We’ll use the built-in tools of MySQL for the backup process–it is in fact, a very simple process.

A simple setup

If your database is on a local workstation, you can login locally, just get a terminal (gnome-terminal, xterm, konsole, aterm .. it doesn’t really matter)

$ cd ~
$ mysqldump -u yourusername -p –all-databases > mysql.backup

“cd ~” simply changes directory to your home directory, that way we have all the necessary permissions to create a file mysql.backup

Replace yourusername with a username defined in MySQL, it’s not the same as your shell username at least not necessarily. So you gotta know this username, if an admin set it up for you, you need to ask your admin.

The “–all-databases” flag will dump all the databases in MySQL to the file mysql.backup, this may not be what you need. A more targeted usage of mysqldump is

$ cd ~
$ mysqldump -u yourusername -p NameOfDatabase > mysql.backup

Substitute the name of your database to NameOfDatabase above, that command will then dump all the contents, including the structure of the database into mysql.backup.

The dump file

The dump file (mysql.backup) actually contains the create table, insert into table instructions for your database. You can easily restore the contents of the database by simply executing the SQL script inside the dump file; for example

$ mysql -u YourUserName -p
mysql> create database restoreddb;
mysql> use restoredb;
mysql> .\mysql.backup;

.\ takes a source file argument, if you did this, it will read all the contents of mysql.backup and will try to execute it inside the restoredb database.

** The create database and use database command can actually be part of mysql.backup, but you can figure it out for yourself, I just don’t think it’s necessary to belabor that point in this guide.

A client server approach

MySQL is actually a client server database, which means that can run mysqldump and some other mysql tools on a workstation that is different from where the mysql server is installed. You don’t really need to perform the backup on the server box itself, use the client-server capabilities of MySQL. Here’s how;

On a workstation install the mysql-client tools. In Ubuntu and Debian;

$ sudo apt-get install mysql-client

Now you can use the mysql client command line from a workstation.

$ mysql -h IPorNameOfMySQLServer -u YourUserName -p
mysql> show databases;
mysql> use NameOfDatabase;
mysql> show tables;
mysql> quit
$ mysqldump -h IPorNameOfMySQLServer -u YourUserName -p –all-databases > mysql.backup

There’s a bit of MySQL tinkering, you can use these commands to peek a bit into your MySQL database, just so you know what the names of the databases are and what the names of the tables in the databases are.

The only thing different with the client-server approach on MySQL is the use “-h IpOfMySQLServer, the rest of the command behavior is the same. By the way, the mysql.backup file will be stored on the workstation where you executed the mysql client tools, not on the server–which is quite handy actually.

I can’t use mysql tools remotely, but it works if I use them on the server directly

This is a privileges problem most likely, not because you can use the mysql tools locally on the server, you will automatically be able to use them from a remote workstation. This is what you need to do on the server side (where MySQL server is installed) to ensure that you can use use mysql tools from a remote workstation.

YOu must know the password for the “root” user of MySQL, or use a mysql username that is equivalent to root.

$ mysql -u root -p
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON yourdbnamehere.* TO UserNameHere@’%’ IDENTIFIED BY ‘passwordhere’;
mysql>flush privileges;

The SQL command above is pretty easy to understand, it’s almost like conversational English. Here are some notes about the command.

• GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES – will grant all privileges like alter, create delete, drop etc, with the exception of GRANT and OPTION; but this pretty much makes the user a very powerful one
• yourdbnamehere.* – had you written *.* this will make the user very privileged on all the database instances defined inside the MySQL server. YourDBanamehere.* grants the user all privileges ONLY in a specific db, not all
• UserNameHere@’%’ – means that the user can login or use mysql tools from anywhere in the network; this is not good for production environment, use this only if you have too, inside a development environment. If don’t want the user be able to login remotely, but only locally, then use UserNameHere@’localhost’ instead

Using remote login

You could use SSH to login remotely to your database server, then login to mysql as if you’re local, then use SCP (secure copy) to copy mysql.backup from the server

local$ ssh shellUserName@ServerNameOrIPHere
server$ cd ~
server$ mysqldump -u root -p –all-databases > mysql.backup
server$ exit
local$ scp shellUserName@ServerNameOrIphere:/home/shellUserNameHere/mysql.backup .

shellUserName – is your Linux shell account, this is not your MySql username

The Windows recycle bin has probably saved lots of people from heartache, people who left the default settings of Recycle bin, that is. If you goofed around the Recycle bin settings, by accessing its properties, you’ll know that you can reduce the amount of disk space which is allocated for it (not a good idea, with the sizes of hard drives nowadays, just leave the Recycle bin alone), you’ll know also that you can turn the warnings off by selecting the option “Do not move files to the Recyle bin, remove the files immediately when deleted” — tell me you didn’t do this please! That is your first line of defense over accidental file deletion, I’m sure some geek can think of reasons why this option was ever available, but from the point of view of data resiliency, I just can’t think of any. Just don’t do that, period.

The lifecycle of a file

• It’s born – when you created it.
• It’ll die (for the firs time) – when you accidentally deleted it.
• it’ll be resurrected to life – when you restore it from the recycle bin
• it could die again – when you AGAIN, accidentally deleted it.
• it could be resurrected back to its SECOND life if you could restore it using the versioning capabilities of Windows (See the post on how to use System restore to recover files)
• it could die yet again – if you deleted it, emptied the recycle bin and system restore can’t help you, at this point, it maybe beyond the reach of Windows to do data recovery, you will need tools.

Now see how resilient and persistent that file is, you could kill it a number of times, but it won’t just die yet.

Hard drive data recovery tools

if files are really persistent, and can be resurrected back to life over and over again, why do we need disk recovery tools for? That’s a good question, which I don’t have a good answer for, but I think that even if our files are cat-like (with 9 lives that is), I’m sure there will be situations when we really will push the resiliency of our files to the limit; And when this happens, it’s good to know there are tools for the job.

The first thing to do when you think you’ve lost a file — that is, after you tried to restore from the Recycle bin, but failed. You tried to restore using System restore, but failed — The first thing to do, is to do NOTHING. Don’t create anymore new files, don’t run checkdisk, don’t run any other utility, in fact, shut all running applications down. Why? because, when you delete a file for the first time, it’s not actually put inside the recycle bin, it’s just hidden from view. When you restore from the Recycle bin, the file is still in it’s original location, but will now be un-hidden. When you emptied the Recycle bin, the file still is not deleted, it will be hidden again, but this time, there is a special flag in the file, it’s telling Windows that “This location is now available, I’ve just been marked as deleted permanently, so if any other file would like to use my location, feel free” — If your file and Windows could have a conversation, that maybe what you’re going to hear. That’s the reason why I told you to do nothing, don’t install anything, don’t run checkdisk, don’t create any new files — just be still for now.

At this point, recovery is beyond the capabilities of Windows (at least beyond the capabilities of casual users, we can talk about searching the temp files, caches, looking for the hidden file RECYCLED/INFO etc; but from experience, it doesn’t yield satisfactory results), it’s time for specialty software like UnEraser or Undelete just to name a few. You’re going to need software if your file is going to have any fourth coming or fifth coming.

Chugging and clanking noises inside your PC?It can only mean one thing — bad things are about to happen to your data — you can bet too it’s something mechanical — your hard drive.

It won’t be long now before SSD (solid state drive) will be economical enough to replace the traditional mechanical hard drive; but for now we are stuck with the ol’ mechanical hard drive. Anyway, back to the chugging and clanking sound, when you hear this – STOP - whatever your doing and perform really quick diagnostics of your PC.

I hope you paid attention to the SMART alert (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting), Windows does give you these alerts when it thinks that your hard drive is about to fail. SMART is a feature of hard drives which allows operating systems to perform diagnostics and predict foreseeable drive failures. If you dismiss these warnings, you’ll get a different kind of warning, the kind that chugs and clank — not all hard drives by the way, will chug and clank, sometimes they just fail without the sound effects; Let’s hope that you get ample warnings before the drive really fails.

What to do for hard drive data recovery

1. Stop everything, stop putting more files in it, don’t install anything else; even if the ad on the Internet said “Install this magic software to revive your disk”, if it’s a mechanical failure, I really doubt how software can remedy that. Your goal right now is to salvage your data, so get on with it. Don’t even run CHKDSK or any other disk checking tool, spend whatever remaining life of your drive devoted to data recovery, you are way past repair at this point.
2. Get your self an external hard drive or a USB or you can even use that DVD Writer or CD writer to back up the info. Move everything out of the failing hard drive; or
3. If you know what you’re doing, you can remove the hard drive physically out of the PC, replace the hard drive with a new one, install the operating system fresh, then plug the old drive either as a secondary master or a slave of the first disk (if you’re using a desktop). If you are using a notebook, you can mount the old drive inside USB external drive casings, then plug it into your system, try to see if you can still recover the data.

dontdeleteme

Originally uploaded by triboxs

While Windows have gone to lengths protecting your data from a lot of bad elements like worms, viruses, crashes and in fact, even from you, there are still times when Windows can only do so much. There are lots of incidents that files — important files — gets deleted still. Despite the warnings and safeguards of the Recycle Bin, it still gets deleted, the forums are pregnant with horror stories of users of losing files because of accidental deletion and entire industries have sprung up just so you could recover data on the hard drive.

I’m assuming that you’ve already tried all the recycle bin tips and tricks; and didn’t work, that is why you googled up and probably landed here. In this post, we’ll talk about how to use System restore capabilities of Windows to resurrect a file.

Hard drive data recovery is becoming a standard feature of Operating systems, Mac OSX has TimeMachine, Some editions of Windows Vista, and the now on beta, Windows 7 have an improved System Restore.

Restoration of accidentally deleted files is probably not one of the primary aim of those who designed it, but it can do the job.

Check to see if System protection is turned on, click the start button, on the “search” field, type “System protection”, that will lead you to settings window of System protection, make sure the setting is “on”. Once it’s turned on, you can then create restore points in your computer. Restore points are snapshots of your system and files, when you create a restore point for the first time, you are baselining your system, if something is messed up, you can always go back to the baseline. When you add files and install new software, you can create other restore points, you can keep old restore points as well; that way, you can come back to any restore point you have created in the past. Restore points do not make a copy of all of your files and settings, you will run out of disk space easily if that was the case, instead they store only deltas (differences between the last restore point and the snapshot of your system right now), this way, it doesn’t consume a lot of disk space.

Example on how to recover files using System restore

If you have accidentally deleted a file, or folder, try your luck if you can restore it using “restore” options.

1. Open my computer, if you the exact folder where you think the file was, go there.
2. Once you’ve reached the folder, right-click on it, then select “properties” click “Previous versions”.
3. You will see your various restore points you’ve created (or Windows have created) in the past. You can view the contents of a restore point before you actually restore it.
4. Just double click any of the restore point, then you can navigate it normally like you would navigate My Computer.
5. Once you found the file you’re looking for, Click the restore button.