The Importance of Backing up Your files

[Bright Eyes]

We have all heard the horror stories of people having a computer and/or hard drive crash. But, then quickly forgot to do a back-up once we get started downloading new kits and working on pages.

Well, something told me about a month ago, that I really should do another back-up to my EHD - and also get busy - AGAIN - on also backing files up on DVDs. Then it became a very busy time and I neglected to do my EHD backup for over a week. Yep.... the computer got a virus. The up-shot was the computer had to be wiped clean and the system files restored. Thinking I was fine... I did a restore of my EHD backup files - only to discover that several files were missing. I keep finding more files that 'should be there' are not.

I have spent so many hours trying to re-load software programs I need; find missing file orders to see if I can recover them from stores - to discover that many stores have a limited time frame when the download links are good; and trying to get things back to normal. I did lose a bunch of daily downloads due to the limited download timeframe. Geeze, what a headache.

I now bring my new download kits into a separate folder labeled "new files to save to DVD". I unzip them and copy them to DVDs before moving them into my larger digi-file folder arranged by designer.

I keep my EHD power off until I do a backup to keep it safe from rogue viruses. Thank goodness that was my habit before this - as I was told that the virus could have wiped the EHD out, too as it would look for that and infect it too - even without the back-up being run. But now, as soon as I have the new kits unzipped and copied to DVDs, I run another back-up to the EHD. This is especially important when I buy a bunch... like during special sales, etc.

Special thanks to my designers and PattyB here for being so understanding of the problems I was having and giving me the time to get back into the swing of things.

Finally feel I can finally get back to doing some of the fun things again.... working on pages and participating in some challenges.

[PattyB]

Thank you so much for sharing your very frustrating ordeal, and for reminding us that our back-ups are so important. I guess it could have been a lot worse, but you are a very smart lady, and it sounds like you have the majority of your digiscrap stuff. I'm glad that you can "play" again in the challenges Yay!

[Art for Scrapbooking]

Yes thank you for the reminder. I know I often put it off. I recently had my desktop decide to not start. I have my scrapbooking supplies on 2 separate hardrives and dvd them as well. I had bought a new EHD so was in the process of sorting through a few years of purchased supplies as I found lots I never used. As my desktop died I had the older ehd in the loungeroom attached to my laptop. Hubby moved it and put it up on a cupboard and I got up of the lounge didnt see that or he chord and my foot caught the power and pulled it down off the cupboard. ARRRGGGHHH It was a 1tb WD and unfortunately even after I took it out of case and used a portable case it is dead. Just makes a big clicking noise. The second HD I have them on also decided to stop working last week lol. So I have wasted most of a few weeks battling computers and EHD's and going through heaps of dvd's looking for things.
Why is it always when you want something that these things happen lol.
The end result is I have lost a lot of it - the upside is I feel good I managed to get my desktop working myself and it has made me make a lot more things from scratch myself. AND it has taught me a valuable lesson lol.
I am looking at online backup now lol
One tip I learnt was if you have backups on 2 externals don't leave them plugged into the same computer. If something happens and your computer gets fried they will both be fried as well.

[Els AW]

Thank you both for your warnings!
I had a crash with my computer last year and we thought we had a backup on a outside computer, wich SHOULD backup every night...
That time we discovered it hadn't work and I lost a lot of pictures :-(

Before I went on vacation, I made a backup and next week we get a new backup-server, who will do it automatically.
Of course we will make sure, if it works this time!!