Not looking for any advice here. Don't even know why I posted. If you depend on your PC as much as I do, be sure to have a good backup plan. And test your recovery process.
I can relate Rob. I did that once and I have read so many times of it happening to others. And I didn't think it cost anywhere near that to have data recovered?? Obviously they have gone way up in price then.
OK, I hope that didn't mean you don't want any advice! Cause I have a little about backups. Maybe this will help someone else. I am extremely careful when it comes to backups. And I am extremely bad at remembering to do them. Then I found a way to that is painless and best of all, IT WORKS!
Here is my method. First you need to download a program called Syncback. It's freeware. Second, since HD are so cheap, install a second drive in your computer. I use this disk for nothing but backup data on.
(OK thats not exactly true but pretend it is so.)
Syncback is a program that runs all the time on your computer. It is made for synchronizing two or more HD's and you can do many things with it, it is very customizable. I have it setup so that is creates an exact copy of the DATA ONLY on my main HD to the AUX HD. It does not contain the OS or any programs. Just my data/work files. Just so you know, it cannot make an exact copy of the drive. So you can not back up you OS and Programs with it.
You can set the program to back up as often as you like. I think I have mine set to run every 15 minutes. After you run it the first time and copied all the data, it only looks for files that have changed since the last backup. So it's really quick and doesn't slow down the computer. I actually have several different backups scheduled to run at different times. Again the program is very customizable.
The second part of my back up is my shop computer. I use it for surfing the internet and streaming music to my shop. It too has a large AUX HD in it. Syncback will work over a network so I have it set up to back up all the data to the AUX drive in the shop computer too. Now I have my data on three hard drives with two being strictly backups. If I loose my main drive, I still have to reinstall everything but I have all my data safety backed up. The odds of loosing all 3 drives at one time is very remote! And it's simply a matter of copying it back on the computer once bad drive is replaced and up and running again.
As for a second computer there are lots of cheap slow computer out there. I was given this one cause it was old and had a problem. Most of us probably have a second one in the closet of kids room or something. Wireless networks are more and more common and it's not that hard to network two computers to share files.
Yes, the second computer is probably overkill. But with HD prices at around $100-$120 for a 20 Gig drive and since you can probably pick up a comptuer for next to nothing I think the piece of mind is well worth it. If your in business like myself I think it a near perfect solution.
Another solution that is ever better is RAID. I have never set up one up but as I understad it, you install two identical HD's in your computer. Connect them a RAID controller card you install and it will keep the two HD identical. If one crashes, you can still run off the second one because it is indentical to the one that crashed. With virtually no down time!
Hope this helps someone.