[Leica] You do make backups, don't you?

[ruben at rhodos.dk (Ruben)]

Hi Daniel

Back in 1999 - about 3 weeks after I purchased my company - a uneven current 
"burst" blew 3 external SCSI disks - one working as a "mirror backup" one 
Scratch disk and one data disk - Total loss of 80 GB data - a lot in 1999 
terms.

It almost killed my company because my insurance company was total idiots. I 
had sent the Disks to the only company in Denmark (called BMI) that are 
experts in data rescue (the can fix a disk from a laptop after a house fire) 
but the guy from the insurance company who knew nothing of computers wanted 
"his good friend" to examine the disks first to determine if my claim was 
covered by the insurance. Of cause I refused as the result would be that I 
could newer again se my data - and becaus the rescue company had already 
made a repport with the facts needed.

After 4 month and after engaging my lawyer they finally gave in and gave a 
"green light" for the data rescue - about USD 32000 or 400 USD pr. GB data! 
This started in july  and ended in november and prevented me from finishing 
2/3 of my "fall programme" wich really sucks when you are a publisher.

I was at that time suposed to be covered by both a "data loss insurance" and 
a "loss of income" insurance! - I had E&Y to calculate my loss at  about 
250000 USD - but somewere with very fine print the insurance company had a 
clausule saying that if the "data loss" insurance was in use the "loss of 
income" insurance was not valid !

As the insurance company was directly to blame of my loss in income because 
of their handling of things my lawyer told me that we could win a case 
against them but the cost and time would be more then I could handle! (It 
was a "tuff" start being a newly owner of a company)

Anyway before all this we had experienced both hard drives, mother boards, 
scanners etc. that had been "blown" by either mal-currents-lightnings or as 
we believed just plain bad luck.

After that last experience in 1999 we got into UPS - (uninterupted power 
suplies or something like that) - not the small cheap ones by Aps - but some 
german heavy duty ones (Liebner i think ) - looks like a tower computer but 
weighs about 80 pounds.  It has a totally "alcalic?? ((sorry not sure what 
that is called in english))" seperation between the incoming current and the 
current that is sent to the computers - it has 1/2 hour battery capacity for 
8 computers and ad ons. You can fire 400000 volts into them and the computer 
will never know.

I have not had one break down since I started using UPSs- not one 
malfuntioning board, disk or anything - no blue screens and the sound of the 
computers are smooth as the get a very even power supply.

These UPS-machines are not cheap about 2-3000 USD but if you look arround 
for auctions selling high end computer gear etc. from big companys that has 
gone broke you can find one very cheap I have seen them at about USD 200 - 
it might have a battery with only 1/3 of its capacaty left but that is still 
plenty for you to be able to shut down everything in good time.

Using a UPS have been the investment I have done in computers ever so if you 
stumple over one do not hessitate to buy one. The only thing that I do not 
use on the UPS suplied power is Laserprinters because they draw to much 
current when they engage the heating elements.

Good luck with recovering you machine

best

Ruben


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Daniel Ridings" <dlridings@gmail.com>
To: "Leica Users Group" <lug@leica-users.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 9:49 AM
Subject: [Leica] You do make backups, don't you?


> Yesterday, as I was scanning a couple of negs to illustrate something
> on another list, lightening struck out of a clear blue sky.
>
> Well, ok, it wasn't clear blue. A thunderstorm approached, I pulled
> out all the plugs (learned a lesson from 2002 when the whole house got
> zapped) and waited at least an hour or an hour and a half when I was
> sure that it had gone over I started working again.
>
> After 20 minutes ... BAM! Computer got zapped (I'm hoping it's only
> the power supply and that the disks can be salvaged), printer got
> zapped ... Nikon LS-5000 made it ok.
>
> It was an old computer, no big deal. I was going to upgrade this
> weekend anyway. I have backups of just about everything. I might have
> trouble finding my original serial number for Vuescan and ACDSee, but
> otherwise I think I'm ok.
>
> DVD's make it easier to backup. "Easier" because it's less of a pain.
> I also had the external USB disk (that wasn't hooked up). Keep making
> that backups. Things will go wrong at some point.
>
> Daniel
>
>
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