"Back Up Your Files"

It is mandatory to back up our files. Failure to do so can wreck your work and your life. Take it from me , I know the feeling. Such indiscretion is unforgivable because it causes time and money that can never be retrieved. 

Most of us live our lives with too much dependence on computers and the internet technology. It is simply unconceivable to spend a day without sitting in front of the computer - unless of course if your browsing via your phone. Since this is pretty much how we spend our lives in a daily basis, we know how important it is to back up our files --especially very important ones.

"Back up your files" is like an old adage that every responsible computer owner and user should know. It's embarrassing to write about my stupid mistake but I thought it is worth documenting and learning and sharing valuable lesson. It happened couple of weeks ago. I woke up with that excited feeling. I stretched and said to myself, "Today is a good day." I had my breakfast, heavy one, and told myself that nothing in this world should disturb me from a good breakfast. So, that's basically how I condition myself everyday. However, the unforgivable happened. And my day was shattered by a message that flashed on my computer screen.

"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt...."

Because I am not really a techie person, I couldn't seem to decipher what went wrong. All I knew was, I couldn't open my files and this message was glaring in front of me. My initial reaction was to go back to sleep and perhaps, when I wake up I will realize that everything was just a bad dream. That was stupid, of course. I repeatedly turned off the laptop and turned it on again only to be welcomed with the same message. Okay! I was doomed. The report that I need to submit by weekend was in Drive C and I had this feeling that I could no longer retrieve it. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Why didn't I made a back up file! I didn't see this coming!

To cut the drama short, I brought my laptop to the technician. I almost collapsed when he said that he couldn't retrieve my files in C and the laptop had to be reformatted.  "Are you really really sure that you can't retrieve all my files?" I thought I got him annoyed because I kept on asking the same question over and over.

Obviously, the lesson learned here is: Back up your files. I learned this lesson the hard way. This is nothing new to me. But I guess, the familiarity of my daily tasks made me ignore a single yet indispensable habit that I should have adhered ever since the beginning I touch a computer.

The necessary information to back up files are available online. Windows provides a helpful guide on how to do it.

Back up files doesn't necessarily have to be in the external hard disks, CDs or DVDs. If you just want to  copy certain files like spreadsheets documents, and presentations; we can maximize the use of Google Docs, which makes it easy to share and access your documents via computer or smart phone.  DropBox looks good too. A 2 GB of space is free.

I am sure there are many softwares or applications to help us create back up files. I would like to know about them. Any inputs? Feel free to share.