[clug] EeePC - back it up!

[Robert Edwards]

Thanks for the various responses to my little dilemma, which is now
solved. But, please, do back up your EeePC if you have anything you
care about on it - if it does brick, getting the data off of it will
be hugely harder than doing the same with a harddisk based machine.

So, the advice I got was to boot off an external device. The problem,
however, as stated, wasn't with the boot device, but with the machine
not being able to stay on for more than up to about 30 seconds.

This machine stays on 24x7 and holds important key information for
systems we administer (it is not anywhere near a public network). And
I hadn't backed up its encrypted filesystem with the database on it
for a couple of weeks.

The problem (now I am really embarrassed): the wall-wart power supply
has a dicky little adaptor to allow it to be plugged into an Aussie
power outlet (I like calling them power points, but apparently some
large multi-national corporation has trademarked that word!). The little
adaptor had come ever so slightly loose and so my little EeePC wasn't
getting its recommended daily allowance of joules. Alas, it took me
several hours and at least one complete disassemble/reassemble to notice
that the little orange "battery charging" light wasn't coming on when I
was attempting to power it back up. :-(

Problem solved happily now (and the backups are happening again!).

Cheers,

Bob Edwards.

Robert Edwards wrote:
> 
> For those fellow EeePC owners - don't forget to backup your valuable
> data. Although the EeePC uses "safe" Flash memory for secondary storage,
> other parts of the system can fail.
> 
> At the moment, mine is shutting down seconds after power up (sometimes
> it gets to the login screen, but usually not). No idea why.
> 
> Unlike the hard drive in a "normal" laptop, the Flash memory can't be
> (easily) removed to be plugged into another system. In the case of my
> 701, it consists of 4 surface mount devices soldered directly onto the
> mainboard.
> 
> I'll keep on hoping that I can get this thing to boot up long enough
> for me to transfer my data off of it, but I am not too hopeful. In the 
> meantime, anyone got a JEDEC reader that might be used to read the
> contents of the Flash devices in circuit?
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Bob Edwards.