Lessons Learned from a Fried Micro BR (Don't fry your Micro BR, and Backup)

[Ted]

This is a cautionary tale.

In March this year, I fried my first Micro BR. I plugged in an adapter, heard a pop, and then smelled the smell of fresh baked electronics.

I pulled out the SD card, and plugged it into a card reader. Happily, the card was readable. I thought, Why don't I download BR Explorer and back up everything on the card? Sensible, right? But I ran into problems installing the software, and by time I succeeded—which was the following day—the SD card was unresponsive.

I made several vain attempts to revive the card, with encouragement from 64Guitars. Eventually I had to face the facts: My card was dead, and I had lost many hours of recording and editing.

My last backup had been about four months earlier.

Two Lessons Learned:

Click any image to enlarge in a new window.

#1 Label your DC adapters near the tip end! The reason I fried my Micro BR is because I'd plugged in the wrong AC adapter. The people who tell you that the Micro BR is sensitive about it's adapters, well, They're right.

#2 Backup your data whenever you connect the Micro BR to your computer for any reason. Seriously. BR Explorer has a backup feature. The instructions on how to set it up are here. It does a full "archival backup", which can take awhile if you have a lot of data on your card. Check your e-mail or something while it's running.

An alternative to BR Explorer is to find some software that does an "incremental backup"--where the only files backed up are the ones that are new or modified since the previous backup. I recommend Handy Backup, which is cheap (30-day trial version, $30 for a single user license), but very good. When I backup my Micro BR, it normally takes less than three minutes. This makes it easier to keep the discipline of backing up every time I connect. Skip to the bottom if you're not interested in reading more about Handy Backup.

I configure it to backup each folder separately, rather than just the entire drive.

The option for an incremental backup is under the Advanced tab. I select "Delete all files from destination except being backed up"--which is not worded very clearly. This means that if I delete a file or folder from my Micro BR, the corresponding file or folder will be deleted in the backup set when a backup is performed. Do not select this option if you want your backup set to also be your archive of finished songs.

As I said above, I had a backup set that was four months old. I bought a new Micro BR on eBay and a new SD card. When it arrived, I was able to use Handy Backup to restore all of the saved data to my new unit—and I started picking up the pieces.

I think I'm tired of writing techie posts to which almost nobody replies. Maybe I should get back to making music.

[jeffmitchellmusic]

Thanks for the post.  Ive been meaning to backup, now ill do it.
All the best

[guitarron]

i have to label all my wall warts just so i can remember what goes where-
Good idea to have a removable drive to back up your DAW too if ya got
good post

[Ted]

Thanks for the post.  Ive been meaning to backup, now ill do it.

If I can prevent one Micro BR disaster, then it will all have been worthwhile!

[Ted]

As much as I harp about backing up the BR, guess what I haven't done: Backup my hard drive.

Now the disk partition where I keep all of my music and photos is corrupted and inaccessible. All of my saved BRO files are on the partition too.

This reminds me of a IT platitude that we all should all remember:

[T]here are two kinds of hard drives, those that have failed and those that will fail.

I do obsessively backup my business and personal files to a server on the Internet (which means they're safe even if my house gets robbed or bombed), but the music and photos would have taken up more space than I have.

This afternoon a Mac witchdoctor is coming over to try and recover the files.

I bought a one terabyte external drive which ought to be more than enough to backup everything that I don't backup to the Internet. 

I'll be good from now on. I promise.

[cuthbert]

That's a bummer, Ted. I went through that with one of my Windows systems recently.

Luckily, I had a backup that wasn't completely ancient...but I lost some stuff.

[64Guitars]

After having two fried boot drives myself, I decided that the only files that should be on a boot drive are those needed by the operating system and any installed programs. I try to keep all of my data files (email, photos, videos, MP3s, documents, spreadsheets, BR files, etc.) on separate drives, either internal or external, but not on the boot drive. The boot drive is constantly being accessed by the operating system, so it makes sense that it's the most likely drive to fail. The more usage a drive gets, the more wear and tear, leading to a greater risk of failure.

Now if my boot drive dies, I can simply replace it with a new drive, install Linux and any programs I had, and I'm back in business with all of my data intact on the other drives. Of course, if one of the other drives fails, I'll lose a lot of data, so backups are still important. But I figure the risk of a disk failure is much lower on my other drives since they aren't accessed nearly is frequently as the boot drive.

[Ted]

Good news: My data has been recovered!

I have a laptop, so it's not quite as easy for me to separate the data from the OS.

I have Linux envy, but unfortunately I have to feel the pain of my clients and use Windows so I can advise them about it.

Now I'm going to try running OSX, and use Windows in a virtual environment only when necessary.

This'll be interesting.

[64Guitars]

Good news: My data has been recovered!

Hey, that's great news! And a huge relief, I'm sure.

I have a laptop, so it's not quite as easy for me to separate the data from the OS.

Maybe not everything, but there must be a lot of data that you don't need to keep on the laptop, such as your BR backups, most of your photos, videos, and MP3s, etc. Consider keeping that stuff on your external drive where it will be a bit safer.

I have Linux envy, but unfortunately I have to feel the pain of my clients and use Windows so I can advise them about it.

No problem. When you install ubuntu Linux, it detects any existing operating system and gives you the option of creating a separate partition for Linux so that you can dual-boot. I did that when I first installed ubuntu because I wasn't sure if I could make a complete break from Windows. So, I can boot that machine into either ubuntu or Windows XP. But when I got my new computer, I only installed ubuntu on it.

Of course, any time you adjust partitions, you have to be very careful. If you make a mistake, you could wipe out the Windows partition. So you have to make sure you have good backups before you begin.

Now I'm going to try running OSX, and use Windows in a virtual environment only when necessary.

Linux can do that too. You can set up a virtual machine inside Linux which can then run any operating system you like.

You can also run most Windows programs under Linux without even installing Windows, thanks to Wine (also available for OS X) which supplies all the libraries and whatnot that Windows programs need.

If you're interested in Linux, I'd recommend downloading the ISO image file and burning it to a CD. You can then boot your computer from that CD and try Linux without affecting your existing Windows or OS X installation (nothing is written to disk). This is a great way to check out Linux without any risk or commitment. It's a bit slow because it's running from a CD drive instead of a hard disk drive, but it's fast enough to evaluate Linux. There's nothing extra to install. The CD comes with everything - web browser, email client, instant messaging, bit torrent client, Microsoft-compatible office suite, sound & video players, and more. Of course, there are lots more programs you can install if you choose, but all of the essentials are included.

Give it a try. You've nothing to lose.