I have about 1 gb of data that I can not live with out. I normally back this up on to an external hard drive. And photos get back up on to DVD.
I normally reburn those DVDs every few years.
Operating system is backed up as a Norton's Ghost Image. I means my down time is only about 15 minute to a half hour.
Every thing is else is just pr0n, mp3, game installs and movie/anime. If I lose them, then
* I
should have it back up on DVD
some where
* I can download it again
* Sneaker-Net it from my friends.
* install it again
* Start over
Personally i have had 2 hard drives die on me. Both I managed to get every thing important off before they went. So I have never lost any data due to bad hard drive.
However i have lost my stored pr0n, mp3 and movie/anime collection a few times.
1. faulty IDE cable.
2. forgot to move data before Fdisking
3. corrupted partition. Norton's Disk Doctor managed to get most of it back via lost chains. Most of the files where there, but the directory tree was SHIFT8SHIFT8SHIFT8SHIFT8ed up as it numbered all the directories from 000001 to what ever an the movied every thing down to the root directory of the drive.
4. Few month back, I most some data between some of my drives. About 6 weeks ago, I needed to run a Windows Restore Point. And for some reason, i had all these old directory stuctures just pop up on the orginal drive. Meanwhile the oringal folders where renamed to with the (2) at the end.
I did surprise and confuse me for a little bit as i opened these directories, but there was no contents. I managed to fix up the problem by removing these phantom directories. After that, I did disable MS Restore Point on my data drives as I don't want a repeat of that again.
Over all, if it was not important for me to back up in the first place, it was not important in the first place. If my pr0n, mp3 and movie/anime collection disappear on day, I am not going to care. However i have seen people yell and cry that their porn collection is now gone.
CLIENT :- Have you rescued my drive?????
HARPER :- Yes, I got your my docs, email, favorites and the rest of your profiles. I even got your MYOB data.
CLIENT :- WHAT ABOUT MY PORNO COLLECTION?
HARPER :- (THINKING) we did not copy that yet for a reason........
HARPER :- No. Did not do that.
CLIENT :- Could you please rescue that???
HARPER :- (sigh) Okay....
Later.....
CLIENT :- Is my data back?
HAPRER :- Yes, you myob and my docs.....
CLIENT :- What about the porn????
HARPER :- Yes, and the porn.
Seriously, i had this one bucther a few years back that are more conserned about is porn collection as appose to any thing else that he had stored.