How to Survive an Operating System Crash

"We apologize for the inconvenience, but Windows could not be accessed or located."

It happens to the best of us. A complete operating system failure. One day you might turn on your p.c. and that dreadful message is on your screen as plain as day. You don't know what you could have possibly done, as your computer was working fine just a little while ago.

Panic is usually the first thing to set in. Something like an operating system failure can literally put home business owners out of business indefinitely. The cost and time involved in trying to repair a p.c. and the months or even years of lost information is overwhelming and frightening to think about.

This doesn't have to happen to you if you are prepared.

When you think about it, our businesses are at the mercy of technology. The technology is only as good as long as it's working properly. What a wonderful world we would live in if technology were flawless.

The reality is that systems fail. Computers are machines and machines sometimes break down. It doesn't get any simpler that than. We have no other choice than to be prepared for when those times come, especially IF we want to make sure our home business suffers very little down time.

There are some very easy things you can do right now to make ensure your peace of mind for your business. You need to be back up and running as quickly as possible in the event of an operating system crash.

1. Document everything including usernames, passwords, merchant account numbers, important websites and especially software unlock codes. Anything that is not written down on paper is subject to be lost.

2. Back up your hard-drive as necessary for how often you have new updates that you cannot afford to lose or rebuild.

** Important! If you have to completely reinstall your operating system, the "My Documents" folder is usually lost. Make sure you don't forget this folder when you do the back up.

3. Make sure all of your .exe, zip and software install files are on a disk. This is easily done by backing them up or burning them onto a CD. You should already have the system restoration and any other store-bought software disks handy.

The actual repair or reinstall of your operating system may simple or it may be complicated. If you are well versed in this area, you may be able to restore the system yourself. If you're like most of us, you may have to call a computer repair professional.

When your p.c. is restored, you will be able to simply reinstall your software and documents files from the disks you created. If you have access to a secondary p.c., you can install your programs on the backup computer in the interim.

Regardless, you will rest much easier knowing that you have taken some basic steps necessary to prepare yourself and protect your business.

This very same scenario happened to me just recently. It could have been a disaster for my business, but it wasn't. I was prepared and was back up and running within 24 hours.

Don't wait until it's too late.

To Your Success!

Patty Gale

Patty Gale is a successful entrepreneur who specializes in personalization and customer care for all her clients. She exchanged her suits, hose and heels for working at home in her "jammies" and is on a mission to empower other women to do the same.

She can be reached at http://www.Home-Office-Recovery-Plan.com

---

Avoiding Hard Disk Data Recovery Services

As a home computer owner, one of the greatest threats to your information and to your wallet, is hard disk failure. When your drive crashes, you will quicky realize how valuable the information... Read More

How To Limit Hard Drive Data Recovery Costs

With the value on information rising day by day, one of the greatest threats to businesses of any size is data loss. If the data centers in your business have ever experienced a... Read More

Data Backups ? One Key to Business Survival

Your customer data is a precious resource that can literally be worth its weight in gold! If used properly, it can be mined over and over for additional sales and referrals. Do you... Read More

Data Backup for Beginners

It's 10pm. Do you know where your data is?Data. Small bits of information clustered together to make Word files, documents,pictures, MP3s, HTML etc. We work on our computers every single day never sparing... Read More

5 RAID Data Recovery Prevention Tips

If you have spent the time to increase your computer's performance by setting up a hardware RAID array, you owe it to yourself to invest a little extra time and effort in maintaining... Read More

Offsite Data Backup Not Just for Fortune 500 Companies Anymore

In today's high paced digital world there is a very high value placed on information. Not just the kind of information you read in the newspaper or your favorite trade journals, but the... Read More

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery - Risk Analysis and Control

In the risk evaluation phase, there are a number of key areas that must be covered. One of the most important is to understand probable threats. In an ideal world, which most of... Read More

Are The Words Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning Rolling Off Your Lips?

It might be more fun to talk about those free online business cards that are saving the company money, or those nifty designer business checks that are helping to solidif your branding efforts... Read More

Bill Gates Made Data Recovery Easy

Bill gates provided a ready made option in Microsoft windows, which is very useful for data recovery.Several time we make mistakes unknowingly and we lost our data, then we need to recover the... Read More

Data Backup Solution: Why You Need a Backup Plan in Place ? Part 1

Is a data backup solution part of your computer plans? Do you have a way to protect yourself if something goes wrong with your computer or data? Computers are a useful part of... Read More

3 Ways Computers Can Hurt Your Ministry - Part 1 - Ineffective Data Backups

Our computers have become almost indispensable ministry tools. What would you do if the worst happened and you had to function without your computers? Would your ministry survive?This article is the first in... Read More

Do You Have The One Key Ingredient Necessary For Disaster Recovery?

It is not rocket science, we all know that we should have a disaster recovery plan in place for our business regardless of its size. When disaster strikes, it seldom discriminates on the... Read More

Online Data Backups for Newbies

How long have you been doing business online? Whether you are new or an old timer you need to understand the one important truth of the e-world. That being that the largest threat... Read More

Data Recovery Processes

Six months ago my computer crashed. When I turned my computer on it would not load Windows XP and so I could not get into my two hard drive files. As an author... Read More

The Seven Golden Rules Of Data Backups

Backups of company data are carried out for two main reasons. The first is to cater for those times when a document is inadvertently deleted or damaged and you wish to recover the... Read More

Hard Drive Crash? The Essential Data Recovery Report

Your worst nightmare just became a horrifying reality. You keep hearing that little voice in your head mockingly shout "you should have backed that stuff up" The voice keeps echoing throughout your head... Read More

Computer Data Recovery Options

Losing files on your computer can be a frightening experience if the files are of importance to you personally or professionally. Computer data recovery techniques include the most simple of operations, like simply... Read More

Protect Yourself Before Your Hard Drive Crashes

Almost everyone who has used a computer has experienced a hard drive problem at some point. Are you prepared to lose your data? If your hard drive crashes right now, do you have... Read More

Backing Up Personal Computers

Backup on business computers is typically not the user's concern unless it's a small business. A business should have a policy in place for managing backups especially due to Sarbanes - Oxyley.Four options... Read More

Backup 101 - How To Pick The Right Backup Software

Vision Backup http://www.deprice.com/visionbackupenterprise.htmVision Backup 10 Enterprise is an advanced and easy-to-use backup solution, designed for scheduled backup of your mission critical data. Supported media's include CD-R/CD-RW/DVD-R/DVD-RW, FTP/SFTP/FTPS, Tape, Flash Devices and USB Hard... Read More

I Lost It! Simple Guide To Recovering Corrupted Images And Files

WinUndelete http://www.deprice.com/winundelete.htmWinUndelete? is an easy to use undelete software utility to recover deleted files from hard drives, floppy disks, zip drives, USB external flash drives, digital camera cards, and more. Its unique and... Read More

Backup Schmackup: Im Afraid, Very Afraid!

"Why should you be afraid?", I can hear you ask.I just got an email from my friend Miche who said,"My laptop is sick at the hospital. Hard Drive failure. Am praying data can... Read More

The Importance Of Email Backup

Viruses, software failures, power failures, human errors, hard drive failures are only a few examples of what could destroy the data on a hard drive, including all documents, pictures, emails and other files!Most... Read More

How to Survive an Operating System Crash

"We apologize for the inconvenience, but Windows could not be accessed or located."It happens to the best of us. A complete operating system failure. One day you might turn on your p.c. and... Read More

Data Recovery The Easy Way

If you aren't prepared in advance, you will most likely have to use a data recovery service or data recovery software solution to help get back as much as you can of what... Read More

Comparing Data Recovery Software

Software programmers recognize the importance of data files, and thankfully, they have been able to create products that demonstrate their understanding of how often people accidentally delete or lose important data. Thanks to... Read More

Data Recovery - You Can Get It Back!

Data recovery is a process whereby you can save data and files you accidentally deleted, had eaten by malicious software or viruses, hardware failures, corporate espionage and many more scenarios. Most people believe... Read More

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery - A Business Not a Technology Issue

Hackers, hurricanes, fires, flooding, power outages, denial of service attacks, application failures, employee error, sabotage and now terrorism are helping companies to focus on the necessity of a business continuity plan.Through the late... Read More

Do I Really Need To Backup?

Okay, computers a machine, right? Okay, maybe not yours. You have this special relationship, but that a subject for another article. Machines break. Software gets fouled up. People make errors. These things happen,... Read More