Along similar lines: If you haven't tested or dry-run your restore procedures, you may as well not have backups either.
That applies more for things like SQL databases and the like, more than personal files on disk. But yeah.... if you haven't tried to restore your database or other data repository from a backup file that you've squirreled away, then you effectively don't have a backup either.
Once my family drove to visit my cousins. I brought a newly bought box of floppies just in case they had some interesting things to copy from... and forgot it in the car with summer heatwave outside. It was a very painful lesson, so many badblocks.
Especially post-pandemic when most of the stuff in the theater is dead and there's only a single backup of the lighting board programming on a 3.5" floppy with a broken dust protector. Manually spinning it and blowing the dust out brought it back enough to save it after our first improv jam that took place with fluorescents on for the first 15 minutes while I manually programmed a single wash on a dimmer.
ddrescue trying to read a scratched DVD from a public library comes close. Horrifying sounds as you contemplate your drive wearing itself down, copy progress ETA 47:32:13
The secret for scratched CDs/DVDs I learned way too late in the game was that you can actually polish the clear plastic underside with Brasso (brass polish) and a lens cloth. I restored sooo many optical discs this way. It really works!
Glad to hear I'm not the only one who routinely stabbed my computer! I used to keep a butter knife by my iMac to help eject CDs. I had the first slot-loading model and the rubber eject rollers they used seemed to lose their grip after a while.
I recall installing Office from ~35 floppy discs, and finding that one of the discs in the 20s was unreadable after what felt like an eternity. The installation still completed after I skipped it though, so presumably it only contained some optional feature I never ended up using.
A friend of mine had his first job installing Oracle from floppies. I'm not sure what the actual count was, but we would joke about him installing disk 1 of 99...
Ah, but 8" floppies made better frisbees - personal experience :)
I used to work in the disk duplication industry, both at a copier (DisCopyLabs) and then later at the robot manufacturer, Mountain Computer, which was eventually bought by Nakamichi and combined with Trace, our competitor.
We used to be able to sail those suckers over the building on Wyatt Drive to the San Thomas Expressway... Next person to work on roof equipment probably had a curious experience, many discs that did not make it all the way likely scattered all over the roof.
The 8 inchers were a nightmre in some mechanisms (whichever ones Intel used in their MDS systems); slide 'em in too quickly and with a bit of passion (!?) and they'd catch on something, so if you weren't paying attention you'd fold them over and make a crease. Bye bye data!
True. I'd put it on the same level as connecting XLR cables. MiniDiscs (and to a lesser extent) UMDs were maybe the last examples of such satisfying mechanics.
We are moving towards a solid state future where no user interaction directly drives mechanics. Physical media has largely disappeared, few cars are sold with a manual transmission and everything is wireless.
Maybe folding phones will fill the gap. For now, at least my toaster remains!
Modern computers are so silent that you have no idea whether they're working hard or it's just someone doing things on the UI thread that don't belong there.
