I woke up one morning last week, went to check email, and the whole ding-dang computer got hung. When I tried to reboot, all I got was a blank screen with a single question mark in the middle. My husband, aka the computer guru, took a look and declared the hard drive toast. GREAAAAAAT.
He ordered a new one and installed it and transferred all my files from our backup hard drive, which took all night, but he was able to recover everything I had been working on, including a few blog designs in progress.
PSA: BACK UP YOUR COMPUTER. RIGHT NOW. GO DO IT. And then make sure to schedule regular backups so you don’t lose everything if our computer suddenly goes kaput. Because THIS, my friends, is a BEAUTIFUL sight:
I woke up the next morning and witnessed the most glorious thing I think I’ve ever seen.
What did YOU learn this week?
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This happened to me just a few months ago, but it was not the happy ending that you had! Most of our files were not backed up, so I lost a good deal of information. Glad you were able to recover all of your data!
Here’s what I learned this week: http://girlstogrow.blogspot.com/2009/10/what-i-learned-this-week.html
I learned that, no matter how prepared you are, the death of a pet is one of the hardest events in life.
http://themerrittsintx.blogspot.com/2009/10/rest-in-peace-murphy-dog.html
Yes, ma’am. I keep all my work on an external hard drive that sits behind my iMac.
I have learned not to save anything on my hard drive, I only use an external. It helps so much, and makes me take the time to move things almost every day. We had a virus a couple weeks ago and it saved a ton of pictures by doing that.
http://fritzfacts.blogspot.com/2009/10/what-i-learned-this-week_27.html
This happened to me once and I cried because I thought I lost all my family pictures. Believe me I learned my lesson…back up, back up, back up.
My laptop crashed a few weeks ago. Utter toast. Nothing recovered. I really need to learn how to use that back up thingymebobber my husband bought…
Oh no. That would be a nightmare. You’re lucky you have a techie husband on call. We’d be so out of luck. How old is your mac? This is the second mac I’ve read about that went kaput.
Jen, it’s only 18 mos old. But it gets a LOT of use, lol. And I have a ton of files on the hard drive, from designing. Which is why we back up regularly. My husband said that the hard drive would likely do this. And it was only $100 for a new one. So all in all, a fairly painless experience.
Jennifer, or make HIM set it up for you!
That’s a good lesson – for computers…and blogs!
My lesson this week was: The Good (Almost Always) Outweighs The Bad
Ok. I learned this lesson twice! I now have 3 backups of all our photos! Argh! I can’t link up this morning but I did post!
I learned this lesson the hard way when I spilled chocolate milk on it…. ok, so my hard drive didn’t fry, I fried it.
But: lesson learned.
Hi Jo-Lynne, thanks so much for the reminder!!! I am such a bad girl when it comes to backing up my files! I also had the dreaded question mark one morning, and apparently didn’t learn the lesson that you have!
Sorry that I have been away for a while…glad to be back and catch up with you. You are such a sweetheart and I love reading about your adventures!
Thanks for keeping the learning going!
Bless you,
Susan
Idon’twanttotalkaboutitbecauseImyharddrivejustdiedandIlosteverything.
Pout.
I’ve learned that lesson the hard way! Glad it was a pretty painless experience for you.
I’m also having a hard time linking up…
http://fullheartandhands.blogspot.com/2009/10/it-wasnt-cavity.html
I’ve been using F-Secure Back Up, which is online and happens automatically. I’ve not had to use it to know if it actually works, but I LOVE the fact that I don’t have to mess with it.
A good lesson – I KNOW I need to backup – but never quite convinced I am doing it properly. Any tips?
My lessons are up
i SO need to do this. thanks friend.
Yes, a backup drive is a good thing. I had one with everything on it. Then Dumb Best Buy deleted a bunch of pictures and all of My Documents off of it when they replaced the hard drive. Yes, lost a lot of stuff when they deleted part of the backup drive. It is a good idea to back up through an online backup site, too.
That is terrifying! We have a backup run overnight once a week on both our computers. Just in case. And I copy all of my original digital photos (straight from the memory card) to DVD and stash them in our fireproof safe. Just in case.
Thank you for this public service announcment. Our computer crashed last April and we lost everything. With our new computer I kept putting off backup.
Today I did it! I now have disks.
I have learned to store my photos at a 2nd place besides my computer as I lost 5 months of pictures last year too.
Now, I need an external hard drive for Christmas!
I have an external hard drive that’s only about 15% filled. All my files are on there. Only the programs are on my dard drive. Am I good to go or do I need to do anything else?
I use Carbonite for “don’t have to think about it” off-site backup. God willing, I’ll never have to use it, but my files and pictures are backed up. My EHD holds my music files. So far, so good, knockwoodspinaroundthreetimesandspit…