Monday, January 07, 2008

Geek Squad: Merci

My computer was acting strange. It all began about five weeks ago. I kept it together by not doing too much. I even brought the thing to New York for two weeks and got by. I came back to Los Angeles, tried to get an expired Norton off my hard drive. It became more and more impossible. Corruption. Freezing. A non-moving cursor. Restore points would not restore. In effect, my machine was toasty fried.

Usually, I soldier on and figure it out, but it was clear, this was impossible to fix. I zipped over to Best Buy and dropped the thing in the far back corner of The Geek Squad. I think they might even be a franchise within Best Buy. Whatever the structure, I was perfectly taken care of. For $59, they diagnosed my machine in twenty-four hours: Dead Hard Drive. (They do die, you know), and within another twenty-six hours and $270, I had a completely restored computer with a new hard drive inside (more than three times the size of my old one) with XP, Office and QuickBooks installed and updated and by the end of today, I am up and running as if almost nothing happened. And my computer is super zippy.

This is a positive end to a sad tale. However, it was only positive because I had everything backed up, almost to the day. Friends, back up your boxes. I had an iMac that actually melted four years ago, and now this. About every four years, with heavy computer use, something will happen. Back up, back up, back up. You must.

Computers are like cell phones. Completely disposable. Keep your data safe. That’s all I’m saying.

1 comment:

Rebecca Waring said...

I just upgraded from a computer I had for almost 10 years. I'm not kidding. I never had a problem with it and I use it everyday. I guess I'm lucky. I do back up though.