Stretch your mind and your ability to organize your space, your belongings, your time, and your thoughts. Allison Carter, The Professional Organizer, posts her thoughts, breakthroughs, frustrations, and memorable moments as an organizer. Allison also shares tricks that have worked for even some of the most disorganized people to conquer their clutter. Other features: Tips, mind stretches, favorite products, favorite books, and other tools to help people get organized.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

I'm in Computer Crash mourning.

Hi my name is Allison and I'm a docuholic.
I collect documents of information on my computer and usually organize them in nice neat files.
I sometimes even look at them again.
But now I am seeking therapy.
My computer hard drive bit the dust yesterday.
The IT guys said, nah, you don't have to back up your stuff before installing that operating system.
They were wrong. The OS wasn't the problem. It was the hardware. boo hoo.
Luckily, I'm smarter than a 5th grader and I backed up all my documents, photos and music.
But I am new to mac mail and never knew how to back up all of the emails and contacts I have diligently collected and corrected over the years.
And now I am at a loss.
I backed it all up 2 months ago but still feel lost.
2 months is a long time.
I'm in mourning for my lost info.

Lessons learned:
1. back up daily. You never know when the crash will come, but it's inevitable.
2. Keep documents stored in cyberspace at a document storing site. External hard drives work, until there is a fire or a flood or it crashes. I use .mac (soon to be .me??? I don't get the name change).
3. Keep less. It's easier to manage when there is less to manage.
4. Keep a list of all your passwords and logins so it's not a big huge deal to get up and running again.
5. Know where you have put your application discs so you can reinstall.

Any tricks you have found work for you???

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm sad for you. :( However, I thought that Macs didn't have these problems? :)
I've just started using Google Apps so I'm not at the mercy of the hardware crash. I also use Carbonite for my backups. It backs things up as I save them. LOVE that. Turn it on, let it run and do the work for me. :) Yahoo!
Hope you're up and running again soon!

Megan Spears said...

Let me first say that I am so glad you have revived your blog(s).

Sorry to hear about the crash. It is quite sad, but at least you retrieved something. That is better than nothing... right?

When my first son was born our pc died (really, it died) and we lost everything. Every picture from birth to 4 months. Never to be seen again.

Stephan Hokanson said...

Are you using Leopard (OSX 10.5)? Time Machine http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/timemachine.html (its backup function) makes backup shamefully simple. Works with any hard disk. It takes ALL the effort out of backing up.

Jeri Dansky said...

Allison, I'm so sorry to hear about your computer.

I just upgraded to Leopard, and before I did that I made bootable external drive using SuperDuper, per the advice here. It sure increased my piece of mind.