RE: OT: What I did this weekend

From: Ronathospice (Ronathospice_at_discussions.microsoft.com)
Date: 12/20/04 

Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 08:33:06 -0800

sounds like a typical friday/saturday in the world of the IT support tech.
Sure am glad I'm off that circuit!!!

"kpg" wrote:

>
> What I did this weekend or Why is this typical?
>
> Client calls in a panic - the server has crashed, upon
> reboot the hard drive just clicks. I had just installed
> a tape backup system last month. 'I hope the tape backup
> has been working', he mentions. Me too. So I grab a new
> drive and head over to his place. Sure enough the hard
> drive is toast. I install the new drive, partition and
> format it - ready to go. OK - 'Where is the OS disk?',
> I ask innocently. 'What?' he says. We need the OS
> install disk, I saw it here in the past, where is it now?
> 'I don't know.', he says. He calls a friend, 'I can have
> one here in 30 minutes', he claims. OK - I won't ask.
> Sure enough, 30 minutes later I have a burnt CD with the
> (I'm sure a legal copy) of the OS. Drop it in the CD -
> it's not bootable. No problem - I have some boot disks
> here somewhere - no, I gave them to my son to use for
> floppies at school. No problem, I go to my favorite
> Boot Disk web site and download some images. Now to
> just copy them onto floppies; the floppy drive on this
> computer doesn't like my disks. That's OK, there is
> another computer in the back. I likes some of my disks,
> but not four of them - I'm out of floppies! I dig
> through the glove box of my truck and find a stray buried
> deep under a pile of Taco Bell Fire Sauce. It works,
> now I boot the machine and install the 'legal' copy of
> the OS. Now to install the Tape Backup Software so I can
> restore a few folders and we are back! The copy of the
> backup software I have doesn't work on this version of OS.
> Oh yeah, I had to download it directly from the vendor's
> website when I set this up - and the only copy is on the
> dead hard drive and the backup tapes. No problem - I can
> go to the vendor's site and download it again. But it's
> down! WTF? OK - a mirror site. After an hour of searching
> I give up. I can't find a compatible copy of the backup
> software. OK. I pull out the tape drive - I'm going to
> install it on a 98 machine, install a copy of the backup
> software for 98 (which I have) and restore the version I
> need (and maybe the data too!). But the only other machines
> available are those stupid mini towers and they don't have
> a place to hook up the tape drive. No problem - I bring
> the drive and tapes to my shop, pop it in a machine there.
> I restore the whole tape to an old hard drive, go back to
> the client, add the hard drive to the server and install
> the tape software and restore the backup files. But what's
> this? QuickBooks works fine but their business software
> does not - just a bunch of 'need to reindex' errors. OK,
> we have to go back to an older tape. Same problem. An
> older tape. Same problem. OMG - all the tapes have the
> same problem! They have a bad habit of leaving a computer
> on in the back with their program running - and the tape
> software can't backup the main data files when the program
> is running. I told them over and over - 'It's OK to leave
> the machine on, but you must exit the program or it will
> not back up at night'. OK - the owner has a laptop that
> he makes a read only copy of the program (a DOS program)
> so he can use it at home. Bring me the laptop - the data
> on it is three weeks old, but it's better than nothing.
> They called me a 6PM Friday night, and by 1PM Saturday
> they were printing payroll checks (good thing too, one
> girl there said she was going to do a Tanya Harding on me
> if see didn't get paid, and this was no small girl, if you
> know what I mean).
>
> Mission accomplished - I owe it all to good disaster planning.
> (yeah right).
>
> --
> kpg A+ MCP MCNGP 0x22
> Visit www.MCNGP.com for a chance to win!
> Festivus for the rest of us!
> http://www.karber.net/seinfeld/festivus/
>