morgandawn | This Turtle Moves Slowly: Computer Hard Drives and Backups (Reply)

I am still recovering from my hard drive crash.

I have 25 TB of data - fanvids, fanzine PDF cans and older mailing list plus all my personal files.

I decided this would be a good time to consolidate the fandom files from 3 separate external portable drives to one large external drive - and since the computer hard drive replacement was relatively affordable. I started the lengthy migration process. Over USB cables - yes it takes a loooong time.

Made even longer by the fact that several of the convention vid show folders had corrupted files. So once I complete the migration I will use file comparison software and go folder by folder - if the folders/files mismatch I will pull the DVDs (most of the convention vid show I have are either digitized from VCR VHS footage or were released by the conventions themselves on DVD).

The last thing I learned is that my backup software was set to the default - and so only basked up recognizable file formats (word, pdf, mpg). It ignored the "system files" that are necessary to create a playable DVD.

So it is a good thing I am migrating because I can

1. Find and replace corrupted files and
2. Redo my backups so they will include all files.

I think it will take another 4 days for the consolidation of the fandom files - then maybe another week?? 2 weeks for the initial backup to a second external drive to run and complete

Then I can start on my personal files.....