You may have noticed I was quiet last week. \u00a0No posts. \u00a0No newsletter for those that are subscribed. (You should be one of those people. \u00a0Sign up on the right tool bar.) \u00a0It’s been a long week.<\/p>\n
I was noticing my computer was a little off the week before last and the fan was running all the time like I was downloading something crazy. \u00a0I knew everything wasn’t right with the world but I have an older computer and I was in denial. \u00a0It isn’t like a new computer is in the budget right now so I was just kind of hoping it lasted until \u00a0it might be in the budget. \u00a0About two weeks ago everything slowed down enough to remind me of my teenage days with dial-up. Since I had this tech support program from the Geek Squad with 2 computers left I figured it would be better to bring the thing in for a checkup before it blew up.<\/p>\n
I should have known. \u00a0My hard drive was dying.<\/p>\n
You see, this is my third hard drive in 3 or 4 years between 2 laptops. \u00a0That is not including the hard drives that came with the computer. It’s been an ongoing mess because I bought a crappy computer that died almost right away. \u00a0When Sony lost it (yes no one knows where it went), \u00a0Best Buy had given me another one because I complain loudly. \u00a0And this is the second hard drive I have had to replace in this computer. \u00a0So at this point I am getting good at the process.<\/p>\n
The most important thing I have learned is to backup your stuff!!! \u00a0I thought I was backing things up the first time with Norton but it turned out, no. \u00a0I lost lots of pictures that time and formed a deep hatred of Norton. \u00a0Last time I brought the hard drive in before it melted so they did a data transfer onto an external drive. \u00a0It was nice not to lose stuff but it’s kind of a process. \u00a0This time I knew I had just run a whole system backup on the external hard drive a few weeks ago so I should be fine. When I tried to restore everything at once my computer argued with me. \u00a0It’s a lovely way to spend your birthday.<\/p>\n
But this time I had been smart. \u00a0Like really smart. \u00a0So much so I am patting myself on the back as we speak. \u00a0Last summer I signed up for Carbonite. \u00a0I had read a lot of great reviews about it and heard a lot of the other bloggers used it. \u00a0 Carbonite is a service that backs up all the files (pictures, documents) and even your internet bookmarks and saves them in the cloud. \u00a0 It does it automatically, i.e. you can be lazy and it’s ok. \u00a0You can access the files online which can come in handy when you are out somewhere and forget something.<\/p>\n
This weekend Carbonite was put to the test. \u00a0I asked it to restore everything it had back to where it used to be. \u00a0It told me it would take about 3 days and to make sure to leave my computer on. \u00a0That was it.<\/p>\n
So yesterday afternoon it was done. \u00a0All my photos were back, and there are tons from all the furniture and the kid. \u00a0 He and Opie are pretty cute and I can’t help myself. \u00a0The files were all in the corrects folders with no need to rearrange. \u00a0There was a small glitch restoring my Chrome bookmarks (my fault I think) but the online chat fixed that. \u00a0The help desk logged on to my computer and fixed it right away. \u00a0For free.<\/p>\n
This isn’t a sponsored post and I’m not being paid to tell you all this. \u00a0I have just gone through this mess so many times and Carbonite made this whole process a breeze in comparison. \u00a0I figured I would share and maybe save someone else’s pictures.<\/p>\n
If you are interested in Carbonite click this referral link<\/a> and when you sign up we can both get a $20 gift card<\/strong> to a list of stores (I think Amazon & Target are on the list).<\/p>\n