Do you really need backups?

[Irabbit]

I have a computer that I have been using as a stand alone off line computer for my financial data. I used it Tuesday 05/19/2015 and it completed all my work satisfactorily. I then shut it down as I always do and saw no indication of any difficulty. When I started it back up today for the first time since shutting it down on Tuesday to do some work I got a "Diskette Drive 0 Seek Failure". I had not received any indication of a problem prior to this when I booted up today - the problem just showed up as it started to boot.

It is not a case of will it happen, only when it will happen and there is a good chance you will get no warning that would allow you to make a backup.

[wd]

if you can make an image I would do it now
you might want to boot to command prompt and do chkdsk /r and let it run (takes a while)
if you need to rescue it check out spinrite at https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm this program has gotten bad drives to come up long enough to backup
video about spinrite https://www.grc.com/sr/whatitdoes.htm (SSD drives you do not want to use this without research)

but as rabbit says would be better to already have a backup / also helps if you get nailed with ransomware

[Irabbit]

Already have 4 backups of the data and have ordered a new copy of Quicken which I will install on my computer. The current computer is probably 14 years old and is ready to die no matter what. The data does not display correctly even though I have been able to boot to windows. Now just waiting for my new quicken disk. In the meantime I can use a flash drive copy of the data on my wife's computer to keep up-to-date. I did that today and then went to my computer and made copies on my other flash drive and 2 cd's. Don't want to keep the data on my wife's computer because I don't have a secure area for it. At some point after windows 10 comes out I may get a cheap computer which I can keep off line and go back to that for this proprietary data.

[Irabbit]

I resolved the issue as completely as I know how. I removed the hard drive with contents encrypted. I destroyed the connecting pins, tore the control board apart, then drilled holes around the drive and then put oil in the holes. At least it will be quite a mess if anyone wants to restore anything.

[wd]

what no magnet lol

[Irabbit]

I would love to have a large degausser! lol

[jacobcarl]

Is there any compact device to store 1TB of data. so i can carry easily .

[wd]

there are usb 3 drives you can get https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss ... hard+drive
also for you drive giving seek error if you ever need it this is a good tool to have it's called spinrite get it at grc.com ....not free but worth the money for drive maint ...even saw it save an SSD drive