When Your Computer Goes on Strike

So approximately at 2pm in the afternoon on July 13th my computer decides to act all funny and prevent me from opening my very important programs designed to help me work. Not to mention it was being super slow. Yep, my computer had a virus.

What is an internet entrepreneur to do when their computer goes on strike?

I have to admit I was totally frustrated, and the do it yourself person in me wanted to search and search the web until I found a solution to my problem. But I knew I didn’t have time, I needed to get the problem fixed, and NOW.

So I did what any other person would do, I called the Geek Squad. Which they were all very helpful (ALL 20 agents I spoke with over the course of 3 days!) Come to find out my OS (operating system a.k.a Windows Vista) is corrupted. We found this out after Geek Squad had removed the virus and then tried to install an update….which was a huge mistake!

For 2 days I would spend literally 6 hours to boot up my computer, and another 6 hours to boot down my computer (is boot down even a real phrase?) It was so stressful. I couldn’t work – that made me feel so helpless. The only computer access I had was to my husbands computer which is like 10 years old (OK maybe that’s an over exaggeration, it’s really 7 years old.) and with all that power (about a 9GB hard drive – no that’s NOT an exaggeration) I was able to simply check my email. Definitely no designing for me, ha!

So where am I going with this post? I just want to inform everyone out there, your computer is not 100% safe. SO many things can happen. Taking precautions to keep your information safe needs to be addressed as soon as possible.

Turns out after all that we have tried to do to save my computer, we will actually need to obtain the recovery disk from the computer manufacturer and restore the computer back to what it was the day we bought it. Which means all software and files I have on the computer will be gone (trust me I have a lot of files, my hard drive was maxed out and only had 3GB left. Hmmmm….9GB doesn’t look too bad after all!)

Fortunately (Praise the Lord!) I was able to one last time access all my files in safe mode and put them on an external hard drive. All my kid’s pictures, and client work is now safe. My software on the computer will need to be re-installed which is fine I have the disks still available. It will take time, but at least I have what’s important to me.

As for what I have available to me now, well it’s a new computer. There was no way I could wait another week or two for the recovery disk to arrive in order to fix my computer and start working again. It’s not what I wanted to do, but it’s important I started working again.

After this whole ordeal I have learned some very important lessons:

1. Backup your files onto an external hard drive. Yes, there are online sites that can back up your information but the space you receive from an external hard drive for the money beats online backups by far.

2. Backup your files to a SECOND external hard drive. If the first one fails then what are you going to do?

3. Backup your files to a THIRD external hard drive. Hey you can never be too safe. Your kid’s pictures, and work files are worth it!

4. Obtain the recovery disk from your computer manufacturer to keep on hand. Not all computers come with a recovery disk, or a system in place where you can easily restore your computer back to day one. Having this disk on hand will ensure that if you ever have to restore your computer you can do so in a timely manner, and not have to wait on the delivery of your disk.

When you work from home your computer is your number one asset. Keep it safe because one day it may go on strike!

God Bless – Heather B. ;)

P.S. UPDATE: We are now auctioning off WordPress Cheat Sheets on Flippa. Let me tell you it is priced to SELL! You can learn more by viewing the auction here.

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