The encroaching weather this time of year always puts me in a disaster recovery mindset. I’ve got charcoal and gas for cookery, jugs of water reserve if power to the well pump goes out, a pantry full of beans and rice, candles galore, and an ever rotating stack of good books. I’m good for two weeks worst case in a serious blizzard. I’ve actually come to enjoy getting snowed in after my time on the mountainside but only because I’m prepared for winter’s onslaught.
If you’re like me you have a flock of computers and similar devices that are your connection to the world, work space, and entertainment fountain all rolled into one. Years ago I invested in a small battery backup (around $100) that keeps me running for up to an hour as needed to close down my PC properly, make a few calls (since it keeps the relatively low power router operating for several hours), and as long as it’s not completely depleted can recharge my battery-fuelled devices several times. Someday I’ll be able to afford a whole house battery system powered by the sun, wind, and creek but until I get to that state of electric nirvana, this little gizmo saves at least part of the day when the power goes out.
A drastically cheaper way however to spare you considerable misery employs USB ‘stick’ drives * that have become too small to be useful otherwise in the ever-increasing data demands of daily life. Quite a few have accumulated around my desk naturally like leaves falling from an electronic tree. Herein lies an ounce of prevention for which you’ll thank me someday. If not sooner, later, and probably at the worst possible moment. Namely after a computer crash.
* For those of you obsessed with handheld gizmos (tablets, mobiles, etc.), these same principles apply but the actual hardware used to get you back on your feet will vary. A spare microSD card loaded with whatever your phone needs to work and some critical apps will come in handy just when you need it.
When you have a catastrophic failure, you get caught in a catch-22 where you can’t download what you need to recover until… you’ve downloaded what you need to recover. Think through your particular setup and include anything required to get your modem/router working again. And the software you use for dialing out to the world. After that when I have extra space I load up treasured personal photos of Mum and the cats that couldn’t be replaced at any cost – a thousand photos will fit in the space of one movie. As a confirmed nerd I of course have full ‘cold storage’ backups of all my media. You should too when possible because hard drives WILL die but extra copies of photos are so small it never hurts to pepper that data about in several places. For that matter, put one in your car or at a friend’s house. Mail them to trusted friends across the country to keep for you in case a real disaster like a house fire or hurricane strikes.
USB stick drive sizes have kept pace with data demands over the years where now anything smaller than 8 GB is laughable for most normal daily use. Yet you can still get a selection of obsoletely small examples from the dollar store for (literally) pennies. Just recently I just saw a three-pack of the useful little devils (2 GB each) for a buck since no one really wants them that tiny any longer. Ebay is similarly well stocked and if you have the time to wait on China, I think they’re even cheaper in an interesting variety of day-glow colours. Possibly in the shape of a wedge of cheese or Hello Kitty. Yes, I’ve actually seen both of these examples and countless others.
Those I’ve managed to pile up in the 1-4 GB range over the years are put them to good use by making some ’emergency’ sticks. It might not be big enough to hold a series of Bake Off, Grand Designs, or your favourite Terry Pratchett movie but it can easily handle a clean copy of your browser software (e.g. Firefox), a few software tools, some hard drive recovery algorithms, and (most importantly) a fresh copy of a known working BIOS for your motherboard and the software to install it. For the non-geeks of the world that’s the tiny bit of software that your hardware requires to run. Right as you push the power button before any operating system even loads. It’s very machine specific and not something you can easily find at the local corner store in a pinch. Without that critical link when it gets corrupted or otherwise goes wonky – thanks to a power failure spike at precisely the wrong moment or a motherboard battery failure as examples – you’re staring at the brick that is your computer or laptop. To keep mine exactly where I need, when I need, I zip-tie them to the chassis of each computer they match. Update them annually if you desire but really if they get you back to a working state where you can download newer, it doesn’t matter how old they are and you probably never need touch them again until disaster happens. Which it will when you really (really) don’t need it.
The point of me reminding you of this now is that it’ll be too late if you think of it *after* you’ve had the crash. A trip to the repair shop or geeks-for-hire are a lot more expensive and seriously inconvenient since you know your next crash will come at just the wrong moment. Like a holiday weekend where you’ll be stuck for days with (gasp) an old-fashioned book. Ok, so maybe that’s not such a horrible fate but speaking from experience, you’ll be glad you took the time to do this today.
And change the batteries in your smoke detector while you’re at it you slackers.
