Sep 25, 2003
By Pat McGrew, EDP
Welcome to the HVCO Data Management Pavilion of OutputLinks.com!
Last time I promised to share what I learned about both sides of the data restoration dilemma: personal recovery and corporate recovery. While the environments are very different, you'll find that much of what applies to one also applies to the other. Let's start with the basics, when you back up your personal data you are taking a snapshot of it at a specific point in time. That snapshot is specific to the machine, operating system, version of the operating system, and other factors.
Think about the things you backed up 10 years ago. You probably used floppy disks or perhaps a streaming tape back up or Syquest disk. Look at the applications and files on your PC today, especially your home PC. If you've been upgrading your PC have you been copy files from machine to machine? Or, have you been backing up the things you didn't want to move and putting the disks or tapes away? Either way you may discover that you cannot even open some of the files you have so carefully saved.
As I was pulling together a bin of all of my software installation CDs, diskettes, ZIP disks, and data CDs, I found that there were three sets of diskettes that were the installation CDs for software that is no longer made or supported, but which I liked to use. The applications were nothing fancy. One was good for quickly making web buttons, while another was for outlining notes and a third was a personal inventory template. I had been copying these applications from machine to machine for years, but then the machine was gone.
For another half dozen applications that had been happily running on a Windows 95 machine on my desk for years I did have the installation CDs and installation codes. But, some of them went back to Windows 95. The replacement laptop, currently filling the role formerly played by three separate machines, is Windows XP Home Edition.
My point is that may of the applications I have been using are somewhat mature, some are no longer sold or supported, and, it turns out, some will not install in the new operating system environment. Even using some of the more stalwart tools on the market today, some applications simply do not come forward into the new environments.
It gets better. I have ZIP disks full of source files for some of those applications. I also have CDs and ZIP disks full of source files for other, back level versions of some of applications for which I have the current version and release. I had not ever checked to ensure that I could open the oldest of the files because I knew I had the old versions of the software. Guess what? Some of the current versions of my photo manipulation programs, illustration programs, font development programs, and page layout tools do not open the oldest of the files on my disks. Adding to the fun is the inability to get some of the older applications to install under XP.
This only touches part of the problem, though. There is also the challenge of trying to reconstruct the daily working environment from the combination of the last good system back up and the changes since that back up. While all of us who work around systems understand the need for constant backups, and even real time back ups in some environments, in our home PC environments, including home office environments, it is easy to let a backup cycle slide.
In my case, I had a good backup of most of my data. It was, however, to an external hard drive sitting on the same desk as the rest of my equipment. My concern was for the specific failure of a PC, not for the roof coming down on the entire office setup. We'll keep looking at these issues next time. If this is valuable, drop us a line at
pm@outputlinks.com.