My computer is dead.  Windows refuse to restart.  The computer keep rebooting itself on the XP logo screen.  I was horrified, worrying losing all my data.  Hardware failure is not a big deal, you can always replace the broken parts.  However the data inside the computer is irreplaceable.  Luckily all my hard drives are intact, only the Windows itself is corrupted.  It will only take me a few days to re-install Windows and all my usual programs.  However, I feel a bit uneasy to format my C: drive.  I want to keep all the data in case there is something important.  So I have to buy an extra hard disk to copy over the data.

Since I am already buying more hard disk, why don’t I fix it once for all, so that I can have a peace of mind.  I upgraded the motherboard to one that support RAID and bought more hard disk space.  RAID stands for redundant arrays of inexpensive disks.  The idea is having two hard drive running in parallel mirroring each other.  In case of a disk failure, you still have a complete set of data.  It is a hardware solution, works much better than backup software.  Now I know my photos, my personal records and my mp3 collections of every Chinese CD released in the past 20 years are safe inside the hard disks, which have over 2TB capacity in total.