My mental data-lake

Desktop Crash 2026

author
2 min read
advent note
Copy this post

PC Crash #

Desktop crashed days ago, apparently my primary drive has been going bad for a while and eventually it just died.

  • live-booted to ubuntu server

  • found restic backup script to NAS

  • edited to be smaller, but did the backup to the NAS

  • rsync’d docker volumes to BX500 SSD which is a zfs pool

  • captured what I did on ghost at /home/nic/aurora-recovery-report.md and /home/nic/aurora-crash-disk-health-report.md

PLAN #

  • install ubunto Aurora on 500 GB Samsung
  • create zfs dataset for projects /tank/volumes/projects
    • which disk?
  • mount zfs dataset /tank/volumes/projects to /home/nic/projects
  • zfs for home? probably not, keep home on ext4
  • mount old home and sync directly
    • restoring old backups to 2TB disk, will selectively copy things over
  • jetkvm key rotation
    • I recovered the old id_rsa one but I’m going to simplify my ssh key usage, so sticking with my default key, updated this in the jetkvm /settings/advanced webui
  • restore restic backup to a temp location /var/docker-storage-zfs/home-restore/
    • figure out what to keep
      • .skm (or consolidate keys)
      • ???
  • install windsurf in an ubuntu distrobox

Outcome #

This is going terribly… blog post coming on what I should’ve done. What’s actually happening is that I basically just lost everything on that desktop except my homelab repo thank God…

Plans to build #

  • vibe code an observability thing that
    • runs a restore in a container
    • run some kind of setup in that container at least for my shell and neovim and things
  • networking for babyblue-aurora -> aurora transition
  • lament draft posts that are lost
  • ssh keys… lost .skm directory, look if it’s copied anywhere otherwise rotate keys and simplify
  • workspace backup everynight… abuse git for this
    • or rsync to external drive, you have zfs on aurora now
  • opencode to address neovim logs
  • switch to zellij?
    • what would have to translate from tmux? probably quite a few keybindings

I’ve been drowning in anxiety and depression over tech and AI, work and requirements, and my desktop SSD catastrophically failing while I didn’t have an up to date backup… projects, ssh keys, ideas… gone. And that’s ok, life goes on, so here’s my start of a hectic list of what I’m doing to setup my desktop again. This will turn into a small post, a sister-post to the one I need to write about how I should’ve recovered from my live boot environment

Connections

Related tags and posts connected to this entry.