How Backing Up Saved My Bacon - A Cautionary Tale

I thought I would share this since so many of MoonTower's readers are Mac users. Here's a quick description of my set-up:

2.66 GHz iMac running OSX Leopard
2.16 GHz MacBook Pro running OSX Leopard

Since I use the MBP for work, I decided it was a good idea to put a back-up strategy into place, 'cause I just can't afford to lose my data. I bought a 500MB Time Capsule, a 250MB external hard disk drive, and Chronosync software.

I set up Time Machine to back up both machines daily (overriding the hourly back-up default, which is too much for me). In addition, once a month, I do a system image using SuperDuper! software, and put that on the external HDD and leave it at my father-in-law's as my off-site back-up. SuperDuper is free for doing full system backups.

Lastly, I use Chronosync to sync my "Documents" folder between the iMac and the MBP, which runs at least twice a day, or whenever my MBP joins the network. I let this sync more frequently since I will often work on the iMac if I am working from home.

Soooo... why bring this all up? Well, yesterday, while on-site at my client's, my MBP started doing some wonky stuff. I use VMWare to run Windows XP virtually, and that worked fine, but when I tried using Mac apps, the menu bar would completely disappear, and I wasn't able to use the dock or launch any apps from the Finder. After doing hard reboots, the same problem would start again after about 5 minutes of use.

Late last night, I popped in my Leopard install disk, and ran the "System Restore from Backup" utility. I selected my Time Capsule backup, and when I came in this morning, all worked perfectly again. And I did it without losing a single file. Only a few things had to be fixed - Apple Mail had to rebuild the mail database, but that took all of 1 minute, and I had to re-establish some links and default apps. Other than that, everything seems to be working well.

So I think I just got my payback for the $500 I spent on hardware for backing up!