Genealogy Chat

A good point that people should be aware of, Jonesey. We keep a copy of our Familytree Maker on cd plus another copy kept at our son's house just in case our house burns down. We may lose everything but we'll still have our family tree!

When I closed my computer down last night everything was fine. When I switched it on this morning... Zilch, Nothing, Nowt. My hard drive had failed completely.

Frustrating morning spent trying to coax it back to life but abject failure resulting in the purchase and installation of a new hard drive and the re-installation of my operating system and countless programmes.

Things could have been a lot worse however as only 2 weeks ago fearing that a 4 year old computer might not last forever I had purchased an external Hard drive and had made copies of all my files on to that. Had I not have done so all my family history lovingly crafted and recorded in Family Tree Maker and all my scanned wills, certificates, family bible entries, 1911 census records and old family photographs ect would have been lost.

I reckon that the £40 the external hard drive cost me will probably turn out to be the best £40 I will spend this year.

And the point of telling you this is to make everyone aware of the danger of having all your eggs in the same basket. Make sure that your important files are backed up somewhere other than on your computer. Be that on CD, DVD, Memory Stick or another Hard drive.