UPDATE 1/2/10: I’m re-posting this Blog POST from a few weeks ago, because lots of folks are spending time during the New Year holiday to do some house keeping on data from 2009. I’m sure lots of people got new Macs for the holidays too, so be sure to read the Blog post below.

Two things to remember:

1. Never delete data that has not been certified in it’s new location or on a new computer.

2. Never use a computer to process and generate mission critical data without a back-up.

When folks buy a new computer and then transfer the data to the new unit, they are often anxious to re-purpose or re-sell the old computer. So much so, that once they see the new unit is up and running, they will ERASE the old unit and put a fresh OS on it in preparation for it’s new life. In many cases they have already made a deal to sell their old Mac and the sale is “pending” on them getting the new Mac up and running. So there’s often some pressure to get the job done quickly and complete the transaction.

With all hard drives (and new hard drives in NEW computers) there’s a 30 to 60 day “burn-in” that if the drive is going to give up on you there’s a pretty good chance that it will fail in that time frame. There are almost no DOA hard drives, so the ones that have issues are the ones that develop one in that first 30-60 days. If a hard drive comes off the line at the factory and it’s got an issue, they catch those, and destroy them. In fact, it’s been quite some time, since a hard drive has arrived here at MacMedics “Dead On Arrival”. In a few cases we see them dead, when they have been improperly packaged for shipment. We cannot afford to have one of our client’s computers to have a sick hard drive installed in it, so if a batch of hard drives comes to us and they were shipped by an idiot, then back they go. Thankfully we buy by the case, so the factory shipping container is usually very sturdy, so this is not an issue very often.

NEVER EVER put new data on a new hard drive (then delete your old data or sell an old computer) and assume that you’re safer then you were with the old drive. Data SHOULD always be in two places at once!

If you need to erase an old computer and you’ve just transferred ALL of your data to a new shiny computer, don’t let that “new computer” feeling of safety (because it’s new I’m at LESS risk!) distract you! If it’s a new Mac, then run a quick Time Machine back up or clone your drive with SuperDuper BEFORE you erase that old data. Don’t forget to ensure that new backup is also working correctly. This is a common issue, so DON’T fall into this trap!

See my website at http://www.HardDrivesDie.com. Yeah! It’s that common of an issue that I made a website all about it. It has my TOP 5 list of data protection-preservation tips. Also see my Friday the 13th Blog post on topic of hard drives.