We lost power two nights ago for some unknown reason.  It wasn’t raining, snowing, windy or anything else.  I guess just a random event.  Either way, when I went to power up my box that collects satellite images, it failed to boot.  It was a dual-boot box that had Ubuntu loaded.  Somehow it seemed the boot loader for windows became corrupted.

Luckily, I didn’t have to reinstall windows and my other software…which would likely be several hours of computer hand-holding.  But, I also did not have any backups made.  So, the issue now has been what backup software to use.  There are many out there, but I think I’ll go with Macrium for now.  They have a free version that will image the drive, which for a computer that only collects data, should be enough.  At this point, I just want a basic image that I can use in case of disaster.  I the future I can think about differential updates and such.

Currently, I’ve shut down data collection and am defragmenting.  Then I’ll image the drives (one box for seismography, radiation and weather, the other for satellite images.) and keep that safe somewhere.  My advice, as you have all heard before, is that disaster strikes and a simple plan can keep you out of serious trouble.