Almost Lost It - Windows Hijacked My PC

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RoadtripsAndCampfires

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You will see a sudden flurry of my putting up videos - I almost lost all of it.  That's point 1.  Point 2 is someday I should blog about my metaphysical journey of getting them back.  We'll only talk about point 1 here.

For over a day and hundreds (it felt like hundreds) of attempts to log into my PC where all my Google stuff is, all my documents and programs I actually use are stored as well as all my photos and videos and music files are stored there.  It would not take my password.

I've noticed an increase in blantant in your face "come to Windows and Bing, etc." coming into my PC over the past six months. Finally Windows got tired of me ignoring them and cut me off from my other sign in, which by the way is an Administrative Account.  Wow, you should see the videos telling you how to fix that - there was a time a long, long time ago when I would have followed those insructions and almost confidently gone into my operating system files and D partitions and changed things as I was told to but those days have long ago sailed past me.  I now defer to others having never kept up with the fast pace of being anything close to a techie.  (A company once ordered $40,000 worth of computer equipment based on my written recommendation and more and now I have to search online to see what's current and what are the reviews.  I'm still learning to work my smart phone!)

Long story short here I got back in and thus I bought a 4 Tbite Seagate storage disc (portable) AND ALL MY FILES WERE COPIED OVER.  I WENT TO BED AT 4 a.m. after finally getting into my account (Point 2) about 9 p.m. earlier the night before.  I had some things backed up on flash drives but no where near what should have, especially all the filming I did when we worked on the trailer build since April!  Thus it's time to perfect the video editing and then get that up and the videos removed from my pc.

I will from now on be diligent about my backups.
 
I do photography. The number one rule is to backup your important stuff to more than one place. I have online storage and backup hard drives.

Am I good at remembering? No. But thanks to you I will go back it all up today. We all need reminders sometimes. I feel your pain, technology is frustrating.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Backups must be as close to automatic as possible or they don't get done.

Offsite media rotation is critical.

Do not rely on cloud services - for sharing and convenient "belt and suspenders" duplicates only.

And finally, every quarter or at least twice a year, low-level format and test-restore, or borrow a wiped PC, whatever it takes, real life simulation of a major theft or fire destroying everything.

And this may be separate from the rotating daily-weekly-monthly archives to protect from silent corruption or damage done by the nut behind the wheel.

And all with non-Microsoft software, preferably FOSS stuff that will be supported for decades by an active community.
 
With the low price of external drives and the high capacities of little flash drives, there really is no reason to have important stuff on anything connected to the interweb. As far as cloud storage goes, just ask the celebs whose naked 'encounters' ended up in public!

Maybe Mick Jagger was actually 'way ahead of the curve' back in 1967:



[video=youtube]
 
To All said:
Back up often, multiple and store more than one spot.

Yes, we all know all that.  We bought new trailer in April and have been so busy trying to convert it and video it and keep up with housework and work.  I sprained my hands, both after having to remove a tiled floor with dried adhesive using an oscillating tool.  Had 2 main line basement floods resulting in bringing almost the entire basement storage upstairs resulting in difficulty moving around in here.  All's well - got it all sorted and now basement is ready for the move.  Have all garage sale items sorted and in one of 2 spots deptending upon size.

So none of the trailer build videos were saved outside the pc until the other night.  There would have been no way to recreate a lot of it and we really wanted people to see how to do their own should they want to.

Today's a better and wiser day.
 
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