This is another "Public Service Announcement." I'm in the middle of backing up all my art, web sites, Poser installation, tutorials and personal data so I can reformat my hard drives and reinstall Windows XP and use the NTFS file structure this time. I've been a bit lax about backing up the important data, and realized just how much would be lost if something went wrong. I know others have suffered dying hard drives, etc. Let's think about backing up our important stuff! Ok, that's enough from me. You probably won't see much of me most of the day. If I do get online, I'll be using my wife's computer, and can't check my email from that computer. And I'll be without Poser all day, boo hoo!

I don't know about the rest of you, but now I can sleep again knowing Ron's stuff is safe. I'm sure glad he take the time to keep us up to date on the status of his drives and archival progress. -Adam

Ron, For extra security you could always email me all your files! Hehe.

Hah, and just how can I do that when most ISP's only allow 1-3 MB of files per emails... I take a risk posting such "public service messages," mainly because I remember every once and awhile someone posts a message with a title such as: "I've just lost everything, and I'm going to shoot myself." (No lie, that is what someone posted recently.) I just look at the Desktop Icon for my backup program, and roll my eyes... No it doesn't sound right to remind someone how easy it is to be safe after a disaster. So, I try to "plant a bug in someone's ear" before a disaster strikes.

I could tell you horror stories of a computer shop that fixed my computer, and gave me a virus to boot.... But that would be boring to some, and well, someone would post another silly, insulting thread. So I won't. I'm glad someone feels my stuff is worth backing up.. I often wonder, since I'm really just floundering about in so many ways.

Ron, Whatever you do don't store them in your P2P storage share file!

Ron, I agree that backing up your important data files is important, and that everyone should do so. I, for one, have accumulated so much "stuff" that I had to upgrade to a DVD-RW drive for backup/storage. There are a couple of other tips I can offer you as well: 1. Put a secondary hard drive in your PC. Make sure this is a physical hard drive and not just an extended partition on your primary hard drive. I keep all of my important data files on this drive. There are two benefits to this. First, you are free to format/reload your primary drive without worrying about backing up your data files. Second, the virii that wipe out hard drives always wipe out the boot drive, but never seem to bother secondary drives. Now that I've said this publicly, someone will make one that wipes out ALL of your drives. Oh, well... :( 2. In lieu of a secondary hard drive, consider investing in an IDE RAID controller (or a motherboard with onboard RAID) and an extra set of hard drives. You can use RAID-0 for performance (it uses 2 physical drives as 1 logical drive, splitting the work load between the two). RAID-1 will mirror your hard drives for protection against mechanical hard drive failures. If one drive fails, you simply replace it and restore from the mirror. If you want the best of both, use RAID-0+1 which does both but requires 4 matching hard drives. My motherboard was $89 with onboard RAID-0+1, and 20 GB drives are available for $75 or less. Best of luck, Brian Wheatley

Well Ron...I for one find it commendable that you would be "thoughtful" enough to take the time to "remind" others how easy it is to fall into such a disaster as to lose "everything" in an instance. Your being cautious, and thus in your self awareness felt you should share this train of thought with the community...hell, I know more thanmy share of folks on this very forum that waited, or perhaps just did not "think" about any of this till it was far too "late." Never hurts to share "positive" roleplay...nevermind being sensitive enough to "care" about others amidst dealing with your own self preservations... Cheers, -Me

P2P Storage Share File?! I'd briefly tried to "suggest to the wife" that another hard drive would be desirable. I got no response. Now, however, Poser 5 is "in the horizon," and somehow it just seems more "economical" to use the 100 CDR's that we recently bought! Oh yes, I do "care."

Don't worrry... be happy. ;]

Dragonwalk, you're "absolutely right." Ron's "public service" has changed my ways. I think I'm going to get some of those "recordable CDs" and do a "backup" right now. "What was I thinking" trusting my hard drive to "store my stuff". -Adam

Hummmm....I had most of my stuff backed up when my computer got stolen...but, 3 of the cds i burned would not open. I met a lady, yesterday, who had even Softimage, and Maya on her machine...yup...hers got stolen, too....AND....they took all her cds....even her portfolio. at least my cds were carefully put away somewhere else, and i got to keep them....

I know in a few days or weeks, someone will post a message saying "I just lost everything when my computer crashed." I will work hard to stifle the most obvious response: "Why didn't you bother to backup your important stuff...." (But then maybe I'll just come out and say it.

Hi Ron There are two kinds of ppl here, those that back up and those that will, lol I use two HD's and a handy little program called Second Copy. It automatically copys everything in a designated folder(s) to the other HD.

I lose everything all the time, comes of working with a crap OS :) The one thing I do recommend is installing a second OS capable of reading whatever drive format you're using, (I can recommend BeOS) That way if your OS dies you can still get your data back by boot the other OS. This makes sense when you realise that most "recovery" software wont allow you to write to the drive you're trying to salvage. Cheers Ron, your posts are always good for a laugh :) later jb

Actually I haven't lost everything due to my OS in ages. However, this recent bout with the computer is based on my decision to get NTFS back on my hard drives. I had reverted back to FAT32 only in an attempt to get one of my favorite Poser-related utilities to work better. It didn't do any good. So now I've decided to wipe the drives, and reinstall everything with NTFS. The good news is that I may be away from Renderosity for a day or so.

That is good news. ;]