We have lost everything.

[Gabrielle Proctor]

Today = EPIC FAIL.

Our server at work went down and our zip drive is no longer functioning. We have to do everything by hand and we've lost ALL of our data. No more inventory, customer files, anything. We can enlist the help of a company that recovers data, but it would cost us $4000 - $6000 to get it fixed. Let's put it this way, our store is so small, sometimes, we don't even make that amount in a day.

We are so fucked.

I'm writing everything down for all of our customers on paper. I can't wait to go home...

[Crossbow]

Can you get your hands on another Zip drive and try to recover that way? (I know they're not manufactured anymore, but they do show up occasionally in used bins.)

As for the server going down, ouch. Wish I could help you out.

[Pedersen]

You have some folks here who might be able to help. I'm one of them. Still working, technically, so can't do anything right now.

Use my profile, contact me. Take your pick of method. Or have owner do so. We'll help if we can.

[Horsetuna]

Id offer help too, as we do data recovery at work, but I'm kind of in Canada.

Good luck!

[Dave1982]

*SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT!*

You're in the US, right? You might want to take your server (or it's drive) to your local Staples. Staples EasyTech has a contract with another company to do data recovery from damaged hard drives (Seagate, IIRC). While I do not recall the exact rates, unless we are talking about hundreds of gigabytes, the cost should be far less than "$4-6000." We'd still be talking several hundred at the least, but that's nowhere near as bad.

That having been said, this should be a harsh lesson to your boss[es] about the necessity of backing up data. Once you guys get this mess straightened up, they should buy a couple of high capacity hard drives for backup. Keep one on the premises for daily backups and keep the other off-site (in case of fire, robbery, etc). Switch them with each other once a month or so. 500GB drives are so cheap now that you can easily get two for under $300 total.

[powerboy]

My company always back up our data. I also do so at home.

[Gabrielle Proctor]

Thanks for all ao the offers for help, guys! It means a lot, but we managed to work with corporate to recover a file from 2 days ago, so it still sucks, but not nearly as massive as it did before! It means all the inventory I did I'll have to do again, but at least I don't have to rebuild it from scratch.

The owner has already sent out our hard drive or our zip drive whatever it is, to the company that corporate recommended to us.

We should be fine, now. It looked bleak for a while though!

Again, thanks for all the help offers, I wish I could take you up on them. If it were MY company, I totally would!

[Gabrielle Proctor]

That having been said, this should be a harsh lesson to your boss[es] about the necessity of backing up data. Once you guys get this mess straightened up, they should buy a couple of high capacity hard drives for backup. Keep one on the premises for daily backups and keep the other off-site (in case of fire, robbery, etc). Switch them with each other once a month or so. 500GB drives are so cheap now that you can easily get two for under $300 total.

Yeah, a hard, undeserved lesson for the owner who was just doing as corporate instructed when he opened the place. They never told him that they were updating to flash drives and computers that had 2 hard drives.

We back up our data every night after closing, but for the past couple days it wasn't working properly, although it said it did.

[Swordsman422]

The good news is that through data recovery, we were able to recover all but the last two days of information. So our inventory is two days out of whack, as is the customer rewards system. BUT we are back in business with only a little more fuss...

Things on the to do list:

1. Rewrite end-of-day program worksheet.
2. Increase back-up capacity and number of locations.
3. Enter all transaction data for today manually for the third time.
4. Thank the local dieties that we survived this mess.

Okay, so I'm exagerrating the goodness of the situation. Truth be told, we're holding together by whacky-tack and chewing gum. Juicy Fruit, though, so it's not a total loss for Gabby at least.

[Seshat]

ALL hard drives fail. It's not a matter of if, it's when. ALWAYS have a backup plan.

Everyone else: learn from this!

Here's my guide to backing up your data:

1. Decide how many days/hours/weeks worth of data you're willing to completely lose if your hard drive fails.

2. Decide how much you're willing to completely lose if your building burns down or thieves come and take everything.

3. Decide how much you're willing to completely lose if your entire city is flooded or some other severe and major event occurs.

Number 1 is how often you need to do a backup that you keep in your store.
Number 2 is how often you need to do a backup that you keep outside the store, but in a convenient place like another store in your chain in the same city (you swap backups), or the boss' home, or something.
Number 3 is how often you need to do a backup that you keep outside your city, such as at corporate.

The next question is what to back up. My answer is 'anything you can't buy'. Not necessarily just your data: if your program is no longer available for purchase, you need a backup of that - and not just the one in your store.

Ideally, you should rent a machine as similar as you can to the one you use. Back up your own machine, then try to restore the backup on the rented machine. Check that you have everything you want or need - try every function you use and compare the results to the results on your server. If they're not identical, you didn't back up everything you need.

Make sure you use a data wiping program before you return the rental.

[Pedersen]

Make sure you use a data wiping program before you return the rental.

Excellent advice on all of the above, Seshat! My recommendation for data wiping (assuming you are free to wipe the entire hard drive) is Darik's Boot and Nuke. Easiest way to remove all data from a computer I've ever seen.

[Geek King]

Excellent advice on all of the above, Seshat! My recommendation for data wiping (assuming you are free to wipe the entire hard drive) is Darik's Boot and Nuke. Easiest way to remove all data from a computer I've ever seen.

Seconded, and I will add to run it twice to help ensure no recovery is possible. Most nuking programs can be recovered from if you know exactly how to do it. Not sure about DN&B, although I use it. The only real way to be sure is to do a low-level format where all the bits get set to 0, one by one. Some BIOS will allow you to do this, but it takes a very long time.

[Pedersen]

Seconded, and I will add to run it twice to help ensure no recovery is possible.

Actually, you don't need to. One of the mods of operation is DoD 7 pass wiping. I don't remember the specifics of what it does there, but it wipes the drive 7 times in 7 different ways.

Believe me, if somebody recovers data from that, you have much bigger problems ((and much wealthier attackers) than 99.9% of the population.

[Geek King]

Actually, you don't need to. One of the mods of operation is DoD 7 pass wiping. I don't remember the specifics of what it does there, but it wipes the drive 7 times in 7 different ways.

Fair enough. Like I said, I havn't looked too close at what it actually does, since the computers were just being wiped for license purposes as we rolled out the new PCs.

[HalloranElder]

If you are permanently online, I recommend Mozy for backups.

Mozy is an online backup program that backs up your data to their servers so in case of the worst, it's all available.

The basic account is free (as in, it costs absolutely nothing) and gives you 2Gb of backup from up to 2 computers. If you want more than that you get the unlimited account for $US4.95 a month for unlimited storage space and unlimited computers.

The way it works is that you download the program from their site and install it on your computer, then you tell the program what files you want backed up. From that point on, whenever your computer is not being used it will upload copies of those files to their servers. Once everything is uploaded (may take a while initially) it keeps an eye on those files and uploads the changes whenever files change.

These subsequent uploads are differential backups, so as a result only the bits that have changed get uploaded, which means a lot less bandwidth used.

Your current backup is permanent, and old backups are kept for a month, so old versions of files (and deleted files) can be retrieved for up to a month afterwards.

If you click on that link and sign up, the system will know that I have referred you (which is the extra bit after the base url) and as a result I will get an extra 256Mb of backup storage, and so will you. Yes, that's right, if you join from a referrer, you also get the referring bonus. Neat! If you don't sign up straight away and come back to just the normal page, you can put in the referral code of "FA8PMI" in as part of the signup process and we both get it again.

I've been using it for nearly a year now, and thankfully haven't had to restore anything yet, but it's nice knowing that it's available.