by Dave Moore, 2-24-19
Sigh. There I was, confronted with yet another computer suffering a catastrophic meltdown. All of the owner’s important files were on the computer, and there were no backup copies. There were thousands of irreplaceable letters, financial records, emails and photos at risk of being lost forever.
Best repair practices dictate that, before attempting a major operating system repair, you first attempt to rescue important files that may be on the computer’s hard drive. I removed the ailing machines hard drive, installed it into one of my computers, scanned the hard drive for viruses and spyware, located all of the important files, and copied them onto a high-capacity flash drive. The computer was dead, but at least I had rescued the important stuff.
The owner and I were both blessed that only their Microsoft Windows operating system had gone bad, and that his important files were still intact. Many times, though, things aren’t so happy. Sometimes, operating systems crash and take all of the other files along for the ride. Hard drives can also fail mechanically and become unreadable. Other system failures can turn your files into scrambled gobbledegook.
For most home computer users, the results of such a cataclysmic event are merely disastrous. For small businesses, however, the loss of customer databases, financial spreadsheets, inventory management, product data and specifications, employee and tax records, productivity schedules, confidential contracts and business agreements, emails and address books can be deadly. For many businesses, a hard drive crash, and the data loss that follows, means bankruptcy.
If you want to keep your treasured digital family memories, business records, letters or emails for any length of time, it is important that you “back them up,” which simply means keeping an extra copy or two in a safe place. Your computer will fail. Your hard drive will crash. Disasters do happen.
This is not negative thinking, but rather, the realization that computers are imperfect devices made by imperfect people in an imperfect world. The tires on your car will not last forever, and neither will your computer. Better to only lose your computer, rather than your computer and years worth of work, records and memories. I hate being the guy that has to tell someone their precious family photos, or critical financial spreadsheets are gone forever.
Abundant options exist to assist you in backing up your files; the most common are using some sort of external hard drive or flash drive to store copies of your important files. Flash drives are cheap. External drives are also cheap. Get one (or, two) and learn how to use them.
Basic file backup can be accomplished simply by copying your files and pasting them to your backup device. This is easy to do and when you’re through, you know that your files have been backed up.
Automated, unattended file backup is a good way to go, too. This can be done by using a dedicated file backup program. Windows has a built-in file backup program; the Internet has many websites that teach how to use this program. The same goes for Apple’s program called “Time Machine,” designed for Apple computers. It works great and is not difficult to figure out.
Copies of your important files should also be stored somewhere online using a “cloud” service like Carbonite. If something bad happens to your computer and your external drive, too, your files will still be retrievable from your online storage service. Take the time to regularly backup your files; I guarantee that, someday, you’ll be glad you did.
Dave Moore has been fixing computers in Oklahoma since 1984. As founder of the non-profit Internet Safety Group Ltd, he also teaches Internet safety workshops for public and private organizations. He can be reached at 405-919-9901 or www.internetsafetygroup.com