Bring it out to the range!

Sorry to hear that, computers are like cars-almost a necessity but a pain in the azz.

Quoted: Quoted: How secure is Gmail? not very also why do you think they want you to *archive* everything ?

I wouldnt say thats a security weakness of Gmail, but rather the user. Windows ahs excellent password schemes, but if you post your password on the monitor the best encryption in the world wont help you. Same thing here. Dont use obvious password validation questions!!

Here is what I have done:

I bought an USB HD case, the kind you can put any normal 3.5inch HD into. I have one HD that once a month I mirror my computers HD to.... one for each machine. Then, if my HD fails in my desktops I simply install the backup and its a seamless recovery except for whatever changed for that last week or so. I also have a 60gig HD taht usually stays in that case that I backup important files to any time there is a change.

you can get the USB HD case on ebay for under $20. 20 gig HD's are dirt cheap and can backup all the critical data on you HD. Heck as far as that goes put all those free 5-10-15 gig HD's im machines people are getting rid of to good use!

I try to have three back-ups after that I am SCREWED!

I know it really pisses you off when this happens

You will be older and WISER for it.

Quoted: Are CDs any better at saving data? I work with spreadsheets.

Do you want me to compare a Tec-9 to a MP5?

sigh If you dont already have one then get a CD burner. Copy ALL pertinent info onto CD's and save them in safe places. Frequently save new info onto new discs and save in a safe place. Next time your computer crashes just copy all of the info from the CD's onto your hard drive after everything is fixed and there ya go.

Quoted: I just lost a harddrive. Its at reynolds recovery trying to get my family photos and tax stuff off.   It will cost me $500 bucks even if it doesn't work, and $1200 bucks if they recover only one file. ARGH.

Was it a partition crash or a hardware failure?

Partition crash recoveries are fun at times,  But the hardware ones are easy to recover the data from.

Quoted: Quoted: You can buy a floppy for 10 bucks.  Not worth having an anurism over. Texas must just be SOOOO proud of you.

Texas is a place.  It can't be proud.

Quoted: My computer crashed yesterday and I decided to re-configure it (at Sony's direction) since I had my critical data on that floppy I told you about. I started over with the HD...and now I find out the floppy is toast. I tend not to be a violent person, but I'm beside myself right now.

Sorry to hear it but I have to say that what you get for trusting the most unworthy archival method.  before you give up.  Try the disk in someone else's floppy drive, Your's might bo to dirty to read properly.  If you can get access to a PC with an ls120 drive you might have a chance at recovering the files.

I do not even have a floppy drive, I stopped putting them in my PC's 10 years ago.

If you're backing up to floppy you might as well just delete what you wanted to save.  Zip drives are atleast a little more reliable (not by much).  

Ohh and do yourself a favor and get one of these.

USB Pen Drive

My USBPen has 2 years with me sofar.  Dropped, steped on, droped in mud, water, sat in our 90+deg august summer sun and suprisingly survived 2 trips through the washer and dryer.

It has yet to lose a bit of data.

I run multiple hard drives with my precious data (mostly digital pics of family) copied onto completely seperate drives. I also burn all data onto many CD's. Why CD's versus a DVD's? Because even if a CD goes bad, they aren't "all" going bad at the same time. With a DVD, going bad, you lose a lot more at once and DVD media still isn't as cheap as it is to make a bunch of redundant copies on CD.

The CD's are for the assumption that the multiple hard drives all corrupt at once. I have had one of the hard drives corrupt (due to NTFS screwing up) and another crash, but never both at once. Every year, I recopy all the CD's onto new ones (about 15 CD's total so far) to insure good backups.