A Surge Protector Saved My Baby

I sat here working with her all afternoon and into the evening creating the newsletter. She began to act up. Just as I was shutting her down the power went out. Well, so much for creativity and meeting a deadline.

 I didn't have enough candles to read by, so we were done for the night.

 The following morning when I woke her up all I saw was "File Corrupted or Missing/sys config." Oh my God, now what!

 Now you are probably asking, what on earth is she talking about? Well, my baby is my computer. And boy did I get a scare when I got that message.

 My first thought was, thank goodness I backed up my data files just two days before. The only thing I would lose would be the newly created newsletter. Oh wait, I just uploaded it to the A to Z Organizing Pros® Web site, so no loses....I thought.

 I turned the computer off and on a few times expecting a different message. Of course, to no avail. So I got her all unplugged and head off to get her repaired by the best computer repair guys in the business, in Phoenix (Netsource Computers).

 On my way there, I envisioned spending $200-$600 to fix her. Michael listens carefully to what I say about her. He then tells me that the symptoms sound like the Drive is "toast". Well, I tell him there's the $200-$600 I had imagined I would have to pay to fix her. He says, "Just relax, I'll have it fixed in about 5 minutes."

 Well, he was right. He was able to recover the data and restore the hard drive. He was finished, charged me just $40 and off I went back to the office.

 I realized as I began working with her again that there was something more wrong than data recovery, my work was just beginning. Most of the software programs had to be reloaded and configured. All her hardware was recognized as "new" so the set up process had to be redone for each one.

 After about 5 hours, all her hardware and software programs had been checked, reloaded and configured. Phew!!!

 Why am I sharing this story with you? Well, without the surge protector, which by the way, has a $50,000 data recovery warranty, the entire system including the mother board, drives and possibly the entire computer could have been "toast", including the other hardware such as the scanner, printer, palm cradle etc. The surge protector cost two years ago was just $30 with a lifetime warranty. Well worth the investment.

 The other thing is I have a reliable, easily accessible place that I store all her software programs. I did not have an up-to-date copy of the drivers for her modem though. So that meant yet another trip to Netsource. That's another 2 hours with drive time out of my day. I could have saved myself that time by just having a copy of the updated drivers in my software program files. Michael downloaded the drivers from the Internet, placed a copy on a floppy disc and reloaded them into my computer, no charge.

 Back in my office, I also had to re-download her printer drivers from the Internet. Once again, I say that having a copy of the updated drivers in my software program files would have saved me the time of re-downloading them.

 She is running smoothly again and my special thanks to Michael and Tom at Netsource Computers.

 LESSONS:
 #1. Regularly back-up your data.
 #2. Money spent on a surge protector is well worth the investment
 #3. Use Netsource Computers or other computer repair personnel that you would trust with YOUR baby's life.
 #4. Have a reliable, easily accessible place to store your entire computer's software programs and up-to-date drivers.
 #5. When downloading drivers from the Internet, save a copy to disc, just in case.

 By the way, I also forgot to plug in her sound system. So I got back there and plugged it in. This was definitely a no, no. She didn't like to be prodded while the power was on; it shorted out and blew my $150 sound system.

 That brings me to Lesson #6:
 Always turn off the power on the surge protector or unplug your computer equipment from the electrical supply whenever you are doing any changes to your plug-ins.

 A to Z Organizing Pros® is available to assist you in any of the areas I shared with you, especially about learning how to back up your data and creating a reliable, easily accessible place to store all your computer's software programs and other files.