When a backup goes wrong.

 

(When a backup or restore goes terribly wrong... )

Let's face it. Everyone has everything stored on their phone, tablet or other device now days. You name it, it's in there. Over the course of time, you can end up with millions of things and I'm not exaggerating. Some of the items you can see while others you cannot. These unseen items are usually created by the device itself to help keep track of items and functions you use.

Now yes this is going to be one of those articles that begs you to backup your material. But the most important thing is to know how to get your material back if the unthinkable happens and unfortunately it will.

Many people buy backup devices and then blindly follow the instructions and assume everything will be wonderful when the time comes to use the device again to retrieve their material.  The first time backup software  is used, it will suggest making a backup of everything, including the operating system software. When you use this file to restore from EVERYTHING on the destination device will be replaced, including the software which makes it work.  

So rule #1: Don't just go out and buy some software without understanding how it works. The following is based on a true event:

A friend of mine dutifully went out and bought some backup software complete with the backup hard drive. They set it up exactly how the instruction said and let the software do its thing every day.

One year later they got a new laptop and found that it wasn't set up to their liking. Rather than asking for assistance they took their backup hard drive and plugged it into the new machine and despite several warnings clicked the button in the software which read something like "Restore Everything". That's exactly what the software attempted to do "restore everything including part of the old operating system. Things came to a crashing halt apparently halfway through. They were left with a completely nonfunctional computer. Fortunately it was able to be restored to the appropriate modern operating system. My friend learned a valuable lesson that day which simply put is "when in doubt (or more accurately in this case, when you get a message saying are you sure? Unless you are sure, don't proceed.)

To summarize don't just trust blindly what software is going to do especially when it's dealing with a replaceable documents or other material. Please seek assistance before hand.

I just had a great idea, I am going to try to replicate what my friend did to their machine and capture the events on video. I can't remember exactly what software they were using but let's see what we can come up with. Click the video accompanying this article to watch what happens.

More after I created it 😀.... The video has been created and is near the beginning of this post. You can also watch it on YouTube. 

Some background on the video:

Oh boy did that turn out to be an adventure! I had some technical issues related to using multiple video streams and that is the reason why there is such a gap between this article coming out and the previous one. However I was able to replicate the disaster my friend had. In this 17 minute video we go through all the steps from the perspective of a casual computer user. The lesson learned at the end of all this is best summed up by the phrase "Read the Manual!"

To do this I bought a Western Digital two terabyte external USB drive. The first step was to install Windows 10 in a virtual machine, (A virtual machine is a computer emulated using software. That way if the virtual machine computer gets damaged you can simply reset the software. )Then I used the software which came with the backup drive to make a full copy of the virtual machine. This is exactly the same as backing up a real computer for all intensive purposes. Once I had that done I installed Windows 11 on another computer and attempted to install Windows 10 backup I had made. What surprised me was that the software did not try to stop the attempt.

You'll see the results in the video. It really underscores the importance of learning how to properly use the software and its limitations. Two important notes:

In the video I am using Acronis True Image, this is not meant to be a critique of their product in any way. It is simply what came on the backup drive. When used properly, this software will fulfill its task admirably.

Partition (this term is mentioned in the video)

In the video I mentioned "Partitioning"in relation to the hard drives. I forgot to explain the definition of this word in this context. So here it is: It is possible to take a physical hard drive and it divided up so that it behaves like two or more separate devices. In modern operating systems this technique is used to section off a protected area in the drive which keeps up backup of critical software should the need arise to install the operating system again. In Windows systems, this partition is normally hidden. Even if you delete all the files in your computer this hidden area will remain intact. However partitions aren't indestructible and the backup software completely destroyed this hidden area. Meaning that if you did this on a real computer you would have to obtain a brand-new copy of Windows in order to make the machine run.

When watching the video after the partition has been damaged in the test computer you will actually see a message displayed asking for a "floppy disk to be inserted. "This is a very good indication that everything had been destroyed and the computer was relying on some very old built in programming. Basically a last ditch message.

A computer technician could of course reinstall the appropriate software and get the machine going again but it would be a bran new machine effectively. The owner of the machine would have to put all their files back in using another method and not their backup external drive.  This probably could have been avoided if when they did the initial backup of the Windows 10 machine they only backed up certain things like photos and documents. This underscores the importance of learning the software before hand.

This is today's lesson. 💾.

SIDE NOTE: It was a lot of fun creating this particular video. Hopefully I made it understandable and not too boring. I must admit I was really surprised when I was doing the restore portion that the software didn't try to stop me. This completely explains then how my friend was able to get into trouble.

The same situation could also happen with other devices, phones and tablets alike. So please whenever you are backing up something or trying to move to a new device be very careful about the software being used. If in doubt ask for assistance.

I have a feeling I'm going to be adding a little more content to this article as time goes on. Maybe we will do one for phones. Because I have also seen a very similar situation with them. However in the case of phones it was more to do with the person not adequately preparing the phone to be given to someone else. Now days just deleting everything on a phone is insufficient. The very first thing you must do is remove your accounts which are connected to your phone before erasing it and giving it away. More about that somewhere down the road in a later video and article.

For now have a great day! 😀
Patrick