That one customer who taught me about backups the hard way

I still remember this guy from 2019 who brought in a laptop with a dying hard drive. He told me 'I don't need backups, I just don't click on weird stuff.' Two days later the drive failed completely and he lost 8 years of family photos and business records. He stood there in my shop in Tulsa just staring at the screen. I felt awful but there was nothing I could do. Now I tell every single customer about my $60 external drive option before I touch their machine. Anyone else have a moment like that where you just wished they had listened?

3 comments

3 Comments

sullivan.quinn14d ago

Yeah but I gotta push back on the $60 thing a little. You said "I tell every single customer" about that option and I think that's kinda rough for a lot of people. Not everyone can drop extra cash on something they might not need right then, especially if they're already paying you to fix their machine. And honestly some people just don't care that much about their photos or whatever and that's their choice to make. I get why you do it after that one guy's story but treating everyone like they're gonna have a drive fail isn't really fair either. Sometimes you just gotta respect that people know what they're willing to risk and let it go.

knight.uma14d ago

Flip it around though - if you warn people and they skip it, at least you tried. But if you don't mention it and their drive dies, that's way worse for everyone involved. People can always say no to the $60, they can't undo losing years of stuff they actually did care about.

xenam8414d ago

Ten years running my own shop and I've seen drives fail that were "fine" three hours earlier, so yeah I tell EVERYONE about backups. If they say no, that's on them, but I sleep better knowing I gave them the choice.