[Discussion] OT: Hardware Failure begets Mac Mini a bit of a rant

[Joseph J. Hansen]

March 8, 2009

Hi Don,

_Every_ hard drive fails sooner or later.  The best, and least  
expensive, solution is to make regular backups.

If you have the Mac Leopard OS running, it has time machine which  
backs up your files to an external drive.

For best protection, however, get an external drive with a firewire  
800 port (or slightly slower firewire 400 port), and a backup program  
called "SuperDuper!"  That lets you make and maintain a bootable  
backup (or backups) of your entire drive so, if the internal drive  
fails, you just boot to the appropriate partition of the external  
drive and you are back in business immediately. When you replace the  
internal drive with a new one (or even buy a brand new Mac), you just  
copy the external drive to the new internal drive, and you haven't  
lost anything.  BTW, you can't make bootable backups on a USB drive.

Best regards, Joe

On Mar 7, 2009, at 9:17 PM, D Burch wrote:

> Well folks, since OS/2 2.1, Comdex '94, salmon shirts with Janet &  
> co; the BS with the IBM executive who basically abdicated any  
> interest in bring a truly wonderful multitasking environment to the  
> masses, the absolutely wonderful community of POSSI. SCOUG ,  
> Warpstocks past and the future because....., Ecomstation, Pavel,  
> Steven, Esther, Bill, Stanley, Peter and the rest of the Edmonton  
> CAOS/2 group (that still meet to talk about boats, holidays, stuff)
>
> Another corrupt piece of PC hardware - a Seagate hard drive, less  
> than a year old.
>
> I looked at my collection of bits and pieces, running my beloved OS/ 
> 2, but needing M$ to do some fun stuff and some necessary stuff. I  
> realized that everything I have is non compliant to the current  
> state of personal home computing.
> A couple of years ago a local pc retailer went out of business and  
> I picked up a couple of Compaq/HP boxes and a couple of printers.  
> Well the pc's were Vista ready and the printers were not. Not to  
> worry, a laser printer for $70 CAD ain't so bad and with a bit of  
> work, it will function under OS/2. The PC's themselves were BS. I  
> remember when HP and Compaq were leaders.  I have OS/2 and XP Pro.  
> Under XP Pro, something in the chipset whined like a cat in your  
> car engine. Steadily. I put in an upgraded video card, Not change.  
> I trade my D-I_L for an old Dell . She runs Vista and is happy.
>
> I working in heavy industry - oil upgrading. By day I am a  
> contracting and procurement specialist who right now is spending  
> way to much time at this point in his life in the mainframe  
> environment. I know little about the 1's and 0's that make things  
> go whir. I do know a lot about what we need to purchase goods and  
> services, efficiently, globally.
>
> So now the primary hard drive fails. You want a laugh. The folks  
> who make the crappy hard have a division who will recover your  
> data. They have access to everything about this drive. The official  
> estimate to recover a couple of GB's of data is $770.00 to $1770. I  
> told them - Seagate and affiliates that this is not an estimate, it  
> is a scam. I will be keeping an eye out for a class action against  
> these clowns.
>
> Certainly prior to this latest Armageddon, my use of OS/2 was  
> limited to internet activities and one of the absolutely most  
> wonderful applications written - Relish. In our house, if it isn't  
> in Relish, it isn't on the fridge door. If not on the fridge door  
> it may not happen.
>
> I now have a MAC mini!
>
> I went from C-64 to OS/2. I always knew that when the time came I  
> did not want to my computing experience to come from Redmond. So I  
> again have chosen light over darkness.
>
> I picked up a little box 6.5" square X 2" high. I plugged it in,  
> turned on the power and whoa - everything I need is there, and IT  
> WORKS!!
>
> I am not abandoning OS/2 just yet. A friend of mine just got an  
> older version of Warp running under an application called  
> Parallels. If I can get eCS to work in a virtual machine I will be  
> ecstatic.
> It seems to me that this is what the founder of Taligent wanted.  
> People should have the best of all worlds with respect to  
> computing. I was there when The NT box failed the Taligent demo and  
> Someone from Redmond was very unamused!
>
> This MAC experience is a bit unsettling for me. There are many  
> assumption's that the"system will do what is best", but overall it  
> has been a pleasant journey of learning.
>
> It wasn't that long ago that Esther commented to someone on this  
> list that buying into Mac might have higher up front cost, but most  
> of what you need is provided. She was right!
>
> I am not giving up on OS/2, rather the crap and corruption of the  
> traditional PC hardware and the DIY (do it yourself) world of  
> making life better. I can't open this little box to do squat.
> BTW, I had purchase a Sharp Aquos 32 TV as a monitor. When I fired  
> up this Mac, it filled the full screen with absolutely stunning video!
>
> I hope to install eCS into a Parallels virtual machine shortly. I  
> am not at all interested in a dual boot scenario
>
>
> Don Burch
>
>
>
>
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Joseph J Hansen
Lexington Strategic Associates
221 Follen Road, Lexington, MA 02421-5802

tel (781) 863-5003
jhansen at LexSA.com,  www.LexSA.com