For anyone who uses a Suunto Dive computer and saves the dive log to their computer, here's a little hard learned lesson I just had with my PC.

After almost a year and a half of use, my PC has been slowing down because of all the junk loaded in it, so I decided to completely erase my hard drive, reformat it, and reinstall my programs fresh.

Back in Octomer, I got an external hard drive, backed up the "My Documents" folder, verified that it was backed up, then erased the hard drive. I reinstalled windows and most of my programs.

I finally got around to re-installing Suunto Dive Manager yesterday, and when I went to "My Documents" to get my logbook, it wasn't there.

Dive manager installs a sample logbook in a folder under the program folder, ( c:\windows\programs(86)\SDM\logbooks) instead of in "My Documents" like most well-behaved programs do. I had an older backup of my logbook from 2006, and since my Vyper holds the previous 100 dives, it only goes back to 2008. In other words, I lost two years worth of data, I guess about 25 dives. Plus, the data in the Vyper only has depth, temperature, dates, etc. Nothing about dive site, what I caught or dug up, what boat, etc.

I also use an on-line backup service called "Carbonite," but it doesn't back up anything in the "Programs" folder by default. So with two independant backup services, I still lost two years worth of data.

I just moved my logbook under "My Documents" where it should be.

Nothing to cry about, but if you're using Suunto Dive Manager, make sure you're backing up the logbook.