Recovery Log – Comments and Replies

My last post in a series on recovering from the failure of Mary’s hard drive has a series of suggestions for users and for backup and recovery service provider Mozy. Reader Craig Plunkett added a suggestion I shouldn’t have missed in a comment:

“…I've always found that a practice restore, ( mandated in the financial industry ) usually finds some issue with your recovery procedures, and is the kind of housekeeping that us IT folks let fall by the wayside on our personal machines.”

He’s certainly right. If I’d practiced recovery before the fact, it would have been pretty easy when needed. Tough resolution to keep for busy people but a very good suggestion.

Update: Just to show how right Craig is, the Quicken files have gone missing.

My suggestions to Mozy were basically that they make themselves more recovery-focused. I offered a chance to reply and COO Vance Checketts took me up on it:

“Thank you for your suggestions. I'm happy to report that we have something coming soon to address each of them. We have a new set of instructions for restores that will direct users to the most appropriate restore option for their situation. Once they have narrowed their options they will have better documentation to assist them with any given choice. Best of all, we have a new restore feature coming later this month which provides exactly what you describe in your suggestion about client-based restores. Later this year you'll also see new options for customer support, including offerings specific to restores. Stay tuned!”

BTW, the restore DVDs from Mozy did arrive this morning as promised. Fortunately we’d already finished downloading but they were a good backup.