Operating System Backup: Case Study

Have you ever met this certain type of person who is obsessed with improving things? I am going to tell you about this friend of mine who is a perfectionist and a total geek especially when it comes to computers. He bought his first PC at the age of 15 and he’s never quite abandoned it ever since. Now he is 25 and his head is filled with all sorts of computer knowledge to the extent where his brain is almost incapable of processing it, but even now he is not quite satisfied with what he’s got.

Anyway, he’s obsessed with improving his computer performance and he devotes his entire time to finding new ways and tricks to boost the system performance and extend the capabilities of his machine. He collects and stores every single piece of software that can help him achieve better results at the lowest cost. Once he was experimenting with the system folder trying to introduce some changes to it, which he said would make the programs on his computer run faster. I don’t know exactly what he was doing but it looked like he was going to replace some system files.

After an hour or so of scrupulous work, he sighed with relieve and claimed his work was done. “All I need to do now is to reboot the computer and start it with the new settings so it can work so much faster than it used to,” he told me in his high-pitched voice.

I was still having doubts about the whole improvement thing, but he was so positive that I felt infected with his enthusiasm. And so he restarted his computer and we waited for the system to reboot. But it never did. It turned out the guy had deleted some vital system file and corrupted a bunch of other files on his computer that obviously could not be repaired.

There was an expression of deep frustration on his face; in fact he looked so hurt and desolate that I thought he would throw a fit or something. I tried to sooth him with a kind word, but it didn’t work out and so I said, “Look, why didn’t you back up the system folder before you changed it?” “What!” he cried out, “I am such a fool.” “About a month ago I tried out this new backup software that I found on the Web. I backed up everything, but the system folder!”

After saying this, my poor friend looked even more disappointed. That was such a lesson to learn, and I thought that I’d back up my entire machine first thing I come home.