Hi, having got This fab software since Christmas and getting a bit obsessed with it, I have completed a few songs and to my ear they are getting better each time and I am only just starting.
I just finished what I thought was my best yet after working on it as much as I could over the last week. Finally happy I rendered it to an MP3 and was just about to call my wife to come and listen when the hard drive on my four year old computer just died. Repairman says it's a total wipeout and of course despite backing up all of my photos and other valuable stuff, I had not thought to back up my BIAB files.
Now it's not like it's the end of the world but ,,, bugger.
So please if you don't already and I am sure it is only numpties like me who don't BACK UP your music.
Back to the drawring board for me.
Cheers Steve

Was it the whole BB program too?
You scared me now Steve cos I dont back up my BB songs either as my HD is only two years old.
Ian

Yes it is all gone, there was a power cut here and that did for it. Scary stuff indeed, as someone once told me a hard drive has either crashed or is about to.
Of course I now have the pain of reloading all of my software and I know my music is no great shakes but well serves me right.

Cheers Steve

Sorry to hear of your loss Steve, and your timely reminder should be heeded.

I maintain the attitude that 'everyone will have a turn at a disk crash - sooner or later'. Being prepared is vital.

The age of a disk is unfortunately no guarantee of it's reliability.

I back up frequently to both fixed and to removable USB drives (more than one which I rotate) and also store off-site as an extra precaution.

I use a program called Synchronize It! Very Versatile, can be set to only update files that have changed, and can backup individual folders, or save and use a 'Project' which backs up multiple folders that you have predefined. It includes masks and multiple filter options, can be used as an 'unattended backup' and to restore data also. It makes the job easy.

That bit of software looks just the job, I will invest in it or similar when I get my computer back.
At least in order to post here on the users showcase I have a record of my first two songs such as they are.
Cheers Steve

I lost data on a Hard Drive some years ago, where (in simple terms) the File Allocation Table or Master File Table became corrupted, and all the files became 'lost'.

Initially it looked like a total failure, but I managed to recover nearly everything with a program called Active@ File recovery

Your failure might be more catastrophic, but don't let your repairman throw the disk out. Maybe, just maybe...

They do make hard drive readers for 10 bucks... The reason I say this is a lot of times you can copy files from a frazzled drive using one... I did this when my windows stopped working on my main machine.
And was able to recover biab song files from the broken drive.... It's worth the extra 10 bucks to do plus you can find older drives that you thought might not have any use and with the reader, you can use them as external drives

That is indeed a real drag and it is so important to keep all your work backed up. There is another useful program called 'True Image' by Acronis. With this you can image copy your entire main hard drive and then restore it when you need to. You also can boot up from a special Acronis disk CD/DVD (as you may not have access to Windows when your hard drive has failed). If you have your image copy stored on say an external hard drive then you boot using your Acronis disk and then restore your complete disk to a new drive. If your old drive is still working but not accessible to Windows then Acronis TI will write over it or you could use it to populate a newly replaced hard drive. The great thing is that you then have a complete operational system hard drive with all your settings, installations etc exactly as it was before. Many hard disk manufacturers also offer free equivalents like Seagate DiskWizard which is essentially a free version of Acronis True Image. You have to have a Seagate or Maxtor drive on your system to qualify to use it though. Acronis True Image has rescued me a few times and it is definitely worth having something like this in your arsenal as well as making general file backups.

Steve, the comment about what kind of crash is important. I too had a FAT failure and was able to load a recovery program into another computer and plug in the crashed drive as an external and recover all my files.

However, if you've suffered a physical crash like you hear the dreaded clicking sound that means there is damage to the heads then the drive is truly toast. That happened to me with an external backup drive that dropped onto the floor while it was running. That'll do it for sure. You can drop a drive that is not spinning with no problems but if it's running it's over.

Bob

I've said this here and elsewhere many times (until I'm blue in the typeface) ...

Create a folder on your harddrive and call it \DATA or \MyStuff, etc. It doesn't matter.

And store all of your stuff under that folder.
And, that way, you don't have to "think" to backup these files or those files.
They're all under one roof.

Um, the entire hard drive failed.

Also consider almost any other method. At a minimum, create that folder on another drive in the computer. Then back it up onto an external drive, or flash drive, and/or the cloud. Store any physical backup off-site so all your files are not under one roof.

Another +1 for Acronis and an external hard drive.

There are also online backup situations that work very well. Companies like Mozy and Carbonite, etc. can be well worth the yearly fee for automated backup and restoration.

Recently had to tell a client that his laptop drive had died. No chance.

Hit the local vendors, picked up a Win7 laptop at a bargain price, installed Carbonite on it and using his password was able to not only restore all of his files and data, but was pleasantly surprised that it also installed many of his PROGRAMS from the old computer as well, ready to run and registered, did not know they could do that.


--Mac

Yep, you simply cannot have a single point of failure, if so, you might as well not bother.

That's still good advice, but I agree that it needs to be on a different physical Drive.
I have a partition on a 2nd HD for all of my general data.
I also have a Music Data partition/drive with folders for each of my BiaB/RB and other song files.

My backup system is a weekly batch file which copies all of these files to a dated folder on an external USB drive AND a local Hard Drive,
Along with a 2nd daily batch file that only copies files which have changed.

The suggestions about rotating your USB drives, off-site and cloud storage, are also valuable.
There is a classic story about a guy who had been working on his Doctrinal Thesis for 5 years.
He had multiple backups of everything, but his house burned down along with all of his backups.

I'll post my batch files if anyone is interested.
It took me a while to find out how to do the Date - Name Folders

You raise a good point there about partitions.

Some users might have a C: and a D: drive, which appear for all intents and purposes like 2 different physical drives, when in reality they are the one physical drive with two partitions.

If this is the user's setup, then backing up from C: to D: certainly doesn't obviate the risk.

And if a user's laptop has such a configuration it's very likely to be the one physical disk. Not many laptops have two drives.

Removable and offsite storage tends to provide the best protection.