Hot Friday!
Happy hot Friday. Whew. You folks out in the desert must be fried. It’s super hot out - or humid - or both.
Anyone research or keep up with their genealogy? I started researching both my family and my husband’s family several years ago. I had complied it on some genealogy software. I printed out paper copies of most everything. I also saved the files on a disk (CD). I even sent someone the file via email.
Now, the problem, my CD isn’t readable or is corrupt - who knows why. I can’t find all my paper copies, only about half. I emailed the fella I sent a file to years ago - I hope he still has it so I can import it in - even if it’s only hubby’s side.
Argh. I had went many years futher back with my familyhistory than my hubby because his family wasn’t good about keeping up with names/dates on family. I’m totally bummed I can’t get the info up.
Anyway, it really stinks. Now, I’m afraid a paper copy and a saved-on-disk copy won’t be enough once I input all this data back in. That’s a lot to loose once much less twice. Sigh. So, little by little I’m retypin’ all the crap back in. Ho hum.
I’ve been a slacker blog reader lately. Apologies.
July 14th, 2006 at 3:54 pm
We are cooking out here in the desert, about 100 right now, with single digit humidity.
Not as bad as the southern deserts of the state, which will top out at 112 degrees.
My family keeps up with geneology, although I doubt they would know how to fix a corrupt file.
We have been startled at who some of our relatives are. There was a line of royalty discovered, and they kept good records, so one branch of the family tree goes back to 6 AD!
July 14th, 2006 at 5:07 pm
We just hit 100 here (Denver CO); at least two more days of 100+ ahead.
My oldest sister took up the genealogy quest when a late aunt and grandmother bequeathed her their accumulated records. What she’s uncovered over the past 10 years is incredible; she has our roots back to the AD/BC break, though I only have a copy of her tracings back to roughly 1000 AD (she gave us all an updated CD three years ago; she’s found more since).
Interestin’ stuff, shore ’nuff
July 14th, 2006 at 5:55 pm
Try the CD in several different drives. I have had luck recovering data from a bad CD after trying it in many drives.
I even had a program which read as much as it could from any given drive and then marked the bits it couldn’t in a file. I then took the file along with the disc to another computer and it tried to read the bits the other one couldn’t. After going through many different drives I was able to recover a fair proportion of it. If you are lucky you may find the whole CD just reads in another drive.
On a related topic, if you want to archive off data onto CDs it is a good idea to introduce redundancy. CDs/DVDs are not perfect for long term storage, they can become corrupt.
I typically don’t fill an entire CD with data and use the additional space for redundancy information.
For example if you only put 500Mbytes on a CD that leaves you with 200M for redundancy.
Use something like QuickPar to create 200M of parity files. Now you have a full 700M on the CD. You can recover 100% the original 500M data as long as you can read any 500M out of the 700M on there. There are certain exceptions of course, if you lose the file table then you’ve lost it all, but typically this isn’t what happens when discs go bad.
Another way of creating redundancy is to use WinRar and put Recovery information into the archives. You can put upto 10% recovery information in. You can also make full parity stripe files. However using WinRar requires that you put all the data in a .rar archive which may not be what you want. If you want the data in the original form and easily accessibly then partity files are a better way to go, as they are just additional files you store on the disc, you don’t have to transform the entire data.
Another simple way to create redundancy is to duplicate. If you only have 350M on a CD then write it on twice. Of course this isn’t as good as a reed-solomono parity code as the data loss risk is not spread. If you lost 10M in the same place in both copies then it is gone forever. If you had 350M of parity then you could happily loose 350M from anywhere on the disc.
Create multiple copies of the CD. This creates more redundancy and also gives extra physical protection. 200M parity on a CD is of little use if the disc is snapped!
I like to keep backup copies of data off-site. Everey few months I post a DVD of backups down to my parents place so they can store it there. That way if I lost everything in a fire I would still be able to get a large portion of my data back.
Discs are small things for people to store so it shouldn’t be hard to find a place. I encrypt my off-site backups so I don’t need to worry about nosey people.
Rejuvenate your CDs. Every couple of years (or sooner) read your archive CDs and create new copies of them. Keep the old copy as a backup. I keep my older discs in a spindle where they take almost no room. A spindle of 100 discs is pretty small yet contains an enormous amount of data.
Finally make sure you keep the data up with current technology. Having a shoe box full of 5 1/2 inch discs is not much use now. Eventually the same will be true with CDs.
So as part of rejuvenating discs, make sure you put them on whatever the current format is.
Don’t stick a box of CDs away in a cupboard for the next 15 years!
Another topic is data format. Even if the data files are readable in 20 years because you have preserved them well you may not be able to run a program to read it.
)
Obscure programs that use propriety data formats are the worst for this as they probably won’t exist in the future.
Pictures and text can easily be stored in formats that are pretty much guaranteed to always be readable. Database information like geneology may be less so.
See if your program has an option to export the data out in some human readable format. Like XML or comma deliminated text files etc.
At least this way you can read the file by hand in the future and parse it into some new application (Perl does wonders for this sort of thing
Make sure you don’t just archive some binary file, that is asking for non-readability in the future.
I hope you are able to get back all your data!
July 14th, 2006 at 7:10 pm
My sister once made a family tree. Don’t remember where it is at…I hope you will be able to recover yours with Ben’s help…
Hot - well, yah - very much so. They forcasted 116 today. It is almost like an over-door opening, when you step outside. The top of my feet are burned today. I had sandles on and just walked from the car to work and back…ouch…
July 14th, 2006 at 7:11 pm
Just checked the temp - only 113F….
July 14th, 2006 at 7:18 pm
I got motivated to do the family tree so had mom and dad send me everything they had. It is sitting on a shelf. I am too cheap to buy a program or buy into one of these online sites. I hope you can get yours fixed.
July 14th, 2006 at 7:50 pm
wow, family tree time huh?? I don’t think i have ever done that.. not with any degree of success. but i am pretty lazy that way.
hope the guy you sent that file too still as it *crosses fingers*
July 15th, 2006 at 12:52 am
Miserably hot here!
I’ve always been interested in my genealogy. Just think, years from now, family of yours that you never meet will look at your work.
July 15th, 2006 at 1:01 am
Gosh how I wish i had words of wisdom for you, but alas, I don’t. I only know too well how losing information can really mess up a day or even a week for that matter.
Wishing you well in your data recovery. Hopefully you’ll hear from that guy and get your first disc back, all safe and sound. =)
~hugs~
July 15th, 2006 at 3:46 pm
Ugh, hot here too. Thankfully my dad keeps up with the genealogy!
July 15th, 2006 at 4:41 pm
I’d love to trace my roots back and find out stuff about my family, but because my mom was adopted when she was 2 years old, it’s proving difficult. We’ve explored every avenue to try to find information, and they’ve all come to a close.
I hope you can get that file back, would be such a waste to lose all your hard work.
Mandy
July 17th, 2006 at 2:50 am
That sux, losing backups are the worst.
July 18th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
Oh, that would suck…esp. when you tried to be “good” and back up on a CD. Reminds me that I should back up my pics. Anyway, I would love to do a search, but unfortunately, I’m adopted, so I’m not really sure where to start.
July 18th, 2006 at 11:55 pm
That royally stinks and I can’t imagine that’s very discouraging. I’d have no idea how to fix that either, it sounds like a lot of work. My aunt did a lot of that and sent me a paper trail.. I even had a copy of my g.g grandfather’s signature from Ellis Island when he came from Ireland. Pretty cool.
No apologies needed, at least you didn’t vanish for months like me. :o( Bad Melissa