COLUMN: Don't take risks with your important files

Would you operate on your body? No, you go to a surgeon trained to do the procedure. Why? Because you don’t know what you are doing, and you know that the outcome will not be pretty if you do it. So, why try the DIY approach with a PC?

Sure, there are some people out there that know their way around a computer enough to reinstall Windows, add more RAM, etc. However, when it comes to retrieving lost data on a PC, it is not always straight forward and you can do more harm than good.

So, what do you do when you get a virus that encrypts your data and holds it for ransom?

Well, you certainly don’t pay to get it unlocked by the people that locked it in the first place.

We all know that. Your first thing to do should be to power off the computer and take it to a specialist. You have a much better chance of retrieving your data if you do so. Many people will tell you there is a great file retrieval program that they have downloaded in the

past and it has never failed them. Well, hooray for them! But when it comes to your precious photos of family and friends, your work documents, etc why leave it to chance?

Sometimes there is only one chance even a specialist gets to retrieve data. It is a very sensitive and tedious procedure. If someone tries to retrieve the data before they take it to the specialist, the chances that even the specialist can get the data back drop tremendously.

In an ideal world, we would all have several backups of everything and it would not be an issue. But we all know this is not how reality is.

In short, a friend of a friend of a friend is not always a friend when a computer is concerned.

We see it on a daily basis where people bring things into our store and the “friend” has tried to repair it for them. Not only is the original problem still there, most of the time they have made it worse or added even more problems. In some cases we could have gotten the customer back up and running and it would not have cost a penny. But due to a friend of a friend, it has now cost them a lot to get fixed and sometimes causes fall outs. So, when something goes wrong, seek a specialist.

Chips Computers

Brimington, Chesterfield