Lottery Post Web Server Update

Comment #11

Todd — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 18:55:55 GMT

@sysp34: There are data recovery companies worldwide. You should find one or more that are close to you and speak with them. Use the one you feel is the most professional, and uses the best technology to recover everything possible.

Comment #10

sysp34 — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 18:08:01 GMT

Todd i just currious how to recover data when some hard drive failed to detect? well it pretty easy when there are a burned chip on hard drive mainboard, we can use the same mainboard from another hard drive but when a mechanical error (maybe the disk controlled) like this picture http://www.fotosearch.com/comp/UNY/UNY789/the-inside-of-a-computer-hard-disk-drive-~-u11640557.jpg i've no idea how to recover it :( i though hard drive manufacture or maybe military had a device to detec... [ More ]

Comment #9

spy153 — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:26:25 GMT

Wow! I guess I haven't been on here as much as I thought, lately. I couldn't even tell there was anything wrong. A telltale sign of a good webmaster. You have every right to give yourself a major pat on the back, Todd. Very nice job !

Comment #8

konane — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 15:05:34 GMT

Thank you very much for your hard work ... as always good wishes you way to restore everything perfectly so it gives no more problem ... ever!

Comment #7

Todd — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:49:39 GMT

@rcbbuckeye: I wish I did, but I'm not so lucky as that. I do what I do because I made a personal commitment to do so, that's all. Thanks for the compliments.

Comment #6

rcbbuckeye — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:42:46 GMT

Thank you for everything you do. Don't understand much of what it is, but not sure I really want to. This has to be a real hobby for you with all the work and expense. The thought crossed my mind that you either have a really good paying job, or you hit the lottery sometime back. LOL. Anyway, just know that I like this site, and appreciate it and what you do.

Comment #5

Todd — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:15:34 GMT

@four4me: I can't afford to hire an IT staff for managing stuff like backups, and indeed it costs a lot in time and money to manage tape backups. So I do different kinds of backups, which is why we're in as good shape as we are. When an active server goes down -- a server that actively collects new data, like Lottery Post does -- you *always* lose something, it's just a matter of what and how much. In any environment a server going down is disruptive. For someone like me, who basically mana... [ More ]

Comment #4

four4me — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 06:25:40 GMT

Wow thats a lot of work boss to keep things going... sorry to hear that there was a major malfunction. Glad you are able to piece it together. I woun't pretend to understand the whole idea but if i may go overboard here isn't there a way to back up Lottery Post and your other sites in some way like a tape reel or something like that. In the company i used to work for they had thousands of files for our machine shops and at the end of the day they would always tell us not to mess with their ... [ More ]

Comment #3

pacattack05 — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 03:32:01 GMT

WOW! Thanx...lol I'm speechless. All I can say is thank you for your never ending passion to keep this site alive. Traveling to another place to make sure it's done correctly is an exceptional quality on your part. Afterall, the Northrop name is in league with innovation such as the colaboration of the unveiling of the stealth bomber. It runs in your blood...lol

Comment #2

jarasan — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 03:18:21 GMT

Todd thanks. I have been dealing with restoring a mirror set (old OS/2 architecture and hardware), my problems are minor compared to what you are dealing with. We truly appreciate your work and talent, data recovery from a catastrophic failure(s) is nerve racking. It is also especially difficult when your data center is in geographically different location. Thanks again.

Comment #1

Tenaj — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 03:05:06 GMT

Thanks for the update Todd. I guess the new server didn't want to get left out of the action. At least you still have some humor left.

Original Blog Entry: Lottery Post Web Server Update

Todd — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 02:43:43 GMT

Day by day I continue making progress on the Lottery Post Web server, in my attempt to restore things back to normal.

(For those who weren't aware of the issue, I'd suggest reading this post first.)

It's been a very long week since this whole thing started, so I guess I'll just start by giving some insight into the problem, and then talk about where we're at.

Last Monday the primary Lottery Post web server died right before my eyes. Normally problems happen when I'm off doing something else and I discover it several minutes later, but this time was unique in that I was right in the middle of working on something on the server, and ..... blink ..... it stopped working.

I called the data center and asked them to help me cycle the power on the machine, and when it didn't start back up I knew something was wrong, in a bad way. Even if the server had blue-screened (crashed) a power cycle would at least bring it back up.

So my first course of action was to bring up the site (and a bunch of other sites that I host on the same server) on a backup server. Fortunately, I have been keeping a "warm spare" ready ever since the site had some problems a few months ago, so it wasn't quite as daunting as it could have been.

All told, between the time it took at various attempts restarting the primary web server, bringing up fresh code on the backup, and a bunch of tasks required to get it operational, Lottery Post was down for about two hours. Not too bad, all things considered. It could have been much worse.

After that, I spent a couple days trying to diagnose exactly what went wrong, forming a plan to get everything fixed and back in original condition, and continuing work with the backup server to get additional sites running and as many parts of Lottery Post operational as possible. It's at times like this when I realize just how gargantuan and complex this site is. There are so many working pieces that you can't really consider them all at once — you need to tackle them piece by piece.

By Wednesday I decided that this problem would require a trip to the data center, which is much more involved than some people would think. Many assume that Lottery Post is run on a computer that I can walk across the room to get to, but in reality Lottery Post is hosted on a serie....

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