tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20873433.post-1138822897839730332006-02-01T19:38:00.000Z2006-02-01T19:41:37.846ZI once booted up my PC laptop and was confronted with the message “S32UTILL expected 28.0.0.181 not found”. The screen then went fetching shade of blue (a bit like the air) and Windows refused to load.<br /><br />A new piece of software installed the day before had corrupted the Windows files. It was like trying to drive a car without an engine.<br /><br />It is events like this that bring computer users out in a cold sweat. Four hours of fiddling, rebooting, trying to use Norton SystemWorks and generally cursing the machine brought me to the conclusion that I was generally stuffed.<br /><br />Now, before I go on, can you honestly put your hand on your heart and swear that you have back-ups of every single piece of data, every application, upgrade, email address and email message on your computer? No, neither did I!<br /><br />A quick restore from the supplied CDROM would have deleted all my data, but luckily the laptop came with the Windows installation software on its hard disk. Yours might too – look in “C:\windows\options\cabs” and see. Booting into DOS mode and three hours later it was back to normal, but I wasn’t.<br /><br />So what can you do to protect yourself when the above happens to you? And note it is “when” and not “if”. Firstly, make sure you have up-to-date back-ups of all your data. Secondly, make sure you can lay your hands on the install disks for every piece of applications software you use, including updater disks. If you run XP it might be worth trying System Restore if you get a problem, but if the hard drive fails, that's it.<br /><br />Lastly, make sure you have an up-to-date virus checker installed and use it.Steve Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03564402221894277279noreply@blogger.com