Echoes of Harrison MacLeod’s recent posts on the Men with Pens blog about the sudden desertion of his external hard drive wafted through my mind Saturday afternoon. Harry’s experiences with recovering his data make for sympathetic reading…a wake up call for all of us. Here’s another one:
A week before the launch of a new internet business, I’m working hard on Saturday morning. Articles are coming at a good clip. Save one, start another, keep moving. “This is great!” I thought to myself. “I’ll be back on schedule in no time!”
Enter a text message from one of my photographers asking if I had reviewed the photos he sent. I replied quickly that I didn’t have the software to open the file. Did he know of a free version for viewing? I was promptly provided with a URL and opened up Foxfire.
The download didn’t work. I saved it, but the file wouldn’t open, nor would it open the file the photographer sent. Still wrapped up in production, I shrugged my shoulders and put in on my list for later that afternoon.
Ten minutes later, while trying to load a document in Adobe Reader, I had an inkling. Five minutes after that, my heart dropped to my knees and my face went pale.
I had a bug.
Or rather my computer did. I would be happy, thrilled even, if it was a run of the mill stomach virus, but no. For those of you experienced with the frustration of malware taking over your computer, can I have a sympathetic hug?
Of course, I scrambled for my anti-virus software, only to discover it had expired and would not cooperate. Reluctant to continue on line or opening files of any kind, I tried the home remedies. I had just begun to scan my internal hard drive with my back up plan when I received a phone call from my business advisor. I explained the problem with concern. My computer had been scheduled to attend a meeting with us that evening.
“Sounds like malware,” he said. “Bring it over and we’ll clean it up.”
I dutifully loaded up my life (computer people know what I mean; please, for the rest of you, don’t get offended) and drove to the meeting.
He immediately set to work putting my tower’s video on his laptop. No go. An hour later, we resorted to “borrowing” his wife’s monitor. Relief! We could not see my computer and start the process. At this point, I was kicking myself for not bringing my recovery disk. He laughed and said we shouldn’t need it. My mind kept going back to 2005 and the last time I had caught a bug. That nasty Trojan resulted in a formatted C drive. I had my software, but could I re-create all the writing I had done that morning?
Once we could talk to my computer, we located the file names (and one ominously blank line) in the applications list and he set about working his magic. Our meeting that evening was punctuated with soft (and not so soft) swear words and the transfer of a flash drive back and forth with scans and cleaning software. We gave up at 2 a.m. and I headed home alone. As he glanced at my woeful expression, he chuckled. “It’s just malware. We’ll get it.” It was a long night.
By the following afternoon, my computer was cleaned and backed up. Whew! It had taken him more than eight hours to complete the extermination and restore my registry. As I dug eagerly into my files, I was startled to find how much information I could have lost. I thought my backup plan was adequate, especially since I had begun using Google Document (“the cloud”) to store important articles for the web site. Only afterward did I realize just how much volume I had produced in a five day period. Roughly a third of it had been moved to the cloud. Not good enough.
While Harry and the Geek Squad reminded us how important back up systems (and redundancy!) are, let me remind you how important it is to keep your anti-virus software up to date and your subscription active. Always verify what you are attempting to download. I had recently loaded quite a few plug ins and widgets, so had become subtly used to the “unsigned” notice my computer gave me when I downloaded the bug. And one more thing…excellent and redundant back up systems can’t do their job if you don’t back up often. In my case, I should have moved every document to the cloud as it was completed or stopped every hour or two to back up. I did not and nearly paid dearly for that mistake.
Harry’s loss was far greater than my potential loss professionally, though we both stood to lose irreplaceable items such as photos and personal records (Harry did). If you’re in a commiserating state of mind, Harry’s posts on his recent experiences can be found at http://menwithpens.ca/.
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