Back it up!

I learned a valuable lesson in digital media management yesterday. It can be summed up in three words:

BACK IT UP!

Several months ago I started having problems with my computer and had to re-image the thing. It freaked me out a bit because all of my pictures were on my computer and I had no way of backing them up. My DVD/CD burner wasn't working and I didn't have an external hard-drive. Before reinstalling my entire operating system, Eric went out and bought an external hard-drive so I could keep my pictures and other files safe.

I'd like to say that I had been doing good about backing up my files, but I didn't and as a result I had about 5 months of pictures on my computer. I'm a scrapbooker and LOVE taking pictures and would have been DEVASTATED to lose all those memories.

I got home yesterday and went to boot up my computer and it wouldn't. It gave me a message that basically said my hard-drive was non-existent.

WHAT?????? YIKES!!!!!!!

Of course, I freaked. I called my brother who told me that there was a good chance I lost everything but to take it to Best Buy (Geek Squad) and see what they could do. I got all the way to Best Buy when I remembered that my friend, Jennifer's, husband did IT stuff. I called him and he said that he did have some experience with hard-drive problems and to come on over.

So, I did and I was expecting the worst. It was making me physically ill just thinking about it.

Well, about 30 seconds after getting there he asked me why my hard drive was unplugged. WHAT???? I didn't eve know where my hard-drive was yet alone how to unplug the thing.

Turns out that the 2 screws that were holding it in had someone come out & disappeared. I have NO idea how that happened as no one else has worked on my computer. He just pushed the hard-drive back in and the computer worked great.

Guess what I did when I got home?

Yep, I backed everything up!!!

Moral of the story: MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A WAY TO BACKUP YOUR FILES!