Just a reminder . . . Back Up Your Important Files

Not long ago I had suffered a loss. My computers hard drive kicked the bucket. It all happened quite suddenly and without warning. It started up fine and things were running normally. However, right in the middle of sending an e-mail, I received the dreaded "Blue Screen of Death." The screen was filled with lots of technical jargon, which I will by no means try to repeat. Suffice it to say, it was not good. The computer automatically tried to shut down and restart. Unfortunately, all that appeared was a black screen with the foreboding words "Insert boot disk." I knew then that it was toast.

What happened, I found out later, was the motor of my hard drive burned out. This probably happens more than we are aware. I had the computer for quite sometime, and was told I got longer life out of the hard drive than most. This doesn't change the fact that we become quite reliant on them, and use them to store so much of our lives - special e-mails, favorite pictures, not to mention important business files.

Fortunately, I had recently backed up most of the business files. I am sad though that all my other personal things might be lost forever. Many files we collect are irreplaceable. For example, family pictures, or the high res scans I had of my graphite pencil art. Obviously I can get replacements of the art scans if I still have the piece, but many of the originals belong to others.

I have a great computer guru working on the hard drive, but finding a replacement motor to match the drive isn't easy. The motor must match exactly, and since it is an older drive of odd size, that will be a challenge. Then, the new motor needs to be installed in a truly clean environment. At least I have my computer back with a new, larger 160 gig drive.

So, just a friendly reminder, to back up anything on your hard drive that is important to you. I am now looking into investing in an automatic back up system. Although at this point it is like "closing the barn door after the horses have left."

Don't let this happen to you!

Update July 14, 2008:

As I mentioned in the original post, the motor in my hard drive died. Despite the fact that the hard drive size was rare, I managed to find a drive on EBay to use as a donor. Unfortunately, once my computer guy got the old drive opened up, it turned out the drive pin had broken and scratched he disk surface. So, my worst fears was realized, and all information was lost.

I guess I will spend some time trying to recover all the copies of my artwork. hopefully I have some original images backed up on my SD cards . . .