Computer Woes

We all know that there are things we should do, but do we always do them?  For example, we know that when picking something up we should bend at the knees and not the waist.  Sometimes I did this, but not always.  Now since my surgery I do admit that this is how I always pick things up now.

We also know that when going outside we should always wear sunscreen.  I admit that I I am only going to be out for a little bit or work in the shade I don’t always apply sunscreen.

Then there are computer issues.  We all know that we should back up things to an external drive.  I know this but don’t really do it.  I paid the price.

Two weeks ago, after posting on SOL, I turned the computer off.  I had been having trouble with it charging and holding a charge.  I wouldn’t do it.  It worked fine plugged in.  I should have taken the warning but didn’t.

Later that day I turned it back on intending to do some work for PCTELA.  The black screen just sat there and looked at me.  Lights were flashing on the keyboard, but the screen remained black.  Oh well, maybe if I rebooted it things would work.  After three or four rebootings (I am a slow learner) and still no desktop popping up I made the assumption that something was wrong.  How smart of me.

I did what I am sure others might have done in a similar situation – I panicked.  I wasn’t upset because I could not retrieve my recipe file (luckily I have hard copies of everything in that file).  I wasn’t upset because of the pictures I couldn’t get out of mu picture folder.  I was upset because I couldn’t get my PCTELA conference information.  The week before I had finished my presenters schedule, the conference schedule, and a short description of each presenters’ session description.  Everything was in a PCTELA folder on my desktop.  I did not print out a hard copy.  I did not save it to an external drive.  I had no way of getting back the information I had lost.  What was I going to do?

I decided to take my computer into Tom’s Computer Repair shop.  I told them what had happened.  They thought it could be the back light.  Could be expensive to replace along with a new battery.  It was an old computer still running Vista.  I had a brand new computer at home that I should have been using but wasn’t.  Finally we decided to just pull the hard drive and check it.  If there was nothing wrong with it all of my information should still be there.

Three days later I got a call that the drive was pulled and it was fine.  All information on it was safe.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  I could go on with my conference planning.  I let out an audible sigh of relief.

Was I able to retrieve the information?  Did things go well?  Did I learn my lesson?  I will answer those questions next week.