeating song is one that I listen to over and over) was Nick Gilder’s  Here Comes the Night.  It talks about women who play  “the lipstick game” which, presumably is the practice of wearing makeup and fancy clothes in order to attract a potential lover.  This certainly wasn’t Gilder’s biggest hit.  Of course, almost anyone growing up listening to the radio in 1978 would know his biggest: Hot Child in the City.  But this one I actually like more; it’s a bit more cerebral I think.

02:27 AM: Just finished adding some   new posts about some of the places I’ve lived.  Don’t know why I have so much energy tonight; I’m only just now starting to feel sleepy, and it’s after 2:00 AM. 

03:09 AM: I’m off to bed.  Take care and, see you tomorrow.  Good night.

Tom

Dear [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

Dear [Lynn],

What kind of software are you looking for? Backup software? Drivers? If you’re just going to use the backup PC for storage of backup copies of your files from the primary machine, then you shouldn’t need any more software than what comes with Windows. But if you want to have a backup computer that is capable of all the tasks that your primary machine is, then you’ll need to install all the software on that machine that you have on your primary PC.

Let me know more precisely what you’re looking for.

Tom

Dear [Lynn],

You can use USB 2.0 with WinME. However, you’ll need to install a USB 2.0 card (I’d suggest an Adaptec card. A bit more expensive, but very seamless installation and quite reliable). Otherwise, you’ll be stuck using the USB 1.1 interface already in the computer.

I’ve used Western Digital, Seagate, and Maxtor drives. All are very good. Any of these should make a good USB 2.0 external drive. They come in different shapes and sizes though. Maxtor drives often come in bigger cases that sit on the desk top, while WD drives have a lower profile, smaller case that works well when stacking several of them. These sit on the desk too but have a metallic look that makes them look too “industrial” for some office decors. But they pack well and can easily be stored along with a laptop in the same case because they’re so thin. http://www.pricewatch.com/  has pictures of the various styles of external drives to help you decide which one you’d like best.

Tom

Dear [Lynn],

Unless you have a specific need for FireWire, I don’t see any need to buy a drive that has both USB and FireWire.

You shouldn’t have any problem with USB port shortages, especially since you’ll only be using the drive while backing up. Even if you don’t have many USB ports, you can buy a USB hub that turns one port into two, four, or seven, or more. Not too expensive either. My preference is USB 2.0 because it seems like USB 2.0 appliances are more ubiquitous than FireWire ones these days.

Also, 250 GB might be too big for your purposes. If you’re only backing up a 40 GB drive to the external drive, then perhaps an 80 or 120 GB drive would do nicely because you could save two to three backups on it. I suspect that the best buy (in terms of cost per GB storage) would likely be the 120 GB drive. But again, I haven’t purchased any in a while, so this may have changed. When you shop, you can calculate the cost per GB as you examine each drive, and figure out which is the cheapest.

Nope. No [you're not a] pest yet.

Tom

Dear   [Lynn],

Are you running XP Home Edition, or XP Professional? If you’re running XP Home, then you have to install the Backup utility manually. See this site for instructions…
http://www.theeldergeek.com/backup_for_xp_home_edition.htm

Woops! I meant “System Tools”, not “System Programs.”

Let me know if you need to discuss purchasing an external hard drive. I can help with the jargon.

Well, on networking: It does have some administrative overhead (getting the computers configured properly, running network cables, and so on). But when you’re connected to the Internet, a network makes it easier for viruses to spread among your computers. So if you’re going to network, make sure you install anti-virus software on all your machines. You would also need a firewall that plugs between your local network and the Internet. I have a Netgear firewall / router here. Works great, and once it’s set up, you rarely have to touch it again. And setup is a breeze. Networking is a great idea as long as you manage it correctly. Not only can you share hard drives, but printers as well. That is, you can print to a single printer from both your computers.

Good luck,
Tom

Dear [Lynn],

Yes, you’re right. Only one backup every six months is by no means enough, especially if the files you’re protecting are mission-critical documents, programs, and such. If the documents are changed daily, then a daily (or at least a semi-weekly) backup should be performed. You might also consider buying several USB external drives, and rotate them on and off-site. Always good to retain several backups. At work, they saved them for a year I think.

Since USB drives have become pretty inexpensive, this wouldn’t be very costly to do. I have six drives for my DJ music. Each drive has a complete copy of all music. I keep one drive under the driver’s seat in Mom’s car, and another at Rich and Christine’s garage. The others I have here.

This involuntary volunteering used to happen to me at work. I’d make a suggestion to improve a process, and then would get charged with making it happen. Overall, it worked out pretty well. But I don’t envy you.

Windows XP has a “Backup” program that you can use to easily back up the entire hard drive (including all software and the operating system) to an external hard drive. Backup is located under
Accessories->System Programs
In the “All Programs” menu.

By the way, as a side note: Both XP and ME have the “System Restore” feature, which allows you to “roll back” the computer to a previous state (say, like it was five days ago). This is a very handy feature, especially if you install a program that goofs things up on the computer. You can easily undo that installation with full confidence that the computer has been completely rolled back to the way it was before you put the faulty program on it. This doesn’t really solve your back-up problem per se. However, it will save you from having to fetch your back-ups, in many cases.

About the external hard drives: I’ve had experience with both the Iomega and Maxtor drives (own several Iomegas). The last time I bought some (in 2001), the Iomegas were rather expensive. In hindsight, I’d recommend getting Western Digital drives in external USB cases. You can read about them at:

• http://pricewatch.com

On this page, go to “Drives – Hard” and the list of available sizes of USB drives appears, along with the cheapest price available for each size drive. You may not want the cheapest however. Read the specifics about the drives (refurbished Vs. new, any warranties, Etc.), before buying. I’ve purchased much equipment through this site and haven’t had any problems with vendors. Plus, they’ll deliver it to your door.

For the second computer, you could buy a USB 2.0 card for it and plug an external drive into it for backup purposes. Or, do what you’re thinking, and put a network card in it. Installing either card is pretty easy these days because Microsoft has really got the Plug-N-Play technology down pat. No more do we call it “Plug And Pray.” Just stick with the name brand cards (I’d recommend Adaptec, Netgear, 3Com, Syslink et al), and you won’t have any problems. In fact, both XP and ME come with drivers for the most popular cards. So you shouldn’t have to install any drivers manually – Windows does it after you install the card and power on the machine. But follow the instructions that come with whatever card you buy however, because sometimes, they come with their own additional software that is handy to have on your computer, and following their instructions will ensure that you get it.

You could also network your first computer (the XP one) with the second, if you bought another NIC and a router for your DSL connection. I’d recommend the Netgear firewall/router/switch units that you can buy for less than $100. Not only would you then have high-speed Internet available on both computers, but you could also share files between the computers (back up one computer to the other and vice versa). Just a few thoughts.

Anyway, all is well here. I’ve been working in the yard the past week or so, to clean up all this flood debris that piled up under the big spruces back there last fall. About half the work is done so far. Everyone is doing fine. Cats included.

Well, gotta run. So, talk to you later,
Tom