iMac Time Machine Back-up & My Melt-Downs

This is one of those rambling, disjointed posts that’s gonna make me sound stupid and neurotic, but since I need to vent I will risk it.

I am really lousy with hardware stuff.

Ok. The thing is, I just don’t like dealing with computer stuff that seems complicated to me.  And the huge costs that follow if you can’t fix the darn machine.

Don’t trust inanimate things that I feel will go kaput on me. Things I don’t have any control over. Years ago when I was still on a PC, a Seagate external hard drive just stopped working after a while. I handled it with such care and never dropped it once, or allowed it to overheat. It had all my files on it. Luckily my computer had not crashed before I discovered this. That would have been devasting. I have cried over computer problems before.

Ok. Sobbed!

Had the same issue with Samsung. Since then I avoid the Seagate and Samsung brands for hard drives. So far I have no problem with WD or Buffalo so I am going with these for now.

Took 2 hours to do a Time-Machine (Apple’s application to back-up your whole system) back up last night, and then I got the message that I don’t have enough disk space so the back-up wasn’t complete.

Total frustration.

It was 1 am already. And by then the external hard drive felt like it was just out of the oven, so I decided to wait till the next day to try again. The forums say don’t let your hard drive exceed 60 degrees. How the heck would I know unless I place a thermometer next to it, but it did feel pretty hot. I did something really stupid then. I felt the temperature of my own body, with the back of my hand and then compared it with the temperature of the hard drive. So dumb, I know. But I had a former colleague who used to speak to her computer the way gardeners speak to plants.

On some forums I even saw a picture of a ice pack taped to a hard drive, which makes me think, they designed an amazing thing like the ipad, but now we need someone to work on a cooling device apart from those fan thingys which don’t really seem to work that well.

Today I played with the option button on the Time Machine application, where you can select what you don’t want to include in the back-up. Wish it was the other way around so that I could just back-up my photos. Somehow searching for the stuff you don’t want to include is a bit hard. So I opted not to include documents in the back-up as it was an easy folder to find. So this time after 3 hours I managed to do a back-up.

Now I just feel a bit of relief, but neurotic me still wants to do a manual photo back-up.

Just in case.

I could live with losing all my files but not my family and travel photos which in the modern times of the digital camera, we stopped printing out. So the digital copy is the only copy.

Would love to hear about your computing meltdowns or am I sadly alone here?

About bookjunkie

Blogging about life in Singapore & recently cancer too.
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10 Responses to iMac Time Machine Back-up & My Melt-Downs

  1. whatsaysyou says:

    I am so sorry to hear about what you are going through right now. I do have a minor computer meltdown with my dumb printer which is playing up and taking me for the fool (if you get what I mean refusing to print when I want to print)

  2. 365days2play says:

    I hate having to deal with all the IT stuff too! Don’t you think it’s bad enough that there isn’t enough time to do all the posting, and here we are having to spend further precious time on IT issues. Luckily for non-website related stuff, the Partner handles it all for me. I thought your Partner did the same for you too.

  3. Crystal says:

    There was the hard drive that crashed ON THE PLANE HOME TO BOSTON, leaving me without means to recharge any of my other devices (this is the essential key to having electronics work over 30 hours of travel). I was alone with E. Thought i was going to lose my mind, burst into tears in the middle of the flight.

    Then there’s my current drama, which you know about.

    Being married to a computer programmer/geek has its benefits.

    • bookjunkie says:

      Oh no……with my phobia for planes….my anxiety would have been extra high…and with a little one in tow…..boy that’s hard!! poor you….I would definitely have sobbed buckets. And what a time not to have your computer whizz with you…shucks!

  4. mfmfmf says:

    I used to scold my work comp for being slow and then sayang it in case it decided to die on me *.* More recently, I have been sayang-ing my Mac, which shuts down on its own whenever it likes…

    And I had a really bad scare at work last year when I found that the backup drive didn’t have my latest documents despite its daily churning at 1pm everyday which slowed down my system! So I don’t trust auto backup.. Be trying time machine when I get my new Mac though.. Good to know it works!

    • bookjunkie says:

      oh no! that is scary indeed….although now after time machine my iMac is super slow…..like even trying to edit this blog….the rainbow wheel keeps showing…..sigh

  5. harlsmits says:

    If you are still concerned you should try backing your files up online. There are sites like Carbonite that backs up everything you want on your drive remotely, and then periodically checks for updates. But I warn you, it takes a VERY LONG TIME to back up everything the first time. But I use it and you can access your stuff remotely too if you don’t have your own computer with you.

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