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Protecting yourself from a laptop disaster - The Laptop Disaster Scenario

If you own a laptop computer and have had it for even just a month or two then the chances are that you would be quite upset, to put it mildly, if you lost it even if you managed to get a suitable replacement on the insurance, assuming you could do that.

Why might that be?

There are several reasons which I will deal with one at a time.

The irretrievable loss of your data is the most important on to consider.

Your data - some obvious examples.

Now you may think that you don't have any "data" so what's the big deal? Chances are that you almost certainly do have data and after a while this will have a greater and greater value to you although you may not realize it until you lose it. So perhaps it's worth mentioning what "data" is. Put simply it's all the files you have on your laptop that are neither your system nor your programs, so it includes any documents you have created, sound files such as music and other MP3s, video files that you have downloaded, photographs that you have captured with your digital camera and more.

If you are a creative person who uses a laptop for your work then it's even worse. Each word of each chapter of each book .... that's your data. Each movie you've spielberged, that's your data, each picture you edit in some imaging program... that's your data. The newsletter you produce for your local social group. Anything that you create or modify or just download and save - it's all data. The emails you've saved. Stuff people sent you by email. Data.

Each of these files (and many others) is data. And that is just a few examples to give you an idea that you almost certainly do have data on your laptop and much of that will have a significant value to you but you may have overlooked the fact due to the abstract nature of that data.

Note: I refer to data as an single item rather than it's strictly correct useage which is plural but which to my ear and reading sounds and looks awful, so I don't say things like "the data are" but "the data is" in the same way the government is and not the government are but the police are and not the police is. As far as your laptop is concerned is don't matter if it ain't got no data or it isn't not got no data and so it's 'data is' for the duration of this exercise.

Such data loss would be just part of the disaster however, there is worse.

Your data, less obvious examples

Program and system preferences, options, settings etc.

Your various option choices, personal preferences and a seemingly thousand and one other miscellaneous major and minor system and program settings that are made over a period. This too is your data.

Usernames and Passwords

Again, more data; have you carefully made a note them all - I mean on paper?

Bookmarks and Favourites

Then there are all your web browser (and other programs too) settings like your 'favourites' or 'bookmarked' web sites, blogs, forums and so on.

That's all data and more importantly, it's your data. Of little or no value at all? I think we both know that this data IS very valuable to you. You can now appreciate, if you hadn't already, that the loss of your data would be a disaster.

Your data is one category of the software on your laptop computer; there are two other categories.

One of these is the operating system, Windows, and the other is your programs and drivers.

Collectively this is your software.

The loss of your laptop would mean the loss of your software.

The laptop disaster scenario then is really the total and irrecoverable loss of your software and more particularly the most valuable part of your software which by now you understand is your data.

You can easily, if not inexpensively, replace your laptop with a new one and it will of course come with the Windows system already installed. So the loss of these two, laptop and system, is of less importance than the loss of your data which unless you have made provision for is going to be a disaster for you in all likelihood.

The good news is that this, your data, is the easiest to protect and I will explain how to do this shortly.

You can lose your laptop by literally losing it, leaving it on a train for example but of course it would be a loss to you also if it was stolen or written off due to an accident or by having the battery causing it to burst into flames - yes, this has happened! The end result is the same: the loss of your laptop and the consequent loss of the software it contains.

Other situations not involving such actual loss of your laptop can produce the same result.

One is a breakdown of the hard drive - they are very reliable but when they fail then it tends to happen without much warning and in a random and unexpected way when you least need or expect it to.

Another is the handiwork of malicious software, call it what you will, malware, scumware, soleware (as in R. soleware), there's plenty of it around that can wreak havoc with your system and hard drive if not your data too.

Then there are the simple blunders that we all make from time to time. Erroneously deleting a file or a whole folder of files can happen too. I've done it, more than once. If a child or a pet can access your keyboard and press at random then you are potentially just a couple of clicks away from having that disaster. Try selecting a group of unwanted folders, as a test for your own satisfaction and then press "Shift" and "Del" at the same time. Quick wasn't it and with just an "Ok" or "Enter" or the other "Enter" and before you can say "simple vanishing trick" it's gone. And, no, take a look see, it's not in the Recycle bin, is it. Now when I said to try that with an unwanted folder you can see why.

As you can see, the laptop disaster scenario is not a pleasant thought but we are about to embark on the ideal contingency plan which works for me and will work equally well for you too, so keep reading.

Suggested experiment.
If you are not sure whether it would be a nuisance if you had to start over with a fresh system or not then one way to establish this more clearly in your own mind is to carry out this very easy experiment. Go to Start, Control Panel, User Accounts and create a new account. Now shut down (restart) and choose that new account when the startup screen gives you the option to do so. Now spend a little time in this new world. Happy to be back there? Or not so happy? Try your web browser. Totally lost and feeling a little panicky at all? Relax, deep breaths, shutdown, restart, choose your usual account. Now you may like to leave that account for a little while just in case you need to go back there for a quick reminder of what it would mean if you lost your system and couldn't get it backu up and running again.

One of the decisions that has to be made is whether to protect your data and to a large extent your programs but not to bother with protecting your system, or, to protect everything including the system.

As you read on, bear that idea in mind because this will be a key question to ask yourself hence the little experiment just now. Protecting your data is the easier option but protecting all your software need not involve much more, as you will discover later.

Extra note: Am I wrong to prefer the 'data is' and dislike the 'data are'? Well, for all you 'data are' people may I suggest you be consistent and always say the 'memory are' and not the 'memory is' after all, memory, like data is always more than one bit or even one byte and each bit is memory as is each byte as is all kilo, mega, giga and tera bytes of memory too. No one says the 'memory are', never, ever and I dare you to do so and thus be consistent.

Next article: What you need to do

Main Contents Page for this series

By Paul E. Coughlin
SaneThinking.com
27 May 2008

You may like to know that there may be other articles, similar to this one, here, in this category:
Laptop Owners

If no earlier date is shown above then this page began life on 08.06.2008

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