The Best Reminder

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Crazy Opossum Lady
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Dropbox/thumbdrive/upload your work every time you hit save.

My computer died (totally fried motherboard resulting from power-surge). Luckily, I had been dropboxing my work a lot. I only lost a week's worth of writing.
That could have been sooooo bad.
 

Reziac

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Very good reminder indeed.

Check the hard disk in a known-good machine before deciding it's dead... your files may well be intact.

Very often the hard drive will survive such abuse despite the motherboard getting cooked. I've also seen CPU and RAM and various cards survive when the motherboard was emitting sparks!!
 

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Yes indeed. They told me they might be able to remove the files, for a price. Luckily that wasn't necessary. ;)
 

Reziac

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Remember, computers run on smoke. If it gets out, they stop working. ;)

If the old HD is still in working order, you need only find an external case for it (you can get a very nice one for $25 or so), plug it in (normally these gadgets plug into a USB port) and use Windows Explorer to have your way with it, much as you would any USB device. And the external case can be used for other HDs in the future, too. (This is a cheap way to add external storage.)

If it's past the point of working at all, tho, that's when data recovery becomes a pricey proposition. :(
 

MatthewDBrammer

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I once lost all of my business's financial records (luckily, was a very young company at the time, so it was something we were able to kinda sweep under the rug [regrettably]). So, don't feel bad.

For the record, Dropbox is my best friend these days. :)