This morning, when I booted my company laptop (which I use every day at work), an I/O error appeared on the computer screen. Not exactly what I wanted to see on a Thursday morning. Being slightly technically savvy, I did what every IT person would do, I rebooted my computer. Unfortunately, a reboot didn't solve the problem, so I called (and e-mailed because I couldn't wait for a return call...I am not very patient) our company computer support, Joey. Joey asked me to bring my computer to the Nimitz office for diagnosis. I explained the situation to my client, who was very understanding, and left work.
Joey tried a couple different things: putting the hard drive in a different computer (didn't work), putting a new hard drive into mine (worked), and then viewing the hard drive on his computer (didn't work), so we determined the hard drive was bad. Having a corrupt hard drive is very bad news because without access to the drive, the data could be lost (recreating some of the data could prove difficult). I back up my files every month, so I wouldn't be starting from scratch, but having to recreate anything is not fun. Joey asked for a couple hours to run some diagnostic tests, so I left for Soupplantation for lunch with my coworkers. During lunch, Joey called with more bad news: he was completing the last diagnostic test, but so far the hard drive had failed them all...it was not looking good for data retrieval.
About an hour later, Joey called again, but this time with good news...he could see my file structure, but he needed my password and a thumb drive to get any data off the computer. I gave him my password and drove over to Fry's to pick up a large (32GB) hard drive. Joey was able to get all my data (including e-mails) off the drive :) and set me up with a temporary laptop. My new computer hard drive should be in Monday or Tuesday, so I should be fully running again by the middle of next week. I am so thankful all the data was retrievable. Number ONE lesson: Back up your files weekly, so if your computer crashes, you'll only have to recreate a couple days.
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