By Natalie Crofts
In a moment, Katie Barker lost everything she had been working on for months.
Barker, a freshman majoring in marriage, family and human development, had been putting together a DVD for her grandparents with hundreds of pictures, videos and music when she came home to find that her computer had crashed and everything on it was lost.
?You never know when you?re going to lose everything, and when you do it?s horrible and really hard to get back,? said Barker, who is from Littleton, Colo.
Barker is not alone in her experience. According to a recent survey conducted by Bradley Public Relations for Mozy.com 46 percent of BYU students have suffered data loss as a result of a computer crash.
Despite this problem, 68 percent of students reported that they back up information on their computer less than once a month or not at all, and of those who have suffered data loss 63 percent still do not back up their computer.
?It?s not something most of us think about,? said Devin Knighton of Mozy, an online data backup company. ?It?s like flossing your teeth. People don?t want to deal with it.?
David Meyer, a junior majoring in civil engineering, and his wife have recently lost information on their computers as a result of a crash.
?It?s unfortunate and happens more often than people realize,? said Meyer, who is from Tallahassee, Fla. ?People should back it up.?
Retrieving information from a computer after it crashes can be expensive. Barker spent around $1,500 before getting her project back, and recovery starts at $65 an hour at the Bookstore Repair Center.
There are different ways to prevent data loss. Students often use DVDs, external drives or other services to make a back-up copy of information stored on hard drives.
Sean Stanton, a junior from Honolulu, hasn?t suffered from a computer crash yet but keeps important information and pictures on another source.
?I have it on my hard drive and also on my flash drive,? said Stanton, an environmental science major. ?I figure that it?s pretty safe and I shouldn?t have to worry.?
It is often safer to store backup information in a separate location away from the computer, such as a parent?s house or on the Internet.
?If you just have an external hard drive it?s kind of like putting your PIN number on a post-it note and sticking it on your credit card,? Knighton said. ?If someone came and stole your laptop they?d take that too. You need to have somewhere secure to keep it.?
One alternative for students is Mozy.com, which automatically backs up all of the information to its Web site so that it can be downloaded back onto a computer after it has crashed. Students are offered 2 GB of storage for free and can subscribe to the full service for 20 percent off at five dollars a month. More information about their services can be found at mozy.com/byu.
njcrofts@gmail.com