Wow, the power supply failure even fried the dvd drive.
I used to drop some backups on the scratch disk if it was getting late. Very glad I've stopped doing that.
I use Acronis to back up the operating system and GoodSync for the files. I keep a usb powered keyboard and mouse out the back for emergencies like this. As it turned out, I couldn't find the mouse, but the arrow keys on the keyboard worked.
I plugged in the drive with the OS backup and loaded and booted from the Acronis cd I'd burned 5 years ago. I've taken this opportunity to double the size of the ssd for the C drive.
The transfer went fine, but then the computer wouldn't boot due to a missing mbr. The Windows 7 installation disk failed to repair it, due it turned out, to the drive being fussy over which sata cable is attached. Once I'd identified the correct one, the installation disk found the problem and made the repair as soon as it loaded. I'm glad I didn't have to go into command line.
So by just after 11pm last night I got the C drive back. Now there are only four drives to format and a few tb of data to transfer.
I keep my main back up drives in a fire resistant safe out the back, but know I'm a bit lazy and not likely to get them when it's raining and cold, so I keep some usb powered drives in my studio. This system seems to work well enough.
I realise I need to label these drives better. There is stuff all over the place in them. Also, while my photo drive is backed up well enough, my drives with projects and tuition aren't. At least what's lost isn't a big deal. I back up the C drive after any major software change, so that's about twice a year.
What hasn't worked is backing up the Lightroom catalogue. GoodSync slows right down on all the fiddly little files, so I exclude LR. I think I have a recent catalogue back up somewhere, it's just finding it. I need to write metadata to file more often. This command in LR is a bit buggy, but works often enough to make it worthwhile.
It's finding a backup workflow that is a balance between being thorough and not being tiresome.
What I'm really pleased about is that since 2014 this computer only does photo work, and I use my laptop with an extra monitor for everything else. The laptop files and emails are synced regularly and can be loaded onto any computer. It's amazing how much we use these things to conduct our lives, and a week of being out of action could be a right pain.
David