When Disaster Strikes.... and why you always need a back up

Because my husband is a computer geek, guru, professional and more, I always have an able pro at my side when I have a disaster such as the one I had yesterday.

First of all he had convinced me to get a new extra external drive for back ups with loads of GBs.  I am glad he insisted.  Most of the time I remember to back up what I need as I work on a book or project.  I don't use automatic back up because I create so much in a day it would overload the external too quickly. I kinda like to pick and choose and try not to duplicate too much.

Yesterday was a lesson in being too lazy to do the normal back up.  Here's a clue...back up everything you think you will need before you do any UPDATES that your computer insists you need.

I was in the UPDATE mode when the computer told me to restart.  When I did, however, the computer would not start up. I did all the fixes that the Mac manual and professionals suggested and still ... nada.

When my husband started hearing the constant "chimes" from my mac as I tried all the book solutions and called my mac computer people... he came into the studio and began his magic.  He also asked why I didn't call on him first.  (Well that one was easy...he was repainting our guest bathroom.)

He was able to restart everything but he had to reinstall the operating system from scratch.  Here is the main reason for a substantial back up.... sometimes when you have to re install the OS on a mac you might lose all the data on your hard drive.  In this case my accomplished "geek in residence" was able to restore the OS without losing a bit of my work.  Had the work disappeared I would have lost the final images, the PDF and all the CMYK conversions I had just finished for a new book.

What did I learn.  Two things.
 1.) Back up is essential.  AND....
 2.) If you have an expert in the house, don't be afraid to ask for his help first.