We are in the electronic age whether we like it or not. Our life is controlled by electronic devices and we depend of them for everything – voice (or text) communication, finances, ordering pizza… you get the idea. So, when my laptop hinge broke I decided to take it in for repair before the problem got worse. That was August 12th. It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal – a couple of days in the repair shop and the back to normal. Well in reality it turned out that the Best Buy Geek Squad couldn’t repair the laptop on-site and the unit had to be sent to the Tennessee repair center. I ignored the feeling of my neck hairs getting prickly and the sinking feeling in your stomach that things are not quite right. I relinquished my computer.  

I got a comforting email a couple days later stating my laptop had been received and a technical has been assigned to repair. That was the last bit of information I got for 20 days! After calling the repair center (and getting placed in queue for 10 minutes) then cut off – I soon realized I was in trouble. The Driveline September issue was not going to get published any time soon.  

Then came the email stating that repair parts were not available for my 19-month old laptop and the unit would have to be scrapped. What??? Oh, since I had a service contract with the Geek Squad, I’d get a voucher for the value of the unit but that was all they could do. “What about my disk data” I asked. “Oh, you can have your personal backup reloaded onto your new unit by the local group” was the reply. Backup? What backup? I turned over my computer to repair a broken hinge, why would I need to create a backup? Fatal error.  

I’m not going to relate the anguish of what transpired over the next couple of weeks, but I can say today (September 29th at 12:30pm) I now have an external disk drive with my recovered data being downloaded to my new computer. 

Lessons learned – 1) Get a service contract for your expensive electronic equipment – repairs are not cheap and the electronics today seem to be made ’disposable’ vs repairable. 

2) Backup your data (at least) onto an external drive routinely and do not relinquish your equipment to anybody for any reason without confirming your backup is up-to-date. 

3) Download your passwords to some format that you can get quick access – thumb drive or paper if you must. With all the on-line ordering and paperless transactions, we routinely perform - they all need a username/password to gain access, if you resort to an alternate source to perform the query (i.e. your smartphone vs. your computer in the repair center) you’ll need the UN/PW to gain access.

In this electronic age computers, Smartphones, televisions are getting more sophisticated and expensive. We need to be smart and protect our investments or pay the price in money wasted and time lost. AMEN

~~ Victor L’Heureux—Driveline Editor