Farewell Old Friend - The Importance of Backup

Did you ever have that thought? You know the one where you think, gee this pair of shoes is falling apart and I should buy a new pair. Except you don’t because you love those shoes, they are comfy. Then, without warning, they fall apart and now you have to find a new pair.

You can substitute shoes for any item you may have had this thought for. Like maybe a car. You know, you need to buy one because your rust bucket is making another new noise, but you put it off or don’t have the money, etc. You’re driving along one day and next thing you know you’re limping the poor hunk of metal off the road as best you can and calling for a tow truck.

I think you get the idea of what I’m saying here.

This happened to me recently. About a year ago, I realized my laptop was getting some age on it, might be a good idea to get a new one. I mentioned it to a friend, who gave me a laptop that he bought used and didn’t need or want, or bother re-selling it. I turned it on a few times, but my current laptop was serving me well, so the gifted one collected dust.

A few days after I finished Faking it at Christmas, I powered down my laptop. Only it didn’t power down. Which was odd. I waited and waited and finally I pressed the power button and held it till it shut off. I went to reboot it. . . and the black screen of death.

I thought maybe there was a problem with my operating system? Figured I’d deal with it the next morning.

The following morning, I did everything I could, and it became clear my hard drive had given up on me. I managed to get all of my files off of it, so there’s that. But I spent the entire morning doing everything I could think of to get it back up and running, but during a reboot, it went into a BIOS screen, where it screamed at me with a loud beeping noise and a message on the screen told me the hard drive was in fact toast.

My laptop was a Dell Insprion 15 that I’d purchased refurbished from the Dell outlet over eight years ago. I think I only paid around $200 for it. A couple months ago I had to replace the battery in it. Now it’s the hard drive. As I thought about it, I’ve decided not to replace the hard drive. I think it is time to just let that poor thing go.

I could replace the hard drive, but how long before something else goes? What will go next? The screen? The mother board? Or some other component?

The letters on the keyboard had rubbed off long ago. Apparently, that computer wasn’t meant for writers. I tried a silicone overlay, but again, don’t think those are for writers either, because that lasted about four months before those letters rubbed off. Finally, I resorted to painting the letters on the keys with white nail polish and a nail art brush. I’d done this a few times already.

When I realized my poor old laptop was done for, I dusted off the used gifted laptop and installed my Linux distro of choice on it. By mid afternoon I was back up and in business again. I still have a spare laptop, but it is even older than the one that died. So I’m thinking it might be in my best interest to look for a new one.

The used one is fine, except the screen colors seem off, or maybe I’m not used to them. The mouse touchpad is wonky. Otherwise, it’s better than the one that died. Still, I’d feel better having a more modern backup just in case.

I was lucky I had a spare computer lying around or else I would have had to make a mad dash to Wal-Mart and get whatever they had. Not really what I want to do. If I’m going to spend money, I want it to be on something I want. Not something I need in a pinch that might give up the ship sooner than eight years.

The thing that surprises me the most is, I didn’t get stressed out about this. Probably because I had another computer waiting in the wings. The other thing is I regularly back up my files on usb drives. Even if I hadn’t been able to retrieve the files from that computer, I wouldn’t have lost much.

Also, let’s face it, eight years is a good amount of time for a cheap, bottom of the line laptop.

I’m sad about its demise, though. It’s what I started my self-publishing journey on. All of my self-published stories, covers for those stories, and these blog posts (except this one) were done on that computer.

Disaster Prevention

This could have turned out to be a much bigger disaster than it was. Instead, it was a minor blimp on the radar that took one day to sort out. I think the reason is that I try to follow the three rules of computers (or other electronic things these days) and those are. . .

1. Backup

2. Backup

3. Backup

I learned these three rules some time ago from a teacher at a computer class I’d taken. I follow these three rules. In this case:

1. All of my files are backed up on usb drives and I back things up regularly.

2. I had a back-up computer

3. I had enough knowledge to retrieve the few files that were on the hard drive before it started beeping at me and took its dying breath.

The primary worry now is shopping for a new computer. Or I might just find a nice used one for cheap to keep around as a backup.

So remember, if you rely on your computer for daily use, make sure you have a backup or at least a plan in place if your computer gives it up in the middle of something important. Lucky for me, I’d just finished a project and hadn’t yet started a new one when this happened. Like I said, this could have been far worse than it was. Still, I’ll miss that poor old cheap computer. Although I won’t lie, it’s nice having one with all the letters visible on the keyboard.