Be Prepared: It's Not Just for Boy Scouts Anymore
Yesterday I had a fairly large disaster. My computer
decided it didn't want to play anymore. Some process was shutting it down
before it was even getting started good. Backing the system up a few days
had worked once or twice, but now the computer was ceasing to be fooled.
Now, it simply wouldn't start at all, so I had to do a full system
restore. Basically, this strips the computer back to factory conditions
and leaves you only what it would have come with as you walked out of the store
with it. Before it did this, it asked me if I wanted to back up my
documents. In point of fact I did, so I went and got a flash drive.
I plugged it in and waited two and a half hours for the files to "back
up." Then I proceeded with the restore, which was itself no particular
cake walk. When I got my computer back on I went looking for a file, only to
find that I really only got a partial back up out of the deal.
A good week's worth of files were missing; and in some case an entire
month's worth of files were missing. I haven't even found the full extent
of the damage, I'm sure, as I only had need of a couple of the older files
yesterday. As you can imagine, this has set me back by quite a bit of
work.
I've seen people suggest making regular back ups with Mozypro and
the like, but I'd never bothered to do it for myself. Like the blind
tourist wandering around a bad neighborhood, I was convinced it couldn't happen
to me. For someone who makes her living off of a computer, this was a
remarkably stupid position to place myself in, but it all boiled down to me not
wanting to pay more money. As home based business professionals, though, we are
everything.
That includes document control and tech
support. Today I'd like to urge all of my fellow home based workers
(and those who are still just thinking about it) to devote a portion of your day
to getting the back ups you need. If it all goes wrong there is a good
chance it is going to go wrong in some kind of spectacular way. In truth I
was pretty lucky--but I could have been extremely unlucky.
The
documents are not easily replacable. I lost 15 pages of work on a current
project that I've spent the better part of the morning attempting to reconstruct
(and I still have 10 pages to go). Get MozyPro, get data sticks, get something,
but get backup. While you're at it, get virus protection if you don't
already have it.
This is one of those "home based business"
learning experiences, but you can learn from my mistakes instead of having to
learn from your own.
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