Are You Prepared In Case (HORROR!) Your Computer Crashes?
By La de Boheme
@LaDeBoheme (2004)
United States
January 17, 2010 7:06pm CST
In other words, do you regularly back up your hard drive? What method do you use?
I use Acronis. I made 2 bootable CDs and regularly burn an image to an external HD. If I lost everything, it would take me 10 minutes to recover my entire system and data. (I've tested it.)
4 people like this
17 responses
@kaylachan (68508)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
18 Jan 10
I've been down that road already. I had to recover an entire hard drive once without an actual OS. I had to relocate the orgenal without any form of backup software. It took me hours to do, but I managed to recover it. Lucky for me the computer retained the hard drive components. I just had to dig them out. Igt was not fun. and to think I tried to locate a 95 cd to do it. (that would've been faster)
1 person likes this
@LaDeBoheme (2004)
• United States
20 Jan 10
Hi hagirl.
Acronis Home costs about $50, but on occasion, Acronis offers a free version. You might catch an announcement at the Gizmo or Giveaway of the Day websites. Hard to say -- sometimes the freebie is for a limited time only or for a particular HD.
You can go to acronis.com and check it out.
@bournecaindelta (2477)
• India
18 Jan 10
Nope. I have quite a stable OS running and I think I will not have a problem. Although I back my movies up regularly on DVDs as when the HDD gets full. I have to get an external HDD to back my songs and other important stuff.
n case my computer crashes, in the present circumstances, I would lose all data. And I'm hoping nothing of that sorts happens.
bourne
bourne@LaDeBoheme (2004)
• United States
18 Jan 10
I have a stable OS and I don't think I will have a problem either. But you can't ever be 100% sure some insidious worm won't fool your AV and invade your computer and wipe it out, or some driver won't conflict and bring it all crashing down, or a lightening strike won't screw up your OS, any number of reasons.
So even though I think and hope nothing happens, I want to be prepared. I have no intention of losing all my data.
@rosekiss (30414)
• Eugene, Oregon
18 Jan 10
I bought a laptop over a week ago, and no problems so far, andI really shouldn't either, since it is new. I have made recovery discs, but that is all. It seems like any laptop I buy, the recovery discs don't come with it. It isn't a problem doing them though as it takes no time at all, and it only took 2 discs, so that is good I think. I hope that I never have problems with it either, as it is a nice laptop. I am gload I bought it, and I hope to use it for years to come. Take care, and happy mylotting.
@LaDeBoheme (2004)
• United States
18 Jan 10
I noticed most computers don't come with recovery discs anymore, unless you're willing to pay extra for them.
I still have my original recovery discs, but they are basically useless to me now. They would only restore my computer to its original state when I bought it new. None of my current programs, documents, files, settings, tons of updates. To do a reformat and clean install and restore my computer to its current state, I would have to download and re-install everything! That would take some SERIOUS time!
Acronis takes a 'picture' of my HD, so IF I ever have to recover, it will takes minutes instead of days.
Good luck with your new laptop, rosekiss.
@MagicalBubbles (5103)
• Canada
18 Jan 10
Hello LaDeBoheme,
Oh wow, I hate thinking at my computer crashing but yes it does happen. I already have everything important saved up. So the only thing would be to sort of start all over again and we all know how bad that is.
Ive heard that Acronis is great for burning an image of your HD. I dont use it myself but been thinking about it.
So if my computer was to crash right now.....Id have to go in the other room and use my husband's computer lol. I know he wouldnt mind and then Id need to go buy myself a brand new one and yup, start reinstalling everything I need.
@Succeeding4 (1)
• United States
18 Jan 10
I also utilize an external hard drive. My biggest fear though is losing photos so I make sure that I have CD back-ups for those. Recently, one of my desktops went down and the external hard drive saved me.
@LaDeBoheme (2004)
• United States
18 Jan 10
I also burn my photos to CD or DVD or both and than I delete them off my HD. But I do it more to keep them organized (I have 1000's). And since I use Acronis which duplicates an 'image' of my HD, I could still recover any photos left there.
That's great you restored your desktop, Succeeding4. Aren't you glad you had that external HD?
@udnisak (609)
• Australia
18 Jan 10
yeah i am actually prepared.. but i dont mind crashing the windows as my important data can be retrieved.. normally i go to one of my friends house and retrieve my data when windows crash and i wont be able to get the data in c drive where the windows are installed.. i dont know whether there is a better way to achive this.. but this the only way i know..how ever i will relly really ger screwed if my hard disk stop functionning.. so normaly i buy lots of empty dvds to burn the data which is money cosuming... but i love my data...
@kindy198636 (471)
• China
19 Jan 10
I'm a IT staff, and I know backup is really important, I work in a school, sometimes the teacher's computer hard drive broken, and they don't have a backup, all the important files are gone, that really horrible, but for me I don't have a external hard drive, I don't have too much files, so I use the online hard drive for backup, I only backup the really important files.
@checkmail (2039)
• India
18 Jan 10
Hello LaDeBoheme me too always prefer to have an backup in case my system gets grashed, often while working on some project.But currently am free from all works so am not doing any backups for current system, but always do in the ofice system, as lose of data may cost me much.Its better to have an back up as crashes are often possible.Anyways keep it up with your mylot participation and computers, Happy mylotting.
@pascal187 (93)
• China
18 Jan 10
u know what, i really need to look into this. it just struck me what i would lose if i suffered a crash...i'm gonna seriously look into that
@Juszie (77)
• Indonesia
18 Jan 10
I bought 2 identical hard drive. Divide 1 hard drive to 2 partitions for system and data, and made the other system as mirror of the first hard drive.
It's more expensive but when the system crash, you can recover everything in no time, just use the mirror drive.
@cookiebaker (330)
• India
25 Jan 10
i am always prepared for a crash.
my harddrives are configured in raid +1 mode, thus saving me from any kind of dataloss
i have an external drive with which i sync all my updated information of every partition.
i use softwares to check the health and longevity of my HDD
@rogue13xmen13 (14403)
• United States
18 Jan 10
Yes, I have an external hard drive and I have a lot of thumb drives. If anything happens to my computer, I have is all covered.
@grunge_avenged (552)
• Canada
18 Jan 10
I can honestly say that I am not prepared if my computer crashes! I have been wanting to get a 1TB external HDD but I have kept putting it off for some reason. They arent really that expensive or anything too but I guess I have just been lazy. Ive never had my computer crash (thank God) but of course it is always good to be prepared for that kind of thing.
@AndrewFreyne (6281)
• United Kingdom
18 Jan 10
I had this problem in the past and I never used to carry out any backups. I then purchased an external hard drive that looks like one of those small whiskey flasks and it's so convenient. It connects to my computer via a usb port and it has 250 gigabyes maximum capacity. I carry out my backups once per week on a Friday. I'm not worried now if I have a systems crash, I can just reinstall windows and restore my data backups. I think this is the most important thing you can do! Andrew
