Backing up our photos is something we put off doing because it can be a lot of work and expensive. And we think it’s something we’ll never need.
I got motivated to come up with a backup scheme about a year ago when I thought I had lost all my photograph files from 2010. I had several days of panic and was able to recover most of them from a hodgepodge of backups scattered randomly here and there. I didn’t have anything systematic in place and fortunately they weren’t my portfolio files, the ones I sell. (After it was all over I discovered all the files had inadvertently been moved to another folder. They hadn’t been deleted after all.)
It took a while to come up with the backup strategy that I shared with you in a post last month. Here’s a link to that post. Check it out. I received some valuable comments with some good ideas from others.
It Happened – Duh Duh Duh Duuuuuuuuh
Well, this week the worst of all possible scenarios happened. I lost my portfolio files. I have no idea what went wrong. The night before I was backing them up and the program I was using (Sync Back) encountered system problems (my computer is getting more and more flakey every day). I didn’t think anything of it. But when I returned the next day the files were gone. That is to say, the files on the primary source (my Drobo) were gone. I checked the backup files and they were intact. Whew!
I looked around for the files on the Drobo thinking (hoping) that they were moved to a different directory like the last time but they were nowhere to be found.
Now, like I said, I don’t have a clue what happened. So I’m feeling pretty uncertain right about now. The first thing that comes to mind is to simply restore them from the backup. But since I would be using the same program running on the same flakey computer I didn’t want to risk having my backups mysteriously disappear if the same thing happened again.
Backup the Backup
So I decided to create a copy of the backup; that is, backup the backup. I found enough space on one of my network drives (external storage attached to Pogoplug). So I used my backup program (SyncBack) to make a backup copy of the backup files to the Pogoplug drive. The process took all night and there were errors again. Some files failed to copy, again because of system errors, namely ‘insufficient system resources.’
So I manually copied the files that hadn’t been backed up to complete my backup backup.
Undelete Anyone?
I also looked for the missing files in the Recycle folder. When files are deleted the nice thing for the program that deletes them to do is to put them in the Recycle folder so they can be recovered if anything goes wrong. But not every program does this. In fact, the only program that you can count on doing this is Windows Explorer. And Lightroom. And the files weren’t there. That would have been too easy.
Speaking of Recovery…
A lot of manufacturers realize this situation in Windows and make file recovery programs that know how to look on the hard drive and sniff out deleted files. The cool thing is that when files are deleted they are not removed from the hard drive. They are still there and often times still intact. They only disappear when the sectors where they are written on the hard drive are used for another file.
So these file recovery programs have a way of going out there and finding files that were deleted but not removed and are still in good enough shape to reconstruct. I had done an Internet search for recovery files when I lost the 2010 files and had a trial version sitting on my hard drive. The program is File Scavenger. I ran it and lo and behold, it found virtually all of the deleted files on the Drobo.
So, in an abundance of caution I decided to attempt to recover the files as a first step. But I needed a license to enable all of File Scavenger’s functionality. A quick credit card transaction and I was ready to go.
File Scavenger also exercises an abundance of caution and that is to restore the files to a totally different drive. They don’t want to take any chances of messing up unrecovered files during the recovery process. So I selected another drive on the Drobo (it has four drives – F: G: H: and I:) and turned the program loose.
This was going to be another long process – almost 7 hours as it turned out. A voice in my head said, “Take a hike,” so I did. And the files were eventually recovered.
Copy the Recovered Files
Now I’m ready to copy the recovered files back to their original folders. I did this manually. It took pretty much the rest of the day but I was able to work on other things while this was going on.
The recovery and copy operation happened yesterday. Today I’m on the last step.
The Final Step
Now, as I’m typing this, I’m running SyncBack to synchronize the recovered files in their original Drobo folders with the backup files. It’s running now and so far, no problems. When there are ‘collisions’, that is when there are files on both source and backup that have the same name but with, say, different sizes, it asks what to do. I’m choosing the backup version because of the uncertainty in the file recovery process.
I just checked and SyncBack just finished with no problems. We’re totally restored.
Coming Up Next
Later today I’m heading out to pickup another external hard drive. I think 300 GB should do. This will be for the exclusive purpose of creating a backup of the backup. So the backup configuration will consist of three levels:
- The original files on the Drobo (drive F: directly attached to the computer)
- The first backup on a 1 TB external drive, also directly attached to the computer
- The second backup on a 300 GB external drive attached to the network through Pogoplug (the good thing about this is I’ll be able to get to these files from my other computers – at home or away)
And for additional peace of mind I have File Scavenger for file recovery that works on all my drives. (Note: file recovery software does NOT work on network attached storage devices. But by using Pogoplug for my network attached storage, I just plug in regular external drives. If something goes wrong I can detach them from Pogoplug and attach them directly to the computer and then the file recovery software will work.)
So I’m feeling pretty good now. I know I went through a lot of extra trouble to go the file recovery route. But I think in the long run it will pay off, not so much in this situation but if and when it happens in the future.
Now, I really have to do something about that flakey workstation of mine. I really need to reimage the hard drive. I’ve been putting it off too long.
Photography Workshops
We don’t carry on with all this technical talk at our photography workshops (unless of course you want to). We focus on the excitement of being in beautiful places at the most wonderful times of day and honing our craft.
So check us out. I attend one workshop every year. Why? Because it’s proven to be the most effective way I know of to grow as a photographer. Yes, I could try to learn by trial and error and that can be a lot of fun. But there aren’t enough days in the year to grow at the pace I want to grow if I do it that way. So I attend workshops given by my photography heroes – David Muench, Jack Graham, Alain Briot, Uwe Steinmueller, Joseph Holmes, Tony Sweet, Max Holbert, Charles Cramer. And oh my gosh, they are fun.
Check us out. Click here for our 2011 workshop schedule.
To see more of my photographs click here.
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