[rat156]

Hi All,

My daughter has learnt three valuable lessons over the past week or two.

Her school laptop had to be returned to the school (Fujitsu, quite bad, don't buy laptops from people who make air conditioners!!), so they had to remove all their personal stuff. She used a portable HDD for the purpose.

Lesson 1: Windows 8 didn't copy her photos. It copied everything else, but missed all her photos. She was quite distraught as these were her only copy of her school trip to France earlier this year. Make sure the files you think are backed up are actually backed up!.

Lesson 2: Just because you have deleted a file doesn't mean it's gone. I retrieved her SD card from her camera, which she had wiped. A little bit of software later (and $89US) and my Mac had most of the photos back. Much relief!

Lesson 3: Her Dad is an IT guru!!

Of course the lesson for all here is to test the integrity of your backup system.

Cheers
Stuart