Sebastian Junger’s best-selling novel and blockbuster movie, “The Perfect Storm” was so named because of the “perfect” conditions that created the deadly storm of late 1991. Several unique and unlikely events had to come together in the North Atlantic that October in order to create just the right conditions to make this treacherous and expensive tempest.
I hate to equate such a disastrous event to a recent calamity in our business, but the events that led up to what happened in our catastrophe had to also be “perfect” in order to create the chaos it did.
We recently lost some critical data that caused us no small amount of aggravation and heartache. I’ve written about and advised many people on the importance of backups with computer data.
In keeping with my own advice we had recently installed an extra hard drive in a new computer to “mirror” our critical files. This daily copy was in addition to regular backups, which are made every other week and stored in a safety deposit box.
Over the last week, I’d done over 35 hours of work on my new book and had diligently copied my working files to this safety disk.
But when my computer started acting a little too strange, we elected to format it and re-install windows. In the process, we formatted the safety drive as well. Oops!
Before we did so, however, I’d copied even these files to another computer. I smugly thought that my prudent redundancy would save the day.
I won’t go into all the gory details, but Murphy’s Law was alive and well. Everything you could think of–and a few that you wouldn’t have–went wrong.
To make a long story bearable, we lost over three days, a lot of sleep and gigabytes of frustration. It almost seemed like our network had intentionally conspired against us.
With the help of Norton Utilities, we were able to unformat the safety drive and recovered most of the files we needed but the book was not to be found. My copying process was apparently flawed, because the critical files were not where they were supposed to be.
I’d violated my own advice and did not visually check to make sure all files were copied to the correct location and were readable.
There are several things we still don’t understand how they happened and we likely never will.
The learning: You can never be TOO prudent when it comes to computers. You can never have TOO MUCH redundancy. When working as a team, make SURE everything is clear. Double check each others’ intention and confirm each step. And always, always, always have complete AND VERIFIED backups.
Best Life Tip: Back Up Everything!
This article was originally published on SuccessNet.org in 2004.
Recommended Reading
101 Great Ideas to Simplify Your Life: How to Slash Stress, Ditch the Drama & Intensify Your Tranquility
Your best life demands simplicity and clarity. And the great ideas this book offers you is a cornucopia of ways to make your life dramatically better. Implement just three or four of these ideas and you will see your life start to change in a very positive way. Incorporate a dozen and your life will be transformed.
This book is filled with proven strategies, tactics and resources to help you live a simpler, more significant and more meaningful life—in a comfortable and easier way.
