The Importance of Backing Up Your System by Marian Lanouette

I need a few martini’s after my computer died.

I’m a little grayer this week after all my computer problems, caused by the dreaded virus. I often wonder what kind of thrills the sick minds get from creating them.  Is it a power trip? Do they benefit from it in any way? If I had the skills to create something like that, I wouldn’t be using it to create harm. I would use it for the good of all and still prove how smart I was.

If I heard this once, I heard it a zillion times, “Back-up your system.” I know, you to have heard this countless times, right? Do you back-up every night? If so, do you back-up only your current files or do you back-up your entire system? I do both.

This week, I found to my relief that my husband’s nagging about how I should back-up everything, every night has paid off. You see sometimes you can’t use the system back-up because the virus is embedded there. These viruses corrupt your system (registry files) not your data files, most times. That’s why you need to back-up your data files individually. Often, I only back-up what documents I worked on that day. And in this case, Monday’s back-up saved my life, well…my documents really. Tuesday, my system came crashing down. It was so bad…I need to reload the entire operating system; which put the computer back to factory new. It’s now as pure as the day I bought it.

Now, here’s the glitch. It came crashing down from a virus which was delivered through an email. The software could not do a restore from the system back-up because it would have re-infected the system. See it saves all files, including the virus. I was able to restore my books, documents, research files, excel files and my contact list because I did back them up individually to a flash drive, well several; because I’m anal.

A simple check of your system will tell you if your data files are corrupt. If they’re not, you’re back in business.

I’ve heard of the benefits of backing up to an online system, but call me old fashion, I’m nervous sending my copy write© files into cyberspace. How about you? Do you use an online system? And if so, which one? One other question, if you use an online system, do you still back-up to a flash drive?  I appreciate you sharing, it will help me chose a site in the future.

I also want to remind you that next Friday is share a paragraph day. I’m going straight for the middle of your work this time. So pick your paragraph. It will be page one hundred-fifty (155), paragraph five (5).

I can’t wait to read your paragraphs next week.

Filed under: romance