When my laptop’s battery dies, it doesn’t give a polite, C-3PO-like, “Pardon me, sir, but I seem to be out of power and will be shutting down now.” Instead, it commits sudden, silent suicide. “Screw you, meatbag! I’m out of here!” More than once, I’ve dived towards the computer, power cable in hand, only to have the screen go black just as I reach it.
Fine. These things happen. I plug it in, power it up, ignore its whiny “Windows wasn’t shut down properly” message (“And who’s fault is that, you stupid computer?”) and get on with my life.
But Friday morning, it didn’t come back.
Oh, the computer said it was starting Windows. But what it actually started was a black screen with a mouse cursor on it. Not so much “Windows” as a single window open to the infinite void.
I spent the weekend trying to fix the problem, but eventually realized my worst fear: I’d have to nuke the hard drive entirely and reinstall everything from scratch. It was at this point that I realized what a debt I owed my buddy and ace game designer Kevin Wilson. For it was at his insistence, some two years ago, that I signed up for the Carbonite remote back-up service.
“This is your livelihood,” he’d said. “Your files are your business. Without them, you’ve got nothing. You don’t want to screw around with this.”
He was right, of course. He’s still right. And it was because I followed his advice that, while this ordeal has been frustrating, it hasn’t led to gnashing of teeth, the rending of garments, or the desperate act of taking the laptop to a repair shop.
Back up your data, folks! The life you save may be your own!
