So, it finally happened to me (again). A Mac died on me without any kind of backup for it. I couldn’t be more disappointed in myself for letting it happen too.
The family 17″ iMac G5 iSight went belly up after my daughter accidentally shut it down hard. None of the voodoo I’ve learned in my 20 years as a Mac user could get the internal disk to be seen again. Open Firmware resets, SMU resets, PRAM zaps, swift kicks, small animal sacrifices. Nothing even made the drive spin up, which means one of two things. The drive has a bad case of sticksion, or the drive controller on the motherboard is the problem (others have reported the problem with this iMac model). If it’s the latter, it looks like I’ll end up with a stylish doorstop, and I’ll be buying new hardware this weekend. I haven’t decided if I want to tackle tearing the machine apart to replace the drive. Having done it once for someone else, it was about as enjoyable as pulling teeth.
Anyway… If you ever needed proof that you should be backing up your ENTIRE system on a regular basis, let this post be what gets you to make a change. My wife and kids have lost years worth of photos, emails, school projects, music and heaven knows what else. It’s never a matter of IF it will happen, it’s a matter of WHEN. Don’t gamble like I did. Get a backup plan in place and stick to it faithfully. I’m wishing I had…
About Jim Mitchell
Don’t give up on your family’s photos, projects, music, etc. Send your drive to Drive Savers. They shouldn’t have a problem recovering your data. The service might be pricey (you can call for a free estimate), but it looks like there are a few coupon codes to try.
I set my Powerbook to backup over LAN to a Debian box running netatalk. That way I do not have to lug around an external drive.
I blogged it here (you can remove the link if you don’t want it in your comments).
http://geekhut.org/2009/01/time-machine-over-lan-linux-afp/
@James – Thanks for the reminder about Drive Savers. Fortunately (if that word can be used in this situation), I’m pretty sure the drive is okay. I have a feeling the drive controller on the motherboard is what crapped out. It’s more common than I thought now that I’ve been looking into it.
@aster1sk – Great suggestion! I think I’ll look at doing the same. I’ve got an old G4 that I could easily set up to do just that.
The guys at Super Duper are consistently awesome. Have saved me at least once, and probably more in the future. Time Machine is great and all, but only if you can get your machine running. If there’s nothing to get your machine running, you can’t access your backed up files in Time Machine. Super Duper essentially makes a complete copy of your current harddrive and simply allows you to boot up and continue right from where you left off, from an external drive. Pretty awesome.
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
I use SuperDuper! to back up my MacBook Pro… Have for years. I absolutely love the product. I don’t know why I wasn’t on the ball with the family iMac though. Probably thought it’s hardly ever pushed to a limit, so it should’ve been okay…