[fabsroman]

That is a rough story. I guess you learned to always keep the backup drive off the computer.

What happens if you get a virus that wipes out all the hard drives on the computer? Wouldn't do any good to have the backup attached to the comptuer at that point. That is why I only keep the backup harddrive attached to the computer long enough to backup whatever needs to be backed up. Usually a couple of hours a week. Then, it is off the computer and somewhere safe.

I cannot afford to lose all my data because it would mean a huge headache for me. I practice law and accounting from home, and about 8 years of work is kept on my computer, along with all my client data for marketing purposes. Granted, I have a PDA with the same information in it as Outlook, but I still like the fact that I have a harddrive off site with all the information in it. My townhouse has a sprinkler system throughout, but with my luck the fire would start in my office due to the computer, engulf my desk, computer, PDA, and lateral files with my client files in them, and that would be the end of me.

I truly am sorry to hear about your catastrophe. Have you thought about bringing the drive to somebody that specializes in this kind of stuff? For me, it would be worth several hundreds of dollars just to recover my personal data, and several thousands for my business data.