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I'll set my alarm this time!
So old that I did my first coding in octal via switches on a DEC PDP 8
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I act as a part-time system manager for a client in an essential business, and one of my duties is to manage a fairly complex backup regime. I visit several times each week to change the backup media, but due to COVID 19 have changed the regime and route the backups to an external USB drive on an old XP machine outside the computer room.
I remote into the system every morning to ensure there are good backups, and then soft-eject the drive. During the day somebody swaps the disk in a rotation of three disks, and takes it off-site.
The problem is what if the disk is not swapped? I usually check every evening that a backup disk is plugged in, but if it isn't I can't reconnect the disk that is still connected to the XP machine, and there is no Shutdown/Restart available when remoting from Win10 to XP.
Any ideas how to reconnect a soft-ejected drive to an XP system without unplugging/replugging or turning off/turning on again? My client has told me that while he might turn a blind eye to the ritual disembowelment of the culprit, he didn't think it would actually help solve the problem.
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If I remember correctly you can issue a "shutdown /r" from and administrator cmd console to restart XP.
Addendum: You can also disable and re-enable the corresponding USB Mass Storage Device in the device manager. This will re-detect and mount the disk.
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How the devil did I forget that? I have built this complex system to synchronize backups of unknown length from three different servers to a single remote drive without timing conflicts - and completely forgot about shutdown /r.
Time for Confucius “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
Thanks very much. I have just tested on a Win7 machine here and it reconnects just fine!
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Don't forget that in remote sessions to Win 7 (and XP IIRC) you can select "Windows Security" in the right pane of the start menu, you will then see the shutdown and restart options.
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Do you check if the disk swapped in is a new one?
I mean, that could give you a hint too, if you use different systen names for the disks.
BACKUP_01
BACKUP_02
BACKUP_03
At least you could know if the one being connected is the right one before overwriting.
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Actually, they are labelled A, B, C, and as each disk is large enough to hold three full backups, I never wipe the disk, just zap the oldest group. Each backup file is identified by server name and date, so little chance of error.
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Chris C-B wrote: so little chance of error.
You are relying in another employee to work crrectly, aren't you?  
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Nelek wrote: You are relying in another employee to work crrectly, aren't you?
Nope!
All done by batch files - which is why I was so horrified that I had forgotten the shutdown /r command. I guess after the complexities of the earlier stuff I was looking for something more complicated than that. 
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Chris C-B wrote: During the day somebody swaps the disk in a rotation of three disks, and takes it off-site.
Chris C-B wrote: Nelek wrote: You are relying in another employee to work crrectly, aren't you?
Nope!
Anyways... nevermind, it was just a joke about "the problem with computers is usually between the monitor and the chair" (another form to say human factor).
No need to continue this
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Chris C-B wrote: The problem is what if the disk is not swapped?
Probably nothing.
I get that backups are very important and you're really glad you have them when you need them, but when was the last time you needed them?
Not making backups for a month probably won't matter.
Now that's a risk you have to be willing to take because the moment you skip a backup stuff breaks and you need the damn thing (I bet there's a law for that).
I see you already have a solution so you should really keep on doing what you do, and if you didn't you should still be looking for a solution.
Just saying it might be more important for the higher ups just so you can tell them you have this strict backup regime than that it is to actually have all those backups.
It's like insurance, you hope you won't need it and you usually don't, but when you do you really do 
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Actually, I have had to do three restores over the years, two of them for ransomware attacks, and one due to a manager 'just moving a file' which zapped half the files on the disk. I never did figure out how he managed it.
Also, I once did a complete zap and rebuild of one of the servers because the one of the annual auditors (from one of the 'big five' and who should have known better) plugged a virus-ridden USB stick into the server despite firm instructions to the contrary. I actually bought a new raid array and restored everything from scratch. The old disks were then recycled as backup drives. When it comes to sanitizing a system, I use what might be called a COVID 19 approach. 
Before you start thinking 'what a clusterelephant' I should point out that I have been working for this client continuously since 2003, and wrote significant chunks of their software at that time, which are still in use today. On average, they have had less than one hour downtime per annum, over the seventeen years.
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Chris C-B wrote: auditors (from one of the 'big five'...) plugged a virus-ridden USB stick into the server
Let me guess. Toilette & Douche?
Interesting post, thanks. Maybe there should be a board for sharing these kinds of war stories.
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A long time ago I was working as a network technician with 30-odd customers, and I can assure you and everyone else that what you have is outstanding stats!
Especially the 'just moving a file' did happen way to often. And then they wondered why they had to have so 'strict' security settings. It was for their own sake. It was cheaper that way
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I used to think that backups could be thought of as being overly cautious, but please read the following, totally true, cautionary tale.
Way back when (90's) our company decided with great wisdom to out-source our email. They chose a company that was well-known for telecoms at that time - I shall call them Cable & Hopeless (C&H) as they still operate today, in some remoter parts of the world.
While I was happy to let our department's emails be managed and stored elsewhere I was less than happy about trying to access 30 Outlook mailboxes over a 64 kb/s ISDN line. I therefor implemented a policy of setting up Outlook to keep a local copy of the inbox and seting up individual local folders for all users on a local server. This was immediately criticised by the upper powers as they couldn't access the entirety of my users e-mails. (My immediate boss quickly informed them that it was illegal to do so and that all our mail was top secret anyway, so they could take a walk).
Fast forward a couple of years, my system is humming along nicely despite Outlook's attempts to corrupt .pst files if there was the slightest network time-out. I had GFS backups of everything mail-related and the world was bright and shiny, until... "Mail server is off-line".
Day 1: We contacted C&H who said "don't worry, it looks like a disk failure but it's RAID 5 so you'll be OK. Please wait while we swap out the disk and the array rebuilds".
Day 2: "Erm it looks like more than one disk has failed, we can't understand it, we're trying to rebuild with 2 disks" (I start to hear alarm bells)
Day 3: "Erm well it appears that you can't rebuild a RAID 5 array when 2 out of 3 disks have failed"
"So this is the 2nd disk to fail in the array then?"
"Looks like it"
"So why didn't you replace the first one when you got the alert?"
Silence..
Day 4: "It looks like the alerts were set up to email someone who has since left the company. Anyway we're re-installing your Exchange Server and will be able to restore from backups."
Day 5: "Please be patient, we're looking for the best backup."
Day 8: "Erm, it looks like all our backups are blank! Anyway your server is up and running and we're adding accounts as we speak"
Day 9: "Apologies but it appears that we forgot to plug the SCSI cable in to the tape drive, there have never been any backups of the server!"
"Didn't you get any alert messages?"
wait for it ...
"It looks like the alerts were set up to email someone who has since left the company."
My 30 users were very happy to find all there past and present emails available to them. The rest of the company (200 accounts) had to grin and bear it.
At a later stage the powers that be decided to bring email back in-company, even then they still managed to omit to back up Active Directory. This blew up in their faces when a trainee with admin privileges hit "Delete" on the main tree and then tried to fix it himself.
Guess who did have a backup?
(Finished blowing my own trumpet, but don't forget the first law of IT, "If anything can go wrong, it will do so in the worst possible and least expected manner")
So old that I did my first coding in octal via switches on a DEC PDP 8
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Clumpco wrote: If anything can go wrong, it will do so in the worst possible and least expected manner
Or in the case of outsourcing it's usually the most expected manner.
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They just made mistake upon mistake upon mistake, very amateurish, and I'm pretty sure you could sue for that because you could expect better from such a company.
On the other hand, suing won't get you your emails back.
Trainee with admin privileges in the AD? That was asking for trouble...
Too bad they didn't listen to you.
Every company should have someone like you (in management), a backup nut
I've never been religious on backups and I lost my entire music collection like that once (I was like 16 though, so I didn't know any better, nor did I have the means to make a good backup).
I didn't learn anything from the experience and it could happen again
I've been meaning to look into it, but you know how that goes... "I'll get to it someday" 
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Chris C-B wrote: Any ideas how to reconnect a soft-ejected drive to an XP system without unplugging/replugging or turning off/turning on again?
I believe I've done this in the past by going to Device Manager and telling it to look for new hardware.
If it works at all, it'll probably work for XP.
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Do you prefere the waiting lines inside or outside?
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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Depends on the whether...whether I want to be inside or out! 
I'm hiding from exercise...I'm in the fitness protection program.
JaxCoder.com
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Indoors you're breathing the same air as everyone else, outdoors you're having a constant exchange of air, so the air you breathe is getting diluted with fresh air.
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I'll go for C: I prefer VIP treatment.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I should hope not. However, I think that is a very popular video game, hilarious or not.
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