Oh man, yesterday my computer crashed. I restarted it and got the blue screen of death (what we call the error message on our Dells here at school). I went to the Tech people to see if they could fix it and they found they had to replace my hard drive. So, because my last back up apparently didn't work, I just lost every file and all my pictures from the last 3.5 years here at school. So basically I spent the whole of yesterday recovering my music files and trying to reestablish my settings and preferences. All my favorites had been wiped out. Everything. My computer was as clean and empty as the day I got it. Aaaahhhh, the frustration. The tech people said they tried everything they could think of to recover my data off my hard drive but couldn't get anything. On the plus side, my dad said he would get me an external hard drive for Christmas so I can back up my files properly and not just to the school share drive network. I'm so depressed. Moral of the story, back up your stuff!! Especially if you have a Dell.
The same thing actually happened to my computer (which is also a Dell) two or three weeks ago. I hadn't backed up anything either, so I sympathize with your situation. (*hug*) I had this option, but it a lot more expensive than just getting a replacement hard drive.
Dell isn't old. It's just a company that makes computers. Hell, most of the stuff at my university is Dell-made, and my university is one of the best computing universities in the UK.
It's nothing to do with whether it's a Dell or what make it is. Dell use standard hard disks from Seagate, Hitachi, Western Digital, Maxtor or whoever they get a good deal from at the time, just like all other PC brands. In fact Dell tend to steer clear of the crap brands of disk that end up in some chain store machines, as they cause too many returns. Hard disks can fail completely unexpectedly. In a previous job in IT I looked after around 120 PCs, some Dell and others a mix of brands. I probably had to deal with a failed hard drive about once every two months. There was no pattern to it - some were years old while others were nearly new. Some started misbehaving first, but most died without any warning. Backups are essential. Don't put it off. Plan a backup process and schedule (such as copying it all to the removable hard drive every Friday evening) and stick with it. You could look at some sort of scheduled backup process (I think the basic backup program that comes with Windows allows scheduled backups) to look after it for you. The data can be retrieved from your faulty drive by a specialised data recovery company (such as Ontrack Data Recovery), but it is not cheap. The last time I had one done it cost about £500. Phone around and get some quotes. It is often cheaper if you are not in a desperate hurry (the often have fast, standard and economy services, with fast being two days and very expensive, and economy being up to a couple of weeks and not so expensive). 3.5 years work may just be worth that sort of money to recover. Even if you decide not to get it recovered now, keep the faulty hard drive safely in case you change your mind later. It doesn't take much space and you may regret throwing it away. Dell is not old, though they have been around for many years. They are a very big supplier of PCs to many corporates, schools and universities etc. I think they make good machines at a reasonable price (certainly better quality than stuff like Medion and Packard Bell). Most of our current and previous PCs are Dell, and they are good reliable systems. They are built from standard parts so can be upgraded easily when required.
Whatever OS you use, you still need to have a backup onto a different physical drive (not just a different partition on the same drive). No back-tracking software will help if the actual drive has died. A dead drive means that all data on it has been lost, and "time machine" or whatever can't get you back to before it died (it can't make a faulty drive work again). Use a USB drive or DVD-R disks to backup your work, and do so regularly and frequently.
The last time my computer crashed, my computer guy saved my data for only $20. I could have kissed him! I think backing up our computers is a valuable lesson that we all learn the hard way at one time or another. Reminds me............I need to do it!
I'm sure you can back up your work and emails etc to a flash drive, though we'll have to wait for a Mac user to explain how. You don't back up the actual Mac OS X software and other software though, as you would just reinstall them from the CDs or DVDs in the event of a drive failure.
Time Machine backs the data up to another internal hard drive of a network share. You cant back the data up to the same hard drive
