Re: Great articles at cOMPUTERCRAFT.com




"www.COMPUTERCRAFT.com" <aolsz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:I8zok.22442$KZ.19@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Great articles at cOMPUTERCRAFT.com

Reset Windows XP or Vista Passwords
http://www.computercraft.com/docs/resetxppassword.shtml

Reinstalling Windows XP
http://www.computercraft.com/docs/installwindowsxp.shtml

eMachine Power Supplies are a TIME BOMB!
http://www.computercraft.com/docs/emachinepowersupplies.

shtml

Computer Noise
http://www.computercraft.com/docs/computernoise.shtml

Don't Trust External Hard Drives
http://www.computercraft.com/docs/externalharddrive.shtm

l

This link works.

http://www.computercraft.com/docs/externalharddrive.shtml


I read the article mentioned above about not trusting external hard drives,
and that backed up data should only be saved to CDs and DVDs or tape because
the external hard drive could fail at any time. The author (who doesn't sign
his name) is simplistic to say the least and giving bad advice in light of
the quality of hard drives made today. I would like to see the statistics to
show how often external drives fail to show how unreliable they are. In
googling for reliability of hard drives or external hard drives I haven't
located any numbers. Perhaps someone could give some if they know where they
are. Nothing is absolute and 100%, but external hard drives are easily the
fastest backup and a very reasonable bet that the data will be safe IMHO,
and from computing experience for the past eighteen years.
Their popularity has grown because they are a good bet and fulfill the
function of a spare tire in the event the main drive fails. Hard drives are
by far the most frail part of a computer and that is exactly why anyone who
wants to be responsible to maintaining data will go to the degree of backing
up at least once of important data. The quickest way is an external hard
drive. The probabilty of both the internal and external drives failing
simultaneously has got to be in the realm of an answer from Mr. Spock.
Anyone want to conjecture what that number is?
It is nice to have a DVD or CD or even tape copy of one's data
preserved as well. However, these media types are not foolproof. I have seen
each one of these media fail too often for no apparent reason, and I would
have a reasonable amount of faith that my data is comfortably safe on an
external drive that is auto backing up daily. That daily backup on an
external drive, coupled with a second drive that is mounted in the computer,
but only connected and turned on to make a clone copy of the internal
computer's data on a monthly basis is a reasonable method for me to keep
computing safely.
If backing up were finally as reliable as the sun rising daily I'd say
one backup was enough, but it's not, so one needs to think of this as
backing up, but have another backup, just in case.

Jan Alter
bearpuf@xxxxxxxxxxx


.

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