The Great Computer Crash of 11/20

[Ben Vukicevich SRA]

Mike,

I never back-up. I know...I should but I just store all my completed appraisals and pdf files on zip disks so if the hard disk goes, all I have to do is reload the appraisal software and I'm back in business. If a zip disk goes down, I only lose that 100 meg disk and then I still have all the PDF files I sent on my hard drive for that disk so I can just move them to a new zip disk. But I've always used zip disks to store reports as I work at the office and at home so the zip goes with me everywhere.

By the way, it's going to be a real treat for you to reload Athena from the original CD and then all the 70+ updates.... 8O 8O

Toolbox rules...

Ben

 

[Tim The Enchanter]

A good reminder to keep good backup.

If your computer dies, you will lose time. :twisted:
But backup can help minimize the loss.

 

[Mike Garrett RAA]

Ben...thats's what I have been doing. All of my completed reports are on zip disk. Going to buy a new one with usb connection for the new computer since mine is currently parallel port (the original, I think). Was a piece of cake to down load Athena. I had a cd version with updates thru 52. With DSL I was able to download 53 - 70 in a few minutes and the install took even less time.

We have had only one zip disk go bad and that was because my partner dropped it on the floor. I can get about 80 appraisal reports with photos on a 100 meg disk....probably more if I was to compact them.

The new computer has a CD burner. I am thinking about taking all my reports for the last 5 years (about) ten zip disks and burn them to CD and then slowly phase out the zip drives completely. Still don't know how to write to the CD but will learn soon, I hope.

I really didn't lose any data, at least not that I knew of....just had to reload all the programs, some of which I don't have or know where the original programs are. One of the things I have on my hard drive is all the plat maps for the entire county. They are still there but the program to open them is missing.

Life goes on...when you life in cyber space!

 

[Richard Carlsen]

Ben

If you have a second hard drive, just copy the appraisal "Files" to your D drive once a week or so. Mine takes about 8 minutes to copy over to the backup drive. I have my report files broken down by years so I only copy the 2002 File and my current "request" files. That way if the C-drive goes down, I have most of my current files.

I also burn a CD of the 2002 file every month or so. It takes 2 CD's due to the number of reports because I have imbedded the photos but at the price of blank CD-R's, it is cheep insurance. I burn an extra set every 6 months or so and keep that in an off site location. When the files are 5 years old and the work file is destroyed, the only copy of the report that I have is on the CD. The computer file is deleted.

Once you set up your peer-to-peer network, it is easy to copy the files over to the D drive on the other machine for backup. That extra hard drive is very valuable. Given the size of hard drives today and the fact that they are relatively inexpensive, one should not be without a good large backup drive.