Computer Problems This Week...

There I was working on the new Hal & Al t-shirt design for the Concert in October and I stopped when I was done and did a little bit of labelling the info tags on some MP3's when my computer started acting a little weird. I thought it nothing and maybe it just needed to be refreshed so I cut the power off and then tried to reboot. Well, it came up to the Windows XP screen and just stopped like it hit a wall. I turned it off again and then tried to get it into 'Safe Mode' and that was no good either. I tried several things and couldn't get it going. They used to give you an installation disc when you got the computer but they didn't give me one with this model since it had a mirror image of it on the drive and didn't require an actual disc. Though I could have used one at the time. At any rate, I wasn't really panicking since I had everything backed up onto external hard drives. I have about 6 of them. I have one for all my art, one for all my Mp3 and audio files, and one for everything else. The other three drives are just back ups of the back ups. It may sound nuts but you have to in this day and age. I have my artistic life on the one drive and if I lost that I'd be screwed, so I have a second drive that is a copy of every file on it. All I was potentially about to lose was this t-shirt art! And I didn't really want to have to go back into it and recreate it all over again.

I took my tower to Computer Renaissance (whom I bought my laptop from a year ago) and they fixed it in a couple hours. I got the 48 hour rush service for it and it took from Wednesday at noon to Friday at noon to get it back. Right on time! They were backed up with a lot of work for both PC's and MAC's that had issues. I didn't find out what caused the issue as the tech guy who worked on it went on vacation after he fixed it. I'll have to call them next week and ask him what was exactly wrong with it. At any rate, I didn't lose any files, and it's back up and working great! As soon as it was powered up, I copied the two files I feared for right over to the externals.

For this post, I'd like to recommend this particular hard drive to anyone out there. I've had no issues with them as a brand and it's super easy to use! You can get a 500gb from Amazon.com for $75! Or you can get the 1 TB drive for $99! Here is the link to it and a product description!

Iomega 500gb External Hard Drive

The Iomega Prestige Desktop Hard Drive USB 2.0, 500GB provides a simple and affordable solution for all your storage needs. Ideal for adding capacity to your system, this stylish drive offers a sturdy aluminum construction and included stand. It's the easiest way to save photos, music, videos and more, in addition the Prestige Desktop Hard Drive is powered by an Energy Star qualified adapter for a better environment! Included free with your Iomega hard drive purchase, choose either EMC Retrospect Express or Retrospect Express HD for PC or Mac for easy file backup (software via download). Also included is free MozyHome Online Backup (2GB online capacity).