Mad backup flurry

[cjsmith]

I'd been wondering whether something was wrong for the last couple of days, as my normally-solid ancient desktop machine crashed this weekend and then had trouble rebooting. But it seemed to be okay after the second reboot.

This evening several applications crashed at once, and one of them attempted to restart and griped about corrupt files. Cue ominous music.

Disk sick. Including, very likely, the swap area. Disk dying.

Of course I haven't backed up anything on this old behemoth. Of course it has, in fact, no access to any devices capable of writing (unless you count the printer, a relatively poor backup strategy). Of course my laptop's battery is completely dead. Of course no machine in this house can access files from any other machine, unless I am rfrench, which tonight I am not, as he is gone.

Well. I have a shell account and I know how to use FTP.

Couple hours later I have every shred of data I care about sucked down to CD-R through the laptop, including some crap I had lying around on my two ISP shell accounts, via the simple expedient of FTPing everything to Kentucky from one machine and back from Kentucky onto the other. I don't care if there was a faster way to do it: this worked. Phew. That bolus of data included taxes as far back as '96 and all the square dance choreo I've written in the last several years.

Now I just wait for this ol' machine to die, I expect. Too bad. It's been good to me. :-(

Comments

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

unless you count the printer, a relatively poor backup strategy

*snicker* I have this visual of you doing a hex dump of the drive sectors to the printer and hacking everything back onto a new drive by hand. Ew.

unless I am rfrench, which tonight I am not, as he is gone

That explains why I haven't met him yet - you and he are the same person! ;-) I knew there was a reason he was never with you.

FTPing everything to Kentucky

Careful, that's only one state away from me. ;-)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Glad you got a chuckle out of that image! I was thinking of printing Word documents and retyping them, still an awful solution.

Heh heh, no one has ever seen rfrench and me in the same room... okay, that's not true, but it's a fun idea.

Indeed, it's close... that's where one of my shell accounts lives, the one whose name I don't give out because it still gets less than ten spam a day.

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of printing Word documents and retyping them, still an awful solution.

Oh, ick. Even worse.

Heh heh, no one has ever seen [info]rfrench and me in the same room...

My brain has seized up trying to come up with just what superhero you (or he) would be. ;-)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh, ick. Even worse.

Less typing per byte of data, though. Word doc files are soooo bloated.

My brain has seized up trying to come up with just what superhero you (or he) would be. ;-)

Defender of Common Sense? Mad Flying Gadgeteer? This is worth some thought.

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

Defender of Common Sense? Mad Flying Gadgeteer?

I like those. :-) Costumes?

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Black. Clinging. With cape. Utility belt, pockets, boot knife. Don't know what else yet.

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

*whimper*

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Any violations of common sense in your area? Call the Defender to the rescue!

M16 or no M16? Mmm, no, long guns are probably not the most practical way to deal with the challenges a Mad Flying Defender of Common Sense is likely to face. But a clue bat is hard to carry when flying. Hmm. This needs work.

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

You could fit a big cluebat in an invisible plane a la Wonder Woman. ;-)

[datagoddess.livejournal.com]

You forgot the leather corset!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I suppose the utility belt could instead be D-rings to hang stuff from. Just as long as they don't flop about when I am flying.

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

And you could hang all kinds of stuff from those.

Mmmm... leather corset. Thigh-high leather boots?

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

And you could hang all kinds of stuff from those.

The worst offenders, perhaps. ;-)

Calf-high, so I can stick a knife in the top of 'em. Practicality is key!

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

Still... not a bad image, IMHO. ;-)

[abenn.livejournal.com]

Unrelated to your post... I just wanted to say hello. I don't know how long it's been since you friended me, but I've noticed that you are there and have added you back. Since my journal is nearly completely friends-only these days, it must have been boring reading so far. ;-)

Well okay, related to your post: that was a clever solution. Glad that you saved your data.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Hi! welcome! :) I don't know how long it's been either. We have a few friends in common (dawnd, off the top of my head).

My journal has been mostly friends-only for a while, although I'm making an effort to relax a bit. I only have one reader I'd rather not see my stuff, and he may have forgotten about me by now.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

That bolus of data

What a delightfully apropriate word.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I love the word "bolus". 8-)