As many of you know, we're currently in the building phase of creating free training for CompTIA's A+, the world's most popular IT certification. We've got a few hours of video posted on the website, and I've got hours more training materials that I've yet to edit and add to the web site. As you can imagine, it's a constant churning of content creation. There's research, presentation building, photographing electronic components, presentation video and audio capture, the editing of the content, and the final posting of the latest videos on the web site. Each video may only be about fifteen minutes long, but they each take hours to produce.
This past weekend, I finished the presentation phase where I sat in front of my computer and captured eight new A+ training segments on everything you'll need to know about motherboards. After a few hours of video production, the video was "in the can" and I was ready to begin the final editing process.
Here's a key tidbit to this entire story. I knew that I'd be traveling this country this week, and I knew that I wouldn't be at home to complete the video editing process. Fortunately, I have a 60GB external USB-connected mobile hard drive that I use to transport large chunks of data. Each raw video is three to five gigabytes in size (that's really BIG!), and my laptop hard drive doesn't have that much spare room available. The portable hard drive is a perfect solution.
When I plugged in my portable USB hard drive, I noticed that Windows didn't automatically assign it a drive letter. It saw the drive, the lights were on, and I just assumed that it was a drive that I had been testing and erasing. I don't keep anything critical on my portable drives, and almost everything on my portable USB drives is just there for temporary transportation from one computer to another. I didn't think much of the lack of drive letter, and simply reformatted the drive to prepare it for my trip. It formatted perfectly with an NTFS partition, and a new drive letter appeared as normal.
STUPID MISTAKE NUMBER ONE: The USB drive wasn't acting normal, and I dismissed it as something innocuous. I should have paid closer attention and ran some additional diagnostics before giving a clean bill of health.
The USB drive worked perfectly as I transferred all of my video files and some additional content to take on the trip. After I was done, about 20 gigabytes of information had been transferred into the 60 gigabyte drive. I stopped the drive from the Windows XP system tray, unplugged the drive, and packed it into my laptop bag.
STUPID MISTAKE NUMBER TWO: I didn't test the USB drive before packing it away. I should have plugged it in, just to see what would happen. It would have taken about 60 seconds, and it would have made a big difference.
There were hours before my flight, and I was rushing around with the normal things you do before heading out to the airport. I packed up, drove to the airport, got my ticket, went through security, and sat down at my gate. In a stroke of good luck, I got a seat right next to a power outlet. I realize now that the universe was simply mocking me.
I was going to start my editing process before the flight left. I wanted to start by transferring one of the 3 gigabyte raw video files from the portable USB drive to my laptop's hard drive. I unpacked my laptop and my USB drive, plugged everything in, and waited for the drive letter to appear. By now, you have probably guessed that the drive was active, the light was on, but Windows never assigned a drive letter to the drive. As far as Windows was concerned, the drive didn't have a partition that Windows could understand. The drive was exhibiting exactly the same symptoms as it did when I first plugged it in at my lab. To Windows XP, the drive looked completely empty.
STUPID MISTAKE NUMBER THREE: The data on the USB drive was incredibly important data. If I was going to get any videos edited this week, I needed this information. It wouldn't have taken very long to make a second copy of the data to the 120GB USB drive that I also carry with me everywhere. ARGH!
Of course, I have a copy of all of this data at my test lab, so I haven't lost any critical data. Unfortunately, I won't be back in my lab until Friday, so I can't start on the editing process until then. I hate that I won't have any new videos to share until then, but I have been working on the content for the next set of training modules. At least I can get something done in the meantime!
I've not run any extensive drive diagnostics while I've been on the road, but if I put my ear to the drive I can hear the drive head mechanism "thumping" as it continually tries to read a particular part of the drive. Something isn't quite right, but I don't have any of my software tools available on CD to do any extensive testing. When I get back, I plan on making a bootable USB drive to use for emergencies.
The morals of the story:
- If something is acting fishy, it probably is. Take a few extra minutes to perform some testing.
- Before heading out to a remote location, test your gear to be sure everything is in top condition.
- Backup, backup, backup. You not only need to backup when the data is important, but you also need to have extra copies when you're not going to have access to your backups.
- Always have diagnostics available, even when you're away from home.
