Blue Screen

A rather nasty failure commonly known as the Blue Screen of Death which we normally take as the computer is broken. Well yes and no so, what exactly is it?

Blue screen is an error that triggers when Windows encounters a system fault and thus saves and initiates an emergency shutdown to help save the computer as best as possible. It is important to remember that this fires after a piece of hardware fails or encounters an error. This is not an error fired generally by software as they have built in (and not always useful) options to inform Microsoft of the issue.

So what should we do when we get greeted with a blue screen error? Well, first of all....don't panic let the computer work through the error. Not all occasions of blue screen are fatal however, turning the system off by the mains will certainly kill the system off completely.

Although not all errors are fatal, they should be taken as a serious warning and that should be the point (if not already) backups should be made of your important files and folders in case the error repeats.

But, what if the computer fails to start again after blue screen? This is normally when a component has irreparably failed and replacement will be necessary. The awkward bit here is, we don't know exactly what has failed and so, many (myself included) have been known to assume that all data is irretrievable. Well not quite, only if the error was as a result of the hard drive failing will the data be irretrievable.

We can offer a free diagnostic to determine if any data can be recovered if this error has ever occurred with fatal results and, if recoverable, we can recover as well (see www.worleyitservices.com/Repairs/HDDRecover.aspx) for more info.

So for the best results, don't panic! Keep calm and restart and remember, help is at hand if it doesn't come back on.

Until next time

Ash

Back It Up!

A frequent problem that ties into our data recovery post from the other month, very commonly witnessed is the lack of backing up I see people do. Possibly the single most important (and certainly the most secure) way of protecting your data against all problems.

So, what are the best tips for backing up your data? Well to begin with, its important to know how much you want to back up. Remember, hard drives, pen drives and so on can only hold so much so make sure you know what you want to save and try to quantify it as accurately as possible.

There are a number of types of backups that can be made depending on the system you're using. Most computers and laptops these days have a function to back up the core operating system in some way shape or form in case a reboot is needed to prevent loss of data and settings. Or you can back up just selected files and folders (which is the absolute minimum that should be done).

If you are a tablet user, SD cards are the way to go to keep backed up and these can be quite reasonably priced (we will be looking at getting these in stock soon).

If you would like the reassurance that your backup has been/is being done correctly, we offer a data back up service at affordable rates, for more details visit: http://www.worleyitservices.com/Repairs/DataBackup.aspx

To cap it off we also offer backup restore services to find and restore your files from an existing backup. If you have had your data backed up with us, we can take 10% off the price: http://www.worleyitservices.com/Repairs/backuprestore.aspx

If you are looking for somewhere to back up to, we currently have a small stock of reconditioned hard drives which have been restored to factory defaults and all previous usage erased. Please see http://www.worleyitservices.com/Products for more details.

To summarise, make sure there is adequate backups in place to protect your data. These do not have to be company standards of several backups in case one fails and are very easy to set in place. Back ups are worth having at least every 6 months to prevent loss of changes etc.

Hope you find this useful.

ATB

Ash