Despite all the precautions you have taken so far, your computer is letting you down … This is official: You no longer have access to your data! … Well now what do you? What strategy of fallback have you set up? … None?

I don’t want to frighten you, nor to paint the devil on the wall. But I guarantee that when it falls on you … it’s never at the good time …

Plan for the worst to live in peace

Why not decide today on a series of measures that you will have to put in place if necessary? Just take the time to put yourself in the situation, while there is no danger and ask you what you would do if your device was out of order, whether for a few hours or definitely.

To guide you in your reflection here are some questions:
  • How long can you stay without a device?
  • Can you borrow one the time to buy a new one or the time of the repair?
  • What programs or applications do you need?
  • How will you access your data?
  • How will you access your backup programs?
  • Do you have all the information you need to reprogram your devices?
  • Have you thought about saving your settings?And what about your webpages bookmark?
  • Etc.

Here is a real fallback strategy as an example

With my spouse we travel a lot.Here is the fallback strategy we have put in place in order to stay connected.

  1. We have selected the programs of first necessities to maintain imperatively updated.
    If unfortunately we had to reinstall the programs. We have a list ready and kept up to date.
  2. We have all our material in double.
    That means that we have two identical computers (in fact, we always have three computers with us), two identical mobile phones, two identical mouse-scanners … and above all with the same programs and the same configurations. So if there is a problem there is a second device to take over, the time to find a solution.
  3. Then we set an order of priority.
    Today, in case of worries, my spouse has the priority. His loss of earnings would be greater than mine. It also happens, on some trip, that priority is on my side.
  4. We each do backups of our data regularly, on a personal external hard drive, as well as on our cloud server in Switzerland.
    Data is our greatest treasure. Two backups are better than one. By having access to a copy of our data, we can deal with the most urgent by using the computer of a hotel or that of a cybercafé.
  5. On our travel, I always have with me a copy of our usual and specific software in executable format (.exe) such as, for example, Autocad, Adobe Photoshop, MS Office, Corel Draw etc.
    The access to our software in executable, will allow us in a few hours to reinstall all our programs (or at least the most important ones) as soon as a working computer is found and this, even if we had to buy a new one.
  6. I also have a detailed reinstallation procedure with a text file containing the steps of reinstallation with our basic settings, key to our software, passwords, backups of our internet favorites etc.
    So it only remains to follow what is written, without having to think about it.In conclusion, you now have enough to establish your own fallback strategy. I can only recommend that you do it now.Next time I will speak to you about a complementary solution, the one of making an ISO image of your computer.

(Photos : CC0 @ pexels.com)