Twenty-odd years ago, I looked after the IT infrastructure for a firm of accountants in London, UK. I went into the office one Sunday afternoon to update the firmware on the Compaq fileserver while nobody was using the system. (This was in the days before people could work remotely. It was also before network-attached storage devices were commonplace, unfortunately!)

Before starting work on the server, I checked the logs to see if the latest backups had worked, just in case. They had, so I was good to go. Having installed the new firmware, imagine the sick feeling in my stomach when the server refused to boot up ("error in hardware abstraction layer").

I couldn't restore from backup because I couldn't boot the device! I couldn't restore from the system CDs because I couldn't boot the device.

OK. This was not my fault but we had 40 people coming into work the next day, expecting to find their working files so they could get on with their work. Even worse, I was booked to go to a client site in Bath that day so I wouldn't even be there to face the music.

There was nothing I could do there and then, and the support company was closed, of course. Fortunately, I had a spare Windows server at home and (more importantly), the exact same HP DAT tape backup device. So, I drove home across london and spent the rest of Sunday restoring the work backup onto my home server. By about 11 o'clock in the evening, I had it all done and raced back across town and installed it in place of the "dead" server. Mine was a bit slower but it worked. I arranged for the support company to come in while I was in Bath to rebuild the "dead" one. Apparently, it took them all day!

Twenty-odd years ago, I looked after the IT infrastructure for a firm of accountants in London, UK. I went into the office one Sunday afternoon to update the firmware on the Compaq fileserver while nobody was using the system. (This was in the days before people could work remotely. It was also before network-attached storage devices were commonplace, unfortunately!)

Before starting work on the server, I checked the logs to see if the latest backups had worked, just in case. They had, so I was good to go. Having installed the new firmware, imagine the sick feeling in my stomach when the server refused to boot up ("error in hardware abstraction layer").

I couldn't restore from backup because I couldn't boot the device! I couldn't restore from the system CDs because I couldn't boot the device.

OK. This was not my fault but we had 40 people coming into work the next day, expecting to find their working files so they could get on with their work. Even worse, I was booked to go to a client site in Bath that day so I wouldn't even be there to face the music.

There was nothing I could do there and then, and the support company was closed, of course. Fortunately, I had a spare Windows server at home and (more importantly), the exact same HP DAT tape backup device. So, I drove home across london and spent the rest of Sunday restoring the work backup onto my home server. By about 11 o'clock in the evening, I had it all done and raced back across town and installed it in place of the "dead" server. Mine was a bit slower but it worked. I arranged for the support company to come in while I was in Bath to rebuild the "dead" one. Apparently, it took them all day!