Sigh. After years of solid and faithful service, despite the lack of care, my Transcend JetFlash 4 GB USB flash drive finally borked and said it’s last goodbyes. But it didn’t go quietly into the night.
No, it kicked and screamed, corrupted and declared itself write-protected. I spent hours combing the Internet, trying out various solutions, tricks and suggestions, none of which worked and none of which could get the drive back into working, usable condition.
From low-level formats to registry hacks and just plain begging and pleading, all was for naught as I finally came to the conclusion that it was dead and dusted, leaving me only with one recourse – to open it up and operate on it in the hopes of a miracle happening.
Unfortunately that was not to be as my clumsy hands sliced the top of a connector clean off its housing and brought with it the finality of the waste bin.
But losing a faithful flash drive was not the worst part of this ordeal. No, the worst part was that I, a software technician of all people, had failed myself in that I didn’t keep any backups of the important data on the drive. Not a single backup whatsoever. Important personal documents, desktop application projects in mid development, databases built up over years, all gone because I was too lazy to keep up a decent backup programme.
But the loss now behind me, I have vowed to change my ways and send out this warning to those of you out there like me – backup your data, synchronize your drives, don’t fall in complacency.
Even if it is just by using the simplicity of rsync or its’ graphical counterpart, grsync, schedule your backups and stick to it – or as I have now done, place a perpetual reminder in your calendar and stick to it.
For you never know when the blight that is drive failure will strike again…