Still in the throes of the hard drive crash from last week, I have really learned a few things. Prior to becoming a social media specialist and graphic designer, most of my career has been in legal technology consulting and specifically, for a practice management software called Time Matters®. I know and preached the importance of a backup – and multiple copies at that. I also know the importance of actually keeping paper copies and a land line. Today, it was not only reinforced but also made me realize, these things are STILL inadequate.

Suspecting the imminent demise of the hard drive as detailed in my Microsoft – I’m Not Jumping Yet post of August 19th, I bought a 1TB (yes, that’s TERABYTE) Western Digital External Hard Drive. It was great timing because the drive crashed 2 days later. In addition, I have been running Carbonite‘s online backup service for some time. Naturally, one would assume that all is well with this kind of backup. Hard drive crash? No problem – let’s just restore the files.

The Database – Paramount to a Business

As I mentioned, I used to support Time Matters software. Since I have known it so well for so long, it made perfect sense that I would continue to use it for my own business to track clients and data. It’s a great database system that runs on SQL Express. I do periodically back up those files within the database itself, but generally not that often since using Carbonite. When the drive crashed, I had no fears because – well – I had the files available for restore, right? In 2 places, right? It was just a matter of putting them back in their proper place. I did know that I would not want to tackle the detach and re-attach process of the SQL database because it has been a while since I did that kind of support and it was very limited when I did it. I would need the experience of a master like Wells Anderson of Active Practice or Mark Deal of Document & Data Solutions to help me restore the database, but they are masters at it and once the database is back, I can take it from there.

The External Drive

Let’s start here. When I backed up the PC (the entire PC ), I used the software that came with the WD External Drive. It took quite a while, but seemed to have no issues so, great news. Once I got going trying to restore some files, the news was getting gloomier. Simple documents, pictures, no problem. Restoring folders – great, no problem. Executable or program files – ruh roh. There was nary a database file or executable file that could be found. Big problem. Oh well – I have the online backup service, right?

Online Backup Service

So now we go to “Plan B”. Looks like Carbonite will save me. The database file is there. Still no executable that I need, but at least the data file is in one piece. Restore a folder? No. Restore a file, yes. OK good enough. Only need one file. After several attempts to restore, tech support is called. While I will give the techs credit for their desire to help, I can’t say much for the 20-30 minute hold times. And after spending an exhausting couple of hours, the tech could not get the file restored and was going to have to escalate this up to his superiors. When I asked when I could expect a return call (for a database issue that is core to my business), the tech said – “Oh probably a couple of days”. What? What? Did you hear that this is my database that is central to my business? What? But, alas, my whining and threats to take my little red wagon and go home went unheard. It will still be a couple of days.

Moral of the Story

Well, I apologize for the rant. I ranted last week and it’s still going on. But here are a few tips to save you from feeling the need to rant like this:

• Make sure you have a good online backup service and know what their procedure is and what kind of files actually get backed up. Test the service often. A couple that have been recommended to me:Active Online Backup and IBackup (Note: These two were recommended – I have not tried them and am not affiliated in any way although one of them is my next option).
• Make sure you have good backup software for your external or removable drive.This will be research for me. As a side thought, I would have put a good database backup on a jump drive or a CD in a zipped file.
• Back up as often as you change your data.Make sure you keep your business cards that you collect along with printed copies of registration confirmations, serial numbers and software activation keys.
  It’s the paper you know.
• Make sure you have something like Roboform to keep all of your passwords onlineThis has been a lifesaver.
• Don’t use Skype to call technical support.If you have to re-boot, you’ll lose your call and go back into the “forget” queue.

There are probably more tips I could come up with from my techie days, but I got out of that line of work and now am extremely pleased I switched to more “fun” things like graphics . I can say that I’m truly grateful that my graphic files, documents and pictures were all able to be restored. And I can most likely dig around and find something that will bring back part of my client files if Carbonite can’t get them restored. But I’ll just go with an old thought here “Buyer Beware“.

P.S. For those of you that know I’ve been blaming the leprechaun, it’s not his fault. We took him to Irish Fest yesterday and he was very happy. He rewarded us with some very good leads today for new business. Now if I could just put them in that database…