[Hallicrafters] Lesson Learned

[rdhalste]

The Hallicrafters group has been a wealth of information, "Hint's and Tips"
if you will, on restoration of the old gear as well as sources for parts and
materials.

I know the stuff is available in the archives, but I'm going to start
creating my own archive. The reason...To have the information compiled into
sortable/searchable form.  That and I did have several thousand posts all in
their own folder.

Note the "did have".

Last week end, this computer suffered a massive crash...The "fatal type".
It was my fault, not the OS, and due to the much better reliability and
stability of XP Pro over the previous versions used, I had unfortunately
grown lax in my backup procedures.

It probably would have been better had I done the restoration at some time
other than 3:30 AM as well.  Even though all the applications were on the
drive the OS no longer knew that and it took two all nighters to get them
back.

So, I lost all the addresses to those of whom I have replied, or contacted
directly in the last 6 months as well as all that information.

You'd think a guy who lives, eats, and sleeps computers would have known
better...Guess I'll have to chalk it up to lack of ambition.

I forgot to go in and save all the mail, address book, and favorites files.
They are in the OS and a reinstall removes the old ones.  It's a simple
matter to back them up...but ... too late now.

I learned several things.  One, is not do do critical tasks after 3:00 AM.
Another is, When an application crashes and tells you to "Roll back to the
Previous known good version of the OS", you should take it with a grain of
salt and instead, go to the restore point prior to the attempted
installation first.  Only do the "roll back" as an absolute last resort.

Roger (K8RI, EN-73, & ARRL Life Member)