What assets reside on your computer that you can’t possibly live without? Business? Special photos? Memorabilia? How do you have them protected? What would happen if you lost them?
In hindsight, I realize that my computer was acting weird before it died. I blamed the problems on my internet service. Perhaps if I had called for help then, I wouldn’t have lost everything. By the time I tried to do a Windows reinstall, it was too late to save not only my files, but all my programs and drivers.
Now for the good news. I had Carbonite, a cloud-based savior.
Programs like this do continual back-ups of your data and store it on
their servers. For a low annual fee, Carbonite saved me. I contacted
them and they reinstalled the program and downloaded all my files. I also have two other programs that use the cloud to protect me. One is Dropbox, a free program that can be installed on multiple computers. Because I had Dropbox on both computers, I was able to work on files using my notebook while my laptop recovered. (Another great idea--have an extra online device in case of trouble.) The other program that I, as a writer, absolutely love is called Scrivener. With Scrivener, I create all my work--books and short stories--on their specialized templates. My masterpieces are then saved to their servers. Scrivener is installed on both of my machines, so I was able to keep on writing while my laptop healed. I consider my writing priceless and would pay anything to keep it safe. Lucky for me that Scrivener, like other writing programs, is inexpensive.
Be prepared to download and reinstall your programs and printer drivers, but, with foresight your life can began again.
And remember, keep on writing!
