backups? naaaaah.....

[Mirlyn]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3193366.stm

Got any good backup stories?


I had a client of mine call me because they couldn't get their outgoing mail to send. Having seen their server when I dird my first job with them, I knew what it meant. They had an old Compaq Proliant running NT4/Exchange. Barely. It had the drive so full it was overwriting stuff in the swap file (making it highly unstable). Well, I decided it needed to be reloaded. To make a long story short, a company assuring you it has backups is not to be relied on. Turns out, the backup system they've had in place for the past three years involved putting a tape in the tape drive and letting it run over the weekend with a scheduled backup. However, it seems whoever installed the server and set up the backup schedule three years ago neglected to install the drivers for the tape drive. Luckily I was able to make some sense out of the corrupted files that I backed up myself.

Their tapes were otherwise brand new.

 

[tommyj27]

heh, criminally braindead sysadmins should be fed to alligators.

 

[catocom]

Got any good backup stories?

not since 1996.

I have had some major headaches trying to image
bad drives, and systems with viruses, in the data-recovery end
of the biz.

 

[greenfreak]

This is cute: http://www.taobackup.com

 

[Professur]

I'm rabid about backups. The major pharmacy chain that I work for service contracts the acc't comps of a lot of it's franchizees. Hence, when I'm there, I do my best to put the fear of Crash (legendary computer demon) into them. When I hand them the workorder to sign, and point to the time required to install their machine (often 2 to 4 hours) and explain to them that is the machine crashed, the service contract only covers the machine. They'll have to pay this amount over again to have me rebuild it. And worse, then they'll have to reenter all the lost data. That consists of the daily receipts for however long it's been. 95% of the time, I get a callback to install a tapedrive within the month. Once they've had a chance to see just what would be involved in trying to reenter all that data. But on one occaision, they took that chance and rolled snake eyes. No reliable backup (a few diskettes) and a total drive failure. As I ws rebuilding the machine, the manager was hovering over me, pestering in the way that people who are about to get into a lot of trouble and are looking for a way out do. Was I supposed to rebuild the lost data? Not a chance. Could I recover it from the failed drive? He'd heard that that could be done. Sure, at about 100$ a meg, for a 40G drive. With no gaurentees. Oh, what to do, what to do. Surely I'd seen this sort of thing before. What did other companies do in a case like this? I refrained from telling his that other companies listened to the tech when he told them to buy a backup, and gave him a phonenumber. The phonenumber of a local junior college. Data processing centre. What to do? Get a young dataentry student in and have her do the work, instead of backlogging the acc't clerk. Really? Do people do that? (Right about here my restraint is starting to slip, adn is noticed by said acc't clerk) Mr. Manager is taken off to go make a phone call while I finish up in peace. Then who walks in but Mr. Cheapo Owner. Why isn't this sort of thing covered by the gaurentee. Why can't the data be recovered. Why, why, why can't I get someone to blame for this. Blame the acc't clerk for not having better backups. Nope, can't do that, you retard. You can't backup a 40G drive on 1.44 floppies in under three days. Oh. Well, it has to be someone's fault!!!

That funny, slippery sound was my restraint failing. Reach into my briefcase and pull out this branch's dossier. Pull out my copy of the installation work order. There in autocarbon blue: "Customer advised to purchase a tapebackup. Refused!" and signed by none other than Mr. Cheapo Owner himself.

Next day, there was a request for an install of a tape drive. I passed it off to another tech, it not really needing my expert touch, and me not wanting to have to blow another gasket. Whall, maybe it didn't need my expert touch, but it needed an more expert touch than that of the tech assigned. Seems he didn't know that with ATX powersupplies, you have to unplug the machine. Turning it off doesn't stop power to the motherboard. Shot the IDE controller while plugging in the tapedrive. Oops.