Last night I got a call from a good friend of mine who sounded frantic on the other end. She explained to me that the computer she uses every day in her college courses started making this strange noise. There was a constant “clicking” sound coming from her hard drive every time the unit would boot up. The computer would not even make it to the home screen. Being experienced with computers and computer problems, I knew exactly what the problem was: a damaged hard drive. An inexpensive fix, but priceless files, such as her school documents, photos and music collections were lost.
When just a hard drive is broken, the computer itself is okay. The monitor, processor, RAM, all operate, but if a hard drive is damaged, the computer will not load because of the lack of an effective operating system. A hard drive can be replaced, and your computer’s original supplied restore disc will allow you to upload an operating system; unfortunately once it’s damaged, more often than not, all the information you saved on it cannot be retrieved.
The best advice I can give anyone who actively uses their computer, is to back up your documents and files. This can be done as many times as you want and you can use standard CD-Rs, or DVD-Rs, but if you really want to be secure I recommend LaCie’s Rugged external hard drive. It plugs in easily via USB, has a huge internal memory of 500 GB and can travel with you wherever you go. This is an inexpensive investment that will save you not only time, but any grief from losing any valuable files that can never be restored.
-Chad Taylor
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