Computer Hoarder - No, Just Being Safe

I have a friend that I visited over the holidays. She asked me while I was there if I needed a flat screen monitor. I told her I would love one. She said their computer stopped working and instead of getting it fixed, she bought a new one.

She said she didn't know what was wrong with it but said I could have it and the printer they threw out. Her husband went out to the trash and brought in all the wires and the printer.

They had gotten an all wireless system and didn't want to deal with any of the old stuff.

I took the computer home and thought I would see if I could save any of her data. I spent a few hours vacuuming it out, problem solving to find out that some liquid had gotten on the contact for the keyboard. I cleaned it and replaced the keyboard and the computer worked just fine.

I told my friend the next morning and asked if she wanted it back. I told her if she would get a back up hard drive, I would back it up for her and her daughter could take it to school or something. She said she didn't want it back but today I got a call as her daughter had a paper on the computer that she needed. They had never gotten me the back up hard drive. So, today, I pulled the computer out, (It is in bins for Princess number 2 when she gets an apartment as she gave her laptop to Princess three for college.) and set it up. My friend dropped off a back up hard drive and she mentioned that she had three other computers stacked up in her storage room that had information on them that they wanted and I told her that the local recycling place will remove and destroy the hard drive on the computer while you watch so you don't have to worry about information getting stolen.

She came back later with the other three computers. I spent the entire evening backing them up. I thought it would be an easy project just plugging in the back up but the problem is that they are so old that they don't have the software needed to run the new back up drive with "Cloud" technology. It made the back up process tedious and lengthy but I am happy to say that my friend can now get rid of the three pc's that were stored in her storage room for ONE back up drive that is 1 terabyte in memory and is about the size of two decks of cards.

I organized it so she has all the pictures off all four of her computers right at the opening of the back up and the documents are saved by computer.

Princess five went to a church youth meeting where she made these beautiful cookies so we could each have one. She did a great job decorating them and they tasted great. You can see I had already taken a bite when I decided I should take a photo of the beautiful creations.

She had fun while I kept busy. Can't beat that.

I wonder how many people have several computers stacked in a storage spot because they don't want to have the information stolen. I have another friend that moved this week and she said they have a few stored for just that reason.

Perhaps I should start a back up business! I am glad I could help her and now I can clean off the computer for Princess 2 of all their docs and pictures. Princess Two is looking for work now that she is feeling better so she may be needing a place of her own soon.