&nb sp; Losing Data Can Be Such a Painful Thing
By: Yasuo Ogawa
Losing data can be such a painful thing! I know from personal experience how painful and more than that, how costly of a mistake it could be! I asked our techs in the office to try and take a look at my broken hard drive and even with the guru's standing right behind me, nothing. No pulse, no action no life. It was a horrible experience. But I learned from that experience and I am here to share it with you today.
BACKUP
Always be ready to back up your data. Some people should do it nightly depending on how you use your computer. Some of our customers have a back up to a back up. But you would still be surprised at how infrequently people (and even COMPANIES!) actually do back up data! Backing up data can as complicated as setting up your RAID configuration on your robust servers or as easy as burning information down to a CD/DVD. What you want to do and accomplish is preserve your data so if anything should happen to the computer, (hard drive failure, motherboard failure etc) you can slip something back into a new computer and not suffer a disruption. Some of the external hard drives that we carry in our store actually include what's called a one touch back up. You press a button and WHAM, it takes care of the rest. If you computer ever decides to go to sleep and not come back, you simply unplug the USB connector, slip it into another computer and you have all of your information, music or photos. Just remember that applications themselves don't back up. Only the data. Applications are like your Microsoft Office Apps. You need to reload that part into your new computer but everything else is good to go!
ONLINE BACKUP
If you are a road warrior, you don't have to lug around a terabit external hard drive to constantly back up your laptop. Instead, you ever thought of an online back up system? Of course they aren't as fast as having the information on a hardware piece sitting next to you but it does provide a comfort to know that you can access your files right away. The only downside is you need to have a pretty good high speed internet access to accomplish this. You can find out more from online storage provides like xdrive.com. The cool thing is you can travel to anywhere in the world, login in to your account and have all of the files you saved there. Imagine going to Kinkos in Geneva and showing your grandkids what Hawaii looks like with pictures you saved online. The bad thing is you need to remember to constantly back up files!
Thumb Drives
The price of storage has come down quite a bit. I remember when thumb drives first came out, it would cost about $50 bucks for a 128KB stick to hold data and that was a deal! Now, you can get 32GB on a thumb drive for under $100! Imagine walking around with 100GB of information dangling on your key chain! That's really a good thing. The downside to this is thumb drives rely on something called flash memory technology and if it should break, there is really no way of getting that information back. Based on that knowledge, remember that thumb drives should be used to move information around and not to store information.
Floppy Drives
Lets not even go there. If you still save information on floppy drives, give me an email and let us update your PC!
So what happens if you are reading this and there is really nothing that you can do about it since you already have a failed hard drive? Got a few options. Possibly save you money.
Broken Motherboard / other PC issues
If you have a computer that broke and the hard drive is actually good, then you should consider yourself lucky! There are a few solutions to take care of with this. The first thing to do is to check with your technician and see if the data is still there. If it is, then the cheapest alternative would be to have your technician go ahead and take your hard drive and have them enclose it to what's called a external hard drive case. What you now have is your old hard drive and you can go to any computer with a USB connection, plug it in, and WHAM.. your data is right there.
Remember that if you purchase a new computer, you can also have them take your old hard drive and put it into a new computer as well! Just make sure it isn't a hard drive that qualifies as virus infected or you will transfer the bad and corrupt files too!
Virus infected hard drive
A lot of times, customers bring in computers that are so infected with viruses and spyware that the WINDOWS files are corrupt, missing etc. This doesn't mean your hard drive is infected! There may be an additional charge but ask your technician if the data is still salvageable and have them burn it off to a dvd or other format.
Broken Hard Drive
If you have a hard drive that was mechanically damaged either from a dropped case or water or anything like that, there is a good chance that nobody in Hawaii can actually help you out. There are a few companies on the mainland that will be able to help you out and if you have priceless pictures of your children or financial information that cannot be replaced, check them out online. One company we work with quite often is www.drivesavers.com . just a note of caution. It isn't cheap.
The next time you hear a hum on your computer, a grinding noise from the tower, your computer seemingly getting hotter or just running slower, freeze what you are doing, make sure you have a device you can back up to, turn on the computer, back up your information and when you are done, take your computer to your favorite Road Runner Approved Technicians!
Key Words: Computers
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