- At Christmas dinner, my nephew gave me the lecture about backing up my data.
- Yesterday I read about Amy's vanished hard-drive at We Tree.
- Last night, I read the ultimate prod at GeneaBloggers: back up and win a prize!
I had automatic back-ups scheduled, but at some point my 160 GB external hard drive seemed to be filling up... with weekly full back-ups! ...even though I had set it to back up changed files only. When I tried dragging some of the excess to the Trash, it appeared to me that the files on my computer drive, not the external drive, were being deleted. In panic, I pulled the plug, literally, on that whole operation. At that point I turned off the automatic back-ups and gave up the whole scary and perplexing process!
When I read that Amy's freshly repaired laptop was returned to her with a new--and blank--hard drive in it, I must say I squirmed in my comfy desk chair a bit. There but for fortune...! My own computer was mailed off to Dell for repairs earlier this year. By dumb luck, I had asked enough questions of the phone tech ahead of time. I told him I was concerned about the lack of security for my data, and he replied that they didn't need the hard drive in order to repair the problems I was having. He directed me in removing the hard drive from my laptop. It was a matter of a couple screws, as I recall. The hardest part was figuring out where to put the drive and the screws so I'd be able to find them when the computer came back.
Now, in the light of what happened to Amy, I consider this a key piece of advice for myself and anyone else who is sending a computer off for repairs:
- Before your laptop goes anywhere for repairs, ask if you can REMOVE YOUR HARD DRIVE and send the computer without it!
So, what am I doing at this very moment? Yep, I'm creating a back-up. At least I think I am. The computer says I am. But I'm not sure how this can actually be accomplished, considering the amount of data that needs to be backed up, and the amount of empty space on my external drive. Even as a practitioner of fuzzy math, I am pretty sure you can't park a Winnebago in a one-car garage.
I guess we'll find out.
5 comments:
I think it's hilarious that you had to post three times to get your url showing at Geneabloggers - you must REALLY, REALLY want that prize!
Evelyn in Montreal
Thank you for sharing your experience and mine. My computer problem was not the hard drive. I was naive in assuming they wouldn't replace it anyway. Lesson learned.
LOL!!!! Truth to tell, Evelyn, I just wanted to look real smart by posting the title of my article as a link instead of just pasting the URL. Yeah, that went well, eh? :-P
And BTW, now we know for sure, you actually CAN'T park a Winnebago in that garage. After all this time waiting for the backup to finish, I now have the error message saying there's not room for it. And do you suppose it told me how much room there isn't? No. It did not.
*sigh*
Amy, I don't think it's naive at all to assume they wouldn't replace a part that's not broke. Why would they? And since they did, you'd think they would at least have returned the part to you, or transferred your data to the new drive, or something. I mean, come on, they gotta know you want your data, right? Anyhow, thanks for writing about it. I had no idea I was dodging that kind of bullet!
Post a Comment