Computer Crisis!

A few days ago, my laptop computer crashed! I was in the middle of creating a blog post when suddenly the screen went blank - and nothing would restore it! I tried to reboot it with my re-boot disks - nothing happened! I was devastated - not because I needed a computer (I could borrow my son's) - but because of all the photos I had stored on the computer that I would lose. I had intended to make copies and store them on a memory stick or CD, but I hadn't "found the time"! Suddenly the pictures I had stored on Picassa (copies of photos published on this blog) seemed very precious indeed!

What could I do?! After doing an online search on how to recover data from a dead computer, I discovered that hard drives can be removed from a computer and (assuming they aren't damaged) they can be put into a gizmo called a "hard drive enclosure" and used as an additional external hard drive. Why was I not aware of this?! I have three very old computers around the house, computers that still work, but ones I am reluctant to part with because I want a copy of the data stored in their hard drives. (Was there an enclosure out there that would hold all three hard drives?!! Maybe I need to take a course in assembling computers...)

I couldn't turn off the computer - in fact, I couldn't do anything to it, even though the screen was lit up and the light was on, indicating it was still turned on. I just let it sit... until I finally realized that if I removed the battery, the laptop would be forced to go off.

Just before leaving the house to consult with a Best Buy "Geek" about my best course of action, I decided to re-insert the battery and see what would happen. Amazingly... the computer started up again, just like normal!! (So my solution to computer crashes is remove battery, wait a while, re-insert battery - PRAY - and see what happens!)

Then I immediately left the house - without turning off the computer - and headed to the computer store to buy the biggest memory stick I could find - to create a back-up copy of all my photos. The rest of my day was spent copying them onto the memory stick! (Suddenly I had found the time!)