Struck by Lightening: The Importance of Backups and UPS

Categories: General, Offtopic

Well, Spokane's been having some thunder storms lately, and last week while I was gone my computer got zapped. I have my computer running on a fancy looking, old surge protector made by Newpoint. It's got a great green LED that tells you whether the power strip is "protected" or not. Well, apparently their version of protection is not akin to mine. Long story short the computer got a serious shock, wiped out my music recording NTSF partition, including all the songs I hadn't backed up, and currupted several Windows XP system files on my main hard disk. I ran the MS Memory Checker to make sure my ram was alright, and then ran chkdsk to see if there were any physical problems with the disk. Luckily there were no problems, however after trying multiple file recovery tools I was resigned to wipe the disk. The lesson here: invest in a decent UPS.

I was browsing Tiger Direct and this seems to be a decent UPS that's not to spendy. I think I'll end up getting this.
ULTRA 1000VA UPS. (And yes, that is an affiliate link, just to warn you. I figure I'm going to buy it anyway, might as well try to get a few dollars off the price.)