Have you ever written something and then lost it... for whatever reason: your own stupidity (come on we've all accidentally done something at some point where we lost data or a spreadsheet or a document or something...), the software eats it (this might be self-inflicted but I've been in apps that just hang and that's it... there's nothing you can do except power off), or....whatever.

Well, during those times... have you ever thought - I'd do almost anything to get that data (and time) back?

Before I go any further - yes, backups are good. No, let me be clearer... Backups are an absolute requirement of ANY environment!!! 

Even personal/home environments should have something to protect the data. Something to consider is even offsite copies. Burn a DVD or two of your precious family photos and then swap DVDs with a friend... there's your simple/cheap/offsite data recovery. We all focus on critical data when a business depends on it - what about the personal stuff... Paul and I always talk about database backups and this post is not really targeting enterprise systems or even business critical systems... Really, there's NOTHING THAT SHOULD EVER REPLACE A GOOD DISASTER RECOVERY STRATEGY...

Having said that though, I have an interesting story (with a data-saved/happy ending)!

I was on a plane flying back from SQL Connections (I was actually flying from Tampa after having visited family in St. Pete) and well, disaster struck again (yes, this has NOT been a good year for hard drives for me as this was my 3rd and MOST catastrophic disaster so far...).

Anyway, Paul and I were "discussing" what I STILL think is a bug in a SQL function (ok, I'll get to that in a later post) and I had been feverishly completing a multi-page blog post AND some index examples/metadata queries, etc. when my laptop slipped off of my crappy airplane table (I was in an exit row so I had a table that came out of an arm chair and folded - it was very wobbly) and crashed to the floor (and, the irony of being in an exit row... had I been in a regular seat there wouldn't have been room for the laptop to have fallen to the ground :).

To my surprise, I picked it up and still saw the screen I was working on. I typed in another line... and then got a little dialog that said "windows hard error" or something... I don't even remember now. The only thing I could do is power it off. My laptop was dead. Very dead. I [expect] that I had had a major head crash when my laptop hit the floor because it's likely the disks were still spinning. However, I still did not know this at the time.

I rebooted and received "Error 2100 - Hard drive initialization error"... so, when we landed in Denver, I was off to one of the small stores to buy an eyeglasses kit (I needed a screwdriver :) and then I went to find a spot to do some laptop surgery. The good news is that I've had so many disasters over the years that almost none really freak me out anymore (this is probably the 10th drive I've had personally fail) and, I always carry at least one spare laptop... But after the terrible time I had March in India, I actually had 2 spare laptops on this trip (yes, airline security hates me even more now - oh, and Paul travels with 2... so, we go through security with 5 laptops... we get some interesting looks!).

Anyway, I took the take the drive out, loaded it into my secondary drive bay (if you travel a lot - having this second bay that can hold a primary/secondary drive is INVALUABLE as these secondary drive bay usually use the same setup (Serial ATA in my case) as the boot drive). So, if your boot drive doesn't boot, you *might* be able to still read and/or save data by using the secondary drive. So, on a second machine, I gave it a try to see if it would spin. No dice. I even tried my third machine (my primary was XP, my secondary is XP and my backup/backup is Vista... I thought... well, maybe?) Ah, I thought wrong. My drive would never spin again. So, on my flight from Denver to Seattle, I was not overly pleased (this is an understatement to be honest - just ask Paul) because I was at least a couple of days from having done a backup AND I was even more frustrated about having lost the detailed indexing post I was working on - and even losing the code that was on screen just THAT day.

We finally got home (which seemed like a much-longer-than-normal trip ;) and I got online thinking/hoping - is there ANYTHING I can do... And, I stumbled on a reference to a possibly out of date BIOS version and the needed update which also happens to generate this SAME error. And, being hopeful (and opportunistically forgetting the drop/crash/thump which led me to this problem), I *attempted* the BIOS update and well, it didn't recognize that a drive was attached. OK, that was my last hope. Hours lost. Let's move over to my backup laptop and shift everything I do have backed up over........ which I did and I was up and running that morning. Yes, I had lost a few things and yes I was pretty frustrated but, I wasn't totally down. It wasn't as bad as it could have been without any backups...... but, I was still annoyed.

Then, I thought... is there any other option(s)? It's been at least 10 years since I sent a drive into a drive recovery place. So, I thought this needed some research. I wanted to see what it might take to (and/or IF I could) recover data. About 10 years ago, I had a single drive of a RAID 0 array fail and the disk recovery place couldn't recover any of it (well, I think they could get 128kb out it and it was going to be 800 bucks). But, that was 10 years agao. Have things changed??! Hmmm... what could they do?

Anyway, I got in touch with Drive Solutions, Inc. and they gave me the rundown of what it would take to get data back. I wasn't sure if it was really going to be worth it (especially for the costs) but I still wanted to go through the process (for multiple reasons - some of it was for the data but some of it was for this post - and to remind people of what's possible (myself included)) given that we talk about the importance of backups and the UNLIKELY potential for data recovery off of damaged disks...

The long story short (ah, too late :) is that they can do amazing things these days (NO GUARANTEES THOUGH!!!) and they can completely rebuild the drives in a clean room - replacing drive heads, etc. Once complete, IF they get anything back, they'll give you a directory structure of what they've recovered and different options for getting it back to you (DVDs of just critical directories (there's a cost for each DVD after the first one or two) OR you can purchase a new comparable drive and they'll copy it over). The whole process took about a week (and this was for expedited service - which was also an extra charge). However, and amazingly, they recovered everything (well, I've only done a bit of spelunking but so far, so good)...

And, here's the coolest part, I was working on some SQL files at the exact time of the disaster and well, I went to the \Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\SQL Server Management Studio\Backup Files\ directory and found a directory of Solution1. In it were 3 files with similarly ugly names (~AutoRecover.~vsC.sql, ~AutoRecover.~vsC.sql~RF93d469.TMP, etc...) and the AutoRecover file was 2KB (the others were 0KB). Anyway, I opened up the file and viola! I actually recovered the .sql script I was working on at the time I dropped my laptop (well, I still blame this on Paul cause he made me lean over to talk to him and this ultimately pushed my laptop off the crappy airline table ;) ;) ;) :).

Needless to say, I am pretty amazed at what they can do now... but, I'm certainly not going to rely on that AND, it wasn't cheap!!!

So... what did I learn??!

1) First and foremost, data recovery is NEVER GUARANTEED. (yes, ok, we all knew that. However, I think we just need to say it out loud a few times :).
2) Even if they can recover some of the data, data recovery is not lightning fast. Even with the more expensive expedited service it takes time to ship (overnight), get the drive into a clean room, rebuild it from parts of an exactly matching (including BIOS/firmware) drive, test it, copy it to another drive, ship it back (overnight). Maybe you can find a place that's local, that would help but, it's still time...
3) It's expensive... expect about $10-15 per GB. And, I guess that some will think that's a crazy amount... Again, I had multiple motivating factors - one of which was also related to some pictures I had taken over the weekend with family in FL, some was for data, some was even better to understand this overall process... I expect that got about 10 hours back plus some photos and, I'm pretty impressed with the overall process (in general).

More than anything, I'm going to get even better at daily full system backups when I'm on the road (scheduled/overnight to an external drive) and I might even copy critical stuff to something like Windows Live Skydrive (or something like that). And, while on a plane, I might keep a small/simple USB stick handy if I do something that I really don't want to lose while on a long plane ride. I think new technologies like "mesh" and "cloud" are really interesting and definitely the direction to better performance AND *possibly* minimizing data loss but you're always at risk if there's only one copy. All of this might seem crazy but well...... I've been called worse ).

So, just to wrap things up, I'll be doing a bit of final tweaking on my indexing blog post + my indexing demo scripts from Connections + my metadata script that I was working on at the time of the laptop disaster (which is also why it's been a while since my last post) and I'll be leveraging some of my favorite tools (Beyond Compare) to determine all of the differences between my recovered data/directories and the system I rebuilt from a backup (especially now that it has also changed over the course of this week since I moved over to my backup laptop). And, I've now ordered a new harddrive for my primary laptop. Sadly, I'm getting good at laptop rebuilding.

Thanks for reading,
kt

PS - When did you last backup your home/personal/less-critical system... is it really less-critical?

Actually, I can't even begin to tell you how great it is that Paul loves blogging so much... he does an amazing job filling in everyone (even our family :)) with our travels through his "personal" posts on his blog (and, he always researches the sites/details as well). And, so, with our mostly business event to China over the past couple of weeks, Paul posted a few links on our side travels (which consisted of about 2.5 total days over our 2 week trip). I have to admit that we were originally going to try and stay for Chinese New Year (New Year's Day is Feb 7) and spend even more time tatting about but ended up cutting the trip short for more work (isn't that always the case :). But, having said that, we made every moment count by squeezing in as much site seeing as possible (we had 1 spare day in Shanghai and 1.5 spare days in Beijing). It really was an amazing trip and we hope to get back to China someday and spend even more time there.

So, if you're interested in hearing a bit more about the trip - and don't already read Paul's blog (which is surprising because he really blogs a lot and he's had some great/technical and deep posts on all sorts of stuff!!!), check out these posts on our travels:

In Shanghai the first week: http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/paul/2008/01/21/PersonalFirstTripOfTheYearChina.aspx
In Beijing the second week: http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/paul/2008/01/27/PersonalAndOnToBeijingAndTheGreatWall.aspx and http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/paul/2008/02/03/PersonalFinalDayInBeijingSightseeingLotsOfPhotos.aspx

I hope your year is going well and Xie Xie (thank you!) to all of the folks that made our trip in China really special! I hope that everyone has a Happy Chinese New Year (and can travel safely through the holidays - especially given the terrible weather conditions that are happening all over China right now).

Kimberly

Donald Wayne Tripp
Donald Wayne Tripp was born on August 6, 1944 in Fort Madison, Iowa. After fighting a long and courageous battle with cancer, Don passed away peacefully on November 28, 2007 at home in Redmond, Washington, with his daughter and son-in-law by his side.
 
Don is survived by his daughter, Kimberly L. Tripp; his son-in-law, Paul S. Randal; his grandchildren Kiera and Katelyn Randal; his Mother, Doris McDonnell; his brothers Jon McDonnell and Wayne Tripp; his sisters Linda Fussell and Bonnie Bostick; his brother-in-law, Ted Fussell; his sister-in-law Valerie Tripp; his nephew and many nieces; and his wife of 22 years, Ursula Tripp. He will be greatly missed by these and many other relatives and friends.
 
Don was very charismatic, always quick to lighten the mood with his humor - lately he'd say that "I'm in great shape - besides a little cancer". He was an avid sailor and loved nothing more than being on the water - especially Lake Michigan - where he first sailed "Flutterby", an 18 foot SolCat, and then a variety of sail-boats (and ice-boats in WI) over many years. When not on the water somehow, he loved his local haunts and enjoyed an occasional Meyers-and-tonic with friends.
 
By far his greatest pleasure was introducing friends, family, and even acquaintances to sailing - especially as a Regional Sales Manager for Hunter Yachts - which he gladly took on as his second career after working for Moore Business Forms for almost 30 years. For Moore he received numerous "Achievement Awards" in Sales but he was most rewarded by sales that lead people to the boat of their dreams. He was a graduate of the University of Iowa in 1968, a member of the Army and Air Force Reserves for six years and took his first sky dive in 1962, the year he graduated from Fort Madison High School. He loved adventure and had it not been for a hurricane that washed ashore his 40-foot trimaran in 1978, he would have raced in the (London) Observer's Singlehanded Trans-Atlantic Race in 1980.
 
Over the past few months, Don greatly enjoyed bird watching from the deck of our house. He especially enjoyed torturing the squirrels by spraying “Pam” on the poles of the many bird feeders. Don’t worry; it didn’t really stop them from getting the food – but it did provide for many hours of entertainment as they slid down the pole after lunch or on their way to having lunch.
 
A "Celebration of Life" Memorial Reception is being planned for Memorial Day weekend. Please send email to KimberlyLTripp@hotmail.com for more information.
 
In lieu of flowers, donations should be made to a Cancer charity of your choosing. For example, consider donating to the Cancer Research Foundation at http://www.cancerresearchfdn.org/donate/.

OK, so Paul could be doing worse things while I'm away... but, what was he doing? I guess you'll have to read here and listen here.

Enjoy!
kt

OK, I'm not normally the one to blog a lot of personal stuff but there's definitely a reason for a lot of my silence over the past couple of months....... I was planning a wedding. OK, Paul helped out more than you would expect - he met with the officiant (Annemarie of Annemarie Juhlian), the photographer (John Mitchell of John Mark Photography), the ceremony/reception venue (the Woodmark Hotel), the florist (Nathan of Fena Flowers), the amazing baker (Mike's Amazing Cakes) and Paul did so much more too! So, I can't say it was all me but that's the excuse I'm using (for my lack of blogging :) and I'm sticking to it! It was a crazy amount of work in general and now I can truly understand why people hire wedding coordinators!!

Anyway, the weekend could NOT have gone better. So many of our friends and family were able to make it - even our one remaining Grandmother (Doris McDonnell, my Father's Mother - who is 84) made the journey out here. Which, btw, was no small feat for her... it was a train to my Mother's house to spend the night, then together they took a train to Chicago's grand central station where they then caught a cab to O'Hare to catch a 4 hour flight to Seattle. And, that was a fairly short flight compared to Goksin Bakir's flight(s) from Istanbul, Gunther Beersaerts' flight(s) from Belgium, Olga Londer's flights from London, Paul's entire family from Glasgow, Scotland, the Tripp/Fussell/Bostick clan's flight(s) from Tampa, Carl Franklin's flight(s) from Connecticut and Richard Campbell's drive down from Vancouver (ok, that was short compared to Peter Bennett's drive from Racine, Wisconsin). And, of course, we had many of the usual suspects: Bob Beauchemin, Brian Randell, Clemens Vasters, Euan Garden, Gert Drapers, Gunther Beersaerts, Juval Lowy, Liz Vitt, Matt Nunn, Michele Leroux Bustamante, and last, but not least, Timmie Huckaby. And, those were only a few of the more public geeks :) :). Speaking of public... I'm *very* afraid of the recorder that Carl (of the infamous DNR) had running during the late night hours of the BBQ on Friday night.

Speaking of the BBQ, here's our favorite photo (so far!) from the BBQ on Friday.

Paul already blogged our favorite (so far!) from the wedding. Oh, and why only "so far?"... John took over 40GB of photos from the weekend (the BBQ was on the 27th and the wedding was on the 29th). We cannot wait to see all of what he's done. There are photos that we've seen now that show us that we never even knew he/they (John/Katie/Boon) were there...capturing moments rather than just posed shots. With how fun, professional, timely and creative they were - it's obvious that they all love what they do. In fact, John feels more like a friend than a vendor. It was truly a pleasure having them attend the wedding...and not just for the photos!

So, I thought I'd blog a tad of the personal stuff today and let you know about the best SQL union of which I'm aware <g>... we look forward to all of the exciting things that SQLskills will be doing as we move forward with Paul coming over from the Microsoft mothership as "Managing Director" starting on September 1st. Stay tuned with us as I know good things are still yet to come.

Cheers,
kt