Backup your computers—it's worth it

[Daaaaang]

Last week, I had a couple papers due. I had written drafts of both, and on Wednesday morning, I suddenly had neither. I tried to turn on my computer, and it did not happen. The repair guy tried to recover the data from the now-broken hard drive, but he said it would only be possible if he sent it to some place that would charge $2,000.

Now, the data on there was worth a lot to me, but it isn't worth 6 Matt Newsomes! After getting extensions and rewriting the papers, it dawned on me that I had lost all my pictures, all my music, all the poems I'd written, all the papers I'd written, and on and on and on.

So, I am writing here to give you guys a friendly warning: Invest in an external hard drive. Back your stuff up. A hard drive costs maybe $80. I've already spent more than $100 in tech support, not counting the cost of replacing my current drive!

Also, for any mac users who feel like they can ignore this, my computer is a mac. It is three years old, true, but I take very good care of my computer (after looking at my keyboard and screen protectors etc, the tech support guy told me the hard drive was pretty much the only thing on my computer that could break).

Summary: Get an external hard drive, back up your stuff. If you want to pay more for a better hard drive, go ahead, but you really don't need to pay more than about $80. And it is very worth it.

Funny how dependent we are on machines that were pretty unheard of a quarter of a century ago, eh?

Your pal,
Matt!

[Galician]

Thanks for the advice, Matt, and sorry to hear of your loss. Were any photos/data totally lost?

[Mike1]

Matt, I always figured having a back-up handy was the best way to ensure a hard drive would never crash.

(Says he who had a forum cracked last evening and had to install a back-up )

[McFarkus]

Man, I had that happen to me early this year. My computer died with a lot of valuable data. (Luckily I had backed a lot of my important documents up on Google a couple of months before by emailing them to myself and my family tree database had been saved the week before online at Rootsweb)

I did invest in an external drive and an automatic backup is made each week. If I were a student, and had critical new documents daily, I would do a daily incremental backup.

[starbkjrus]

You're not kidding. I had a similar problem three years or so ago. Now, I back up the machine once a week and even pay for secure off site storage for some of my more important files.

Sorry to hear of your bad luck.

[Daaaaang]

Yes, it is all gone. Except I did get really lucky, as I use Google documents for a class I am grading. I don't have Excel, and Google docs was free, so I used it, and now I am really glad I did, or I would have to explain to the professor I am helping that all the grades are gone because I didn't back them up.

Whew!

Otherwise though, making my computer recognisable again is not fun, especially with one week left of classes!

I already ordered an external hard drive. This will never happen to me again. (Well, it's possible for two hard drives to crash at the same time, but that is less likely than finding a grass snake in a sugarcane patch.)

[Fox]

Backups are a definate must but an ounce of prevention blah blah Here is one of the best ways to keep your HD in preventative good health. If the HD should go south anyway, it is also a great way to repair a HD and/or to recover data. I run it on brand new drives just to put them into the best possible state. I also run it every six months for maintanance and I have as of yet had the need to use it in an emergency situation. <knocking on wooden desk> Do yourself a favor and make the minimal investment. It should be noted, that I have no ties to Steve Gibson and GRC but here is the link: http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

[Mr. Kilt]

You're not kidding. I had a similar problem three years or so ago. Now, I back up the machine once a week and even pay for secure off site storage for some of my more important files.

Sorry to hear of your bad luck.

I spent 11 years working as the supervisor of the Vital Records department at an offsite sotrage facility here in Calgary. Offsite storage for the average person may be a bit overkill, but making regular back-up copies of your valuable files is most important.

[Livingston]

Coming back from the games at Estes Park this year we rolled our car. The only major casulty, other than the car, was the laptop. Of course, we had downloaded all the pictures of the games to it already. The camera spent the night outside, on the side of the highway, in the rain. No problems with it. Backups are good. Just wish I could have backed up online that weekend.

[James MacMillan]

Making a back-up drive is really easy now days. Get the biggest drive that you can afford (and HD's are pretty cheap in cost right now) and then get a USB capable case. It's pretty easy to mount, even for old guys with fat fingers. Get some back-up software and have it run every night while you sleep.

Another way would be to re-configure an old computer as a network drive when you upgrade to a new OS. chances are pretty good that both 'puters will crash. After our recent fire problem, I now have one central location to grab all my files, also fast and easy to grab and flee.

On-line back-ups are also available, but also leave your data more open for thieves. Remember the recent V.A and Credit company laptop computer thefts. Your data is only as safe as the people who handle it.