Not If, But When...

This morning was just like any other. I wake up, let the dog out, work out, let the dog in, shower, breakfast, let the dog out once more, let the dog in and got to work. It was a day just like so many others. When I got to work and turned on the computer, that’s where it all changed. What is this? What do you mean you can’t boot up? I’ll just shut down and try again. And again. And again. Oh no…

I’ve been around computers since DOS booted from floppy disks. I’ve always been my own Technical Support. I’ve pulled apart computers, added more RAM, changed out video cards, added additional hard drives, replaced hard drives and much more. Never really had a major problem. I saw many others have hard drive failures with no back up. What can you say? “Ouch that’s painful. You lost all that data? No back up?”

 Today it was my turn. My IT pro came over to fix my computer. “This shouldn’t be too bad”, he said. Minutes later he was pulling the cover off and operating on my computer to do a total hard drive resection. “Did you have any files on here that you needed?” he asked, holding the hard drive in his hand. “Maybe”, I said, not really sure at all. Hoping that I didn’t lose too many important files.

I thought to myself, “it was a one in a million long shot”. That won’t happen again for years. Until three hours later a student worker came in and started removing the screws from his laptop. “What’s up?” I asked him. He said those one in a million long shot words, “I think my hard drive is failing”. I asked if he had it backed up. “No” he said with a dejected voice. “My main interview was on there”, he said sadly. I saw his back up drive next to the ailing laptop. “You didn’t get it on to your back up drive?” I asked. He just shook his head sadly.

In class I asked students, “If you have never had a hard drive problem on your computer raise your hand!” Eighty percent of the students held up their hand. “I haven’t either until today,” I told them. “Right now my computer is laying on my desk with its guts ripped out and a hard drive that will never give me back my files. Luckily, I had my files backed up. Do You?” That’s when I showed them the picture of my computer laid out on my desk. I hope I made a lasting impression.

Actually, I’m quite lucky. I booted up my laptop, signed in and all of my files were on my user account, safely sitting on a server somewhere across campus. Let this serve as your warning, back up your hard drive TODAY. I’ve lived with many years of “it won’t happen to me”. Today it was my turn. The hard drive will be recycled, all the data bits lost forever.

Now I’m thinking about my computer at home. I can’t remember when I backed it up last. I’ll be remedying that situation tonight.

Some people believe things happen in threes. Two happened here today. Don’t be caught without a back up and say those one in a million long shot words, “I think my hard drive is failing”.