Calling the IT Department Redux! Or, lessons learned from revisiting the Dark Ages!

Yes folks, it has been a trying week here at Chez Moi, otherwise known as Sonoma Freelance.

And an illuminating one, as I've had a chance to see upclose and unpleasantly personal just how well all my business data backup efforts are working! (The answer is, pretty well, fortunately!)

In the middle of last week, I thought things were going along swimmingly. I was busily working and writing and playing away as usual (picture me skipping through meadows vineyards singing tralala) when all of a sudden I needed to reboot my laptop late in the day . . . .

And it wouldn't reboot.

Or not normally, anyway. I couldn't figure out exactly what was wrong or why, but even with my rather limited amount of Geekness, I realized I had a problem with Windows, or with my registry, or both.

[Mac users, put your hands down! Just stop it. No Gloating!!!

Do I need this????]

By morning the situation was worse, so I gathered up all my recovery disks (you do have recovery disks don't you?) and headed off to the computer repair store.

I was Laptop-less for 3 days. Three. Full. Days.

Interesting to experience just how reliant I am on my laptop not just for working, which is obvious, but for amusement. Entertainment. Use of time. I thought it was tough being without cable when I first cut it loose - that was nothing, I realize, compared to the restlessness, the fidgeting I experienced for three full days/evenings without that computer! What to do with myself????

Well, I cooked. I cleaned. I read! I got so much reading done - I mean books, not just my RSS feed and on-line newspapers! That part was cool, actually.

The short version is,  they backed up my data (onto my own external hard drive), and rebuilt Windows, and popped my backup data into a folder on my desktop, and handed a sortof unrecognizable, straight-from-the-factory laptop back to me. Which is where the real nightmare began, because I had to embark upon the mind-numbingly tedious task of reinstalling all my software, reorganizing all my files, and basically putting things back as they were - and I'm still not done.

However, I gained some insights about what works and what doesn't in this technological aspect of my personal and business life, and that's what I'll share with you here.

• The very good news is that my backup systems work! I didn't loose any important business or personal data! Most crucial files, including music and photos, were of course captured on my hard drive backup. (That not all were is an anomaly I can't explain, since I didn't perform that backup, but I'll take steps to fix that in all future backups.) And since all my work related materials back up constantly in real time to SugarSync, they were all there waiting for me when I re-synched. Yea!
• More good news is that even while my computer systems were down, I was still able to answer emails and remain connected with clients, colleagues, business contacts and friends (and even a few Tweeps!) via my phone - thank god for my trusty Droid!
• The bad news is that re-downloading large software programs took forever, and it seemed that my internet connection selected those two days to be particularly slow. Or perhaps that's just my paranoia at work. Anyway, I took the opportunity to order disks of some of that software so that if, heaven forfend, this ever happens again, I can just re-install from the disks.
• I also realized that I need to better familiarize myself with my external backup system. Restoring from SugarSync was pretty seamless - perhaps because I work with it a lot more, but restoring data from the external drive had a few kinks. Nothing devastating mind you, but just not as streamlined as I'd like, so I want to address that and establish a better protocol, so I'm armed for future tech glitches.

And of course, I'm still not back to normal. I still have software to re-install, and my music library isn't back yet, and files are still in weird places on my hard drive and I need to clean that up. But I'm functional. I did triage, and restored the systems I needed most urgently for my business, my client work and my writing projects. The rest I'll keep chipping away at.

So. How was your week?