Intel may not be the only thing inside ...

Into every infrastructure a bit of disaster must fall... As a long time I.T. guy, I know this. Throughout the years I have dealt with all sorts and manners of data loss ranging from hardware failures to virus infestations. I have recovered hundreds of systems under a variety of circumstances ... Fortunately however, I have never had a domain crash. I have prepared for them. I know what to do ... I have backups of the backups with complete sets offsite. I have worked to Still, it is not an event any I.T. department wants to deal with.
The other day when I walked into work my AE informed the that the network was down. There had been a power outage and even though I have backup power supplies, it lasted for quite awhile. My first thought was: I will probably need to restart the server and all will be well. With a raised eye I entered the server room and almost immediately came to the conclusion that I was in for a very long day. The entire network was a goner. I will spare you the dreary details, but suffice to say I was really happy at midnight when I was finally able to go home since I had presumed that I would still be there when employees started showing up the next day ...
Due to running a good backup plan, SBAOR was able to recover 100% with no data loss. It did however, cost me one pizza and I owe my wife a pair of shoes as a sacrifical peace offering ...
While this particular instance turned out well, I have dealt with hundreds of people over the years that have brought their dead and dying computers and laptops to me. Some I could save, some were D.O.A. and nothing short of super expensive data recovery was of any use. My first question is always the same when a person brings their ailing computer to me.
"Do you have backups?"
Before the words leave their mouth I know the answer; "No, I know I should have ... and I was planning on it ... Is there any way you can save the pictures of ______________ (our baby, wedding, kids, parents, vacation to bali ...) they were priceless and the only copy. Oh, and what about Quicken? Oh yeah, I had like $3000 worth of songs and downloads..."
My answer is also generally the same; "I will do what I can."
Sometimes the recovery goes better than others. I am actually suprised how much I can save in some cases. When the client returns for their computer I remind them again to back up, and try to refrain from asking how the cheese whiz got in there in the first place ...
For those of you that don't back up because you are not sure how here is the very least you should do:
1. Go to your favorite electronics store.
2. Buy an external hard drive.
3. Plug it in.
4. Drag and drop your most important stuff into the new drive.
5. Unplug the new drive.
6. Put the new drive somewhere safe...
7. Repeat as necessary. (daily, weekly, monthly depending on how important your data is and how often you update it...)
8. Hope you never need it.