Backup, backup, backup!

Today is the day I really realize the importance of backing up.
Perhaps it was when I switched over to Mac OSX that I started to lose worry over personal computer errors, since it was claimed the OS is extremely stable. Regardless of whatever system you’re using, backing up is so important that if you have the chance — do it.

Take my situation: I have two assignments due in 2 days which were only saved on my laptop. Also, EVERYTHING is on my laptop, bookmarks, emails, addresses, phone numbers…data so important which we take for granted and don’t realize how important it is until you lose it. I also nearly lost some of my purchased tracks from the iTunes store because of this little hard drive snag I ran into.

I’m not sure how this problem with my hard drive occurred, but I have a feeling that moving my laptop around the table to show my friends some information about an upcoming event while the hard disk was spinning had some role in it. In fact, shortly after, Safari kept crashing and I was unable to open applications, which then prompted me to restart my laptop and that was when it was never able to boot up again.

Then again, maybe my iBook just didn’t like the new sticker I put on it which found its way on my jeans at the IT Support Centre:

iBook P4

Thanks to a very informative post on backing up OSX over at 5ThirtyOne which I read a week ago and followed, I was very lucky to have a recent backup located on my external hard drive. I was then able to use the backup as a start-up disk and retrieve my assignments off my laptop’s hard drive.

Now for those running a PC, Norton Ghost is the best backup solution I’ve ever used for a PC. You’re also able to burn your backup onto DVDs or CDs so you can keep multiple snapshots.

Hopefully reading this will prompt you to look into a backup solution if you haven’t already. If you think that the few hours it takes to backup your hard drive is too long, think about the consequence if you don’t have a backup when your hard drive fails. You will have lost irreplaceable data and will waste enormous amounts of time trying to recover the way your computer worked before.