the history of backups

So the tragedy of the constant system crashes ending in a system restore crash ended this morning in an anticlimactic dawn login, where it seems Sherlock is acting like he didn't take ten fucking years off my life last night and is working just fine which makes no sense because I had two--TWO--restore failures and a system death and a backup fail and yet, here we are.

And yet, I consider it totally worth it, because my emergency backup was like this:

While staving off a massive panic attack via Mulan and svmadelyn making soothing noises about Toews, my long-lost external hard drive magically appeared in a box I don't think I've seen since the late nineties that is now conveniently situated at the foot of my bed--

--go with it, okay?--

--and a working e-sata cable appeared out of nowhere which is pretty much against the laws of God and electornics, and of course I thought, well, i don't have an adapter seeing this box was from like, teh stone age of my life and they didn't have esata, even if they did have a hard drive made in 2009--but consulting my Great Box of Random Ass Adapters magically, an adapter appears and fits, and I can't figure out where it's from, because everything on it is written in Chinese--

--go with it--

--and I plug it in and it works.

Then there is crashing and rage and work this morning, so I come home to face what I think will be great and terrible horror, but no, Sherlock boots just fine, the external comes on normally, I open it up and surprise, surprise, there's a backup in there from 2008. One of the folders is vids. In that folder is...

(I love my life.)

So Much Better, X-Men, Pyro/Iceman, the one that vanished from youtube. So is Gone, a Logan/Scott one that vanished from youtube in, oh, 2008, a multifandom Cold Case, CSI:NY vid that vanished off youtube like, a few weeks after it was posted, all my Star Trek ebooks that I couldn't find and thought lost forever, all my music as of 2008, and then in another folder another backup of all teh vids I had downloaded circa 2009 and my music up to 2009, my primary and secondary Ubuntu server backup with all logs from late 2010, then another folder with another backup of my tiny passport drive with--a backup of all of that again, plus two backups of my moms' computer plus another one of all my vids and music and fic up to September 2010.

...can you like, backup your computer in your sleep and just not remember? I can't possibly, possibly be this anal. And sideline, this is a 500 GB hard drive and it says it's still half-empty and I'm pretty sure the physics of memory storage has created a singularity to pull that off, because my music alone is like, thirty gigs and I have an entire folder of DVD rips in here.

I feel the spirit of Mulan is behind this. Just saying.

...yes, I'm backing up now, why do you ask?

Comments

[ilyena_sylph]

Oh my god.

That is amazing.

I am so glad for you!!!

[dorkpie]

I wish things like this happened to me. ):

[out_there]

where it seems Sherlock is acting like he didn't take ten fucking years off my life last night and is working just fine

Hee. Clearly, you named him correctly. I'm sure Sherlcok regularly gets up to antics that shave years off John's life, and then acts as if everything's perfectly normal the next day.

But yay for your backups. It might be the spirit of Mulan after all. (As an odd coincidence, Mulan II is on my TV in half an hour. Watching it is a good excuse to stop studying, so right now, I believe in the spirit of Mulan.)

[nagasvoice]

It appears you're living in a Doctor Who ep. Specifically, I am told, The Impossible Spaceman, where the Doctor rearranges everything...
And come to think, Mulan encountering the Doctor would be really quite fabulous.

[lorax]

OMG, can I have the "So Much Better" vid? I've been mourning that vanishing FOREVER.

Also if sleep-backing-up is possible, I hope it's a habit I pick up.

[harpers_child]

your external is secretly a tardis. i love those.

[ravurian]

Um. Would it be immoral for you to share those vids? What are the ethics of doing so, if they've been pulled from the net? I am making an anxious face right now because ordinarily I would be looking winsomely but meaningfully towards megaupload and hoping you would understand...

[seperis.livejournal.com]

message me?

[ladyholder.livejournal.com]

WOW.

From the sounds of all the WTF? that went on with that? Go buy a lottery ticket. That kind of luck just don't last.

Quickly.

And burn the music & shit to DVD's and other hard drives.

WOW. Am very impressed.


~L

[mremre.livejournal.com]

THE DOCTOR DROPPED BY ON A SIDE TRIP FROM 2009.

(since he's apparently in America tonight =)

[calligrafiti.livejournal.com]

...yes, I'm backing up now, why do you ask?

As am I. Thanks for the reminder.

Perhaps you have a back-up brownie? That would be like a backup fairy, only less fluttery and more into household (or, in this case, hard drive) maintenance.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Could we call them Backies? *thoughtful* Tiny, adorable household gnomes that care for your technology. I love it.

[brihana25.livejournal.com]

In a beat-up old wooden box under my desk I have what I like to call my Box of Important Crap that Might be Important Again Someday.

No external in there, but 10+ years of CDs and DVDs, all of which hold backups of every damn thing I did, roughly every six months. None of them are labeled, of course, because that would make sense, but they're all there. It's kind of neat, to open them up every now and then and look at them, see what little treasures I have stashed away that I don't even remember.

I wouldn't trust this Sherlock too much, though. Computers are fickle, nasty little buggers, and they'll gain your trust just so they can eat themselves three days later, out of nowhere. And they'll do it just to tick you off.

[jamesinboots.livejournal.com]

I've totally solved a major computer problem in my sleep. Well. I solved it while sleeping, did the actual work when I woke up. :D