Backup Day

Well, there is Valentine's Day, Memorial Day, Columbus Day, Thanksgiving Day, President's Day, New Years Day and I am adding another day: Backup Day. Yup, I by here now declare January 31st, Backup Day.

Backup Day you ask? Yes, Backup Day. What do you do on backup day? You backup your music, your documents, your pictures, your e-mail and anything else that might be impossible to or really arduous to replace or recreate.

As many of you know, I am a computer guy... and well, these things even happen to me. Yes, I went to turn my computer on and I got the dreaded message, "Winodws cannot find c:\winnt\system32\blah blah blah and cannot boot your system into Windows. Please insert your repair cd into the drive and hit R"

Hit R? Insert Repair CD? What repair CD? I NEVER got one of those but my computer is telling me I did!! So, like any end user, I reboot thinking this will solve the problem... and well, it doesn't. So I hit F8 and get a menu. I tried safe mode... nope. I tried the whole, choose this option for the last time your computer worked and same FREAKIN' message. Oh-oh!

My wife comes to me and says, "You lost everything?" I reply, "Um, it hasn't bothered you the last 5 years." This is how long my machine has been running. Just to give you an idea, I was still running Windows 2000. I kept saying, I should probably back this stuff up as I was getting a few error messages but I dismissed as everyone always does cause I could still get on to the internet... and get mail, so my machine was working just fine for me. Plus, I have like 4000 songs... thousands more pictures and LOTS of video I have yet to edit and put onto DVD. That takes time and well, I want to waste my time on the internet instead of being productive right now.

Well, right now, I can't get the internet or ANYTHING else. And I have 5+ years of pictures I really would like.

So, I spent 3+ hours installing Windows Xp (I am NOT a fan of Vista and Microsoft is already working on a replacement) loading all the basic programs I feel I need and all the drivers for what seems like tons of external devices. Can't find my video card? Where did I put that disk, it's got to be here somewhere. I wonder if it made the last move. And then I had to transfer all my data from my old hard drive onto my new one. Phew! All my pictures, music, documents and video made it over.

Now, its time to back it up. Yes, it will take a few hours and although I might be a little luckier then others when it comes to salvaging files and fixing computers, it's still a pain and sometimes, there are things I can't save or fix. So, I am taking Backup day just to do that. You can have more then one backup day a year. Maybe I will do August 31st as well... since I seem to take the most pictures and video during the summer and at Christmas.

Plus, look at it this way, I can put all my pictures on one DVD and have a slide show on my TV. That might be cool to sit back and see thousands of pictures on my home TV and watch what I did the last 5 years and see my kids grow and think of all the good times. I can make a couple music cd's for the car. Heck, I might even make copies. This could be fun.

So, get those Flash drives, cd-r's and Dvd-r's out and back stuff up. I guarantee, maybe not today or even a year from now, but at some point, you'll be glad you did.