Shawn's MIIS/ILM Tricks, PKI Hints, and Résumé Writing Prevention Tips : Backup/Restore

RWPT - My Day Ruining Maneuver

shawnrab — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 06:15:00 GMT

So here is a nice little tip that is a direct result of sleep deprivation and bad habit.

I was working on some C# code that grabs some log files and wraps them up into a cab file and moves them off to a different location. After that it clears the directory so new logs can be written. In writing the code I figured I would take the liberty of trying to get everything in the folder deleted except for the tool itself.

So in thinking I did this:

---snip---

Directory.Delete(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory(), true);

---end---

Where Directory refers to System.IO.Directory

So I am trucking along, writing some other functionality and I finally compiled the code... I fixed the compilation errors (usually missing semi-colons or curly brackets) and I went to test. I had a test directory C:\testdir\testdata where the tool was to be run in testdir and the data to be put in the cab file was in testdata.

Of course at 2:30am I am not thinking about the code I wrote an hour or two before, nor do I think about running this under the debugger. No I dragged the tool from the debug directory straight into a default command prompt. I was puzzled as the code did not return. So I went and looked at the code, thinking I might have done something wrong. I spent about 10 minutes looking. I figured it was hung somewhere so I looked for any potential hanging points - maybe a for loop where I put a greater than sign where I needed a less than sign or something like that. I went to control + C the running code and I caught a glimpse of my desktop...

Zero icons. Of course I had no browsing history anymore either. No PST's. No documents in the My Documents folder.

My default command prompt centers at %userprofile%... the "true" in the Directory.Delete means "go into all of the sub directories and torch everything."

Luckily I had a fairly recent backup. For the rest I used a third party file recovery tool.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

RWPT - Don't "Jack" it up, back it up!!!

shawnrab — Wed, 10 May 2006 21:28:00 GMT

I spent almost 4 years in Microsoft Product Support Services. I would take calls and fix problems. One nice thing about PSS is that if you worked the night shift, they would give you a salary differential. Being a younger employee and in need of some extra cash I would field night shift calls. The night shift calls were often really nasty issues and there was one common theme when it came to most customers.

So I am watching my favorite show on Monday night. Being a Premier Field Engineer, I travel a ton and there's one constant rule that I follow. Book your flights and make hotel arrangements around the show "24." Yeah, a DVR is a good idea, but I have too many friends who text message me their reactions as the show happens. I turn the phone off when I am on the West Coast... Watching "24" the night of the show is the only acceptable workaround. I can't go to work the next day without knowing the facts. Anyway, I am watching "24" and the main character Jack finally acquired the evidence that implicates the Fictional President of the United States in all of the days actions. It was a recording of the Fictional President talking to the bad guy. Jack had acquired the recording before in the season and then the bad guy got it back and during the last episode a different bad guy erased it. WHY DIDN'T JACK MAKE A BACKUP??

That bothers me that my fictional hero didn't make a backup. Jack is like the unfortunate many of the customers who would call me at night. There's really no excuse. We provide a tool (ntbackup.exe) to do backups. It's free, or at least it comes free with the purchase of Windows Server. So why aren't you using this shiny toy that comes in the bottom of the cereal box?

So what is the excuse for not having a backup? You didn't have time? You were busy dodging bullets and running from the MAN? Either way, don't get JACKED, make sure the data is BACKED!!

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.