“Your Hard Drive Is Failing”….. 5 Dreaded Words
Well, it finally happened. I never thought I would have to
deal with this but here it is.
I thought my computer was immune to it but I guess it’s not
invincible after all.
I don’t know if you’re suppose to or not, I’ve heard different
things about it but I hardly ever turn my computer off.
I work mainly from my laptop. It’s my primary computer and
since I can take it with me wherever I go, I see no sense in
working on a desktop and transferring things to my laptop.
Anyway, I sat down at my desk and noticed that my computer was
going through the start up routine just like it does when you
first turn it on.
I didn’t think much about it. I just thought that something
must have updated and it needed to restart.
Then it came to a screen that said something like….” a
program had been installed improperly…. would you like to
start your computer in ’safe mode’ or regular mode?”
Then, there was a clock counting down from 30, I think, that
would restart the computer when it reached 0.
I tried to restart it in safe mode, regular mode, please don’t
fail me now mode and every other “mode” I could think of but….
nothing.
So, I rushed it to the “emergency room” because I knew that
this was something serious.
The next day I got a call from the tech who told me “your
hard drive is failing”. 5 of the most dreaded words I could
possibly imagine since I had over 52 gigs of “stuff” on there.
The only thing I could think of was that I had heard horror
stories of this happening to other people and I had been
warned but, there’s no way something like this could happen
to me.
You hear it all the time… “back up your information, back
up your hard drive, etc. etc.”
Of course I didn’t really pay to much attention to it or I
would have had some sort of routine for backing up my computer.
The tech said that he would see if he could retrieve any of
the files from the hard drive but he didn’t know how much of
it he would be able to get. I’ve called and talked to him
a few times and he’s “still working on it”.
So, I’m now on a borrowed computer more than a week later and
still wondering when I’m going to get mine back and still
wondering if they’ll be able to fully recover my data.
In the meantime, I remembered that I had looked into trying
to figure out an easy way or even just a way to back up my
computer after Scott (the other half of Night Owl Marketing),
just finished telling me his horror story of his computer
crashing not once, not twice but THREE TIMES! And the
unbelievable amount of money he had to pay to get the
information retrieved from the crashed hard drive.
Come to think of it, the main computer that runs the back
office of my family’s bricks-and-mortar business crashed a
while back and it cost something like a couple thousand
dollars to retrieve the data on the hard drive, which we
gladly paid because it had 5 years, or more worth of information.
Anyway, as I mentioned, a few months back I had looked into
different ways to back up my computer and did some research
online. I was going to try a few different things and write
up a few reviews for different methods and products because I
thought it would be useful to other people that may not know
much about the why or how they should be backing up their
computers. Just as I didn’t really know.
I’ve since been educated, the hard way.
In my research and investigations of finding ways to back up
my computer, I found a way to do it online and automatically.
I wouldn’t even have to think about it. It would just
automatically back up, according to this online backup
service I found.
I investigated a couple and found that there were alot of
variations in price, functionality and what they offered in
terms of how much they would back up and what it would cost.
After searching for one that I thought would be dead simple
to install and use, I decided to give one a try. There was
a free version that offered up to 2 Gigs of backup.
Since I had over 50 Gigs worth of stuff on my computer, I
decided to try the Unlimited Backup version since it only
cost $4.95 per month.
I figured that if it cost me less than 5 bucks to try it out
and if it isnt’ easy to use or I don’t like it or it doesn’t
do what it is suppose to, then I won’t be out much money.
So, I paid the $4.95 and downloaded the program. It was
simple to download and install on my computer. Since I was
short on time, I figured I would read into it later to see how
I would go about uploading as much of my computer as I could,
as fast as I could so that at least I would have one source
for a backup no matter what.
And why not? They offered unlimited storage so why not take
advantage of it. If it works like it’s suppose to, it’ll be
well worth the measely $4.95 a month to have a backup of some
sort.
After I installed the program I sort of forgot about it as I
got busy working on my other day-to-day stuff. But, I would
notice a little notification box would pop up on my screen
daily telling me that the back up had been done and that x
amount of gigs was now backed up.
The last time I payed attention to it 10.7 Gigs had been
backed up. I have had the program on my computer for about
3 months now.
Of course, I had been meaning to read into the instructions
to see how I could set it up to upload bigger chunks of my
computer at a time when I’m not on it for a day or 2 or
something so that I could get it all backed up eventually.
Obviously 10.7 Gigs is a little short of 52 Gigs but it’s
a start. It’s something.
Well, after a couple of days of sulking and moping around,
I decided to get on a borrowed computer and see if I could
access the online backup service, login and see how I would
go about retrieving a few documents that I needed. And to
see if it was possible to download them to another computer
or how it all worked since this has never happened to me before.
So, I logged on, found what had been backed up and low and
behold, every document I needed was there for me to download
to the borrowed computer.
I downloaded pdf’s, word documents and an excel spreadsheet
all with no problems!
Between the tech and the online backup service Mozy, I might
be able to get all of my data back! For $4.95/month, it has
been one of the best investments I’ve made in all my days of
computing.
If you don’t have a regular backup routine, the equipment or
the technical knowledge to do your own computer backup, I
highly recommend this service!
It surprised me how easy it was to install, use and retrieve
files after I lost my hard drive and needed my documents.
Again, here’s the link:
Click Here for Mozy Online Backup Service - Up to 2 Gigs
free or Unlimited Backup for only $4.95/month!
Get some piece of mind for yourself! Backup Your Computer!
I hope you never need to use it. But, in case you do it’s there.
Good luck!
Jerry
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