[Lazamataz]

A word to the wise. I was not wise and I am suffering because of it.

[BenLurkin]

Did Starfield do this to your PC?

[occamrzr06]

The first rule of Preppers club is we don’t talk about preppers club.

Oh, wait, different disaster. My bad, carry on.

[Rural_Michigan]

All this crap is to the point of making our lives more difficult and complicated than easier. I miss the simple, non commercialized internet of the 90s.now I have to change my password every 6 months and can’t use certain characters and two different authentication methods minimum. Spit.

[Lazamataz]

I won’t be on FascistBook for a while until I straighten all this out.

[Bob434]

Number 3... get a cheap phone, and a voip number for about $5 a year and associate websites with that number I stead of personal,phone number... but note, not all website forms allow voip

Also, for email address required for website logins, I use a throeaway account like mailinator.com - a temp email site where you pick whatever name you wish, go to the site and type in the name, and get the mail- it deletes mail after a day or so.

[Nifster]

Tough situation

Good advice

[dforest]

I just got a new windows 11 computer. I have never been harassed this much over logins, passwords pop up sales pitches that screw up and lock me out. I hate them. They make you sign in over and over and then tell you your password isn’t found. I even had it written down. Luckily I have a backup hard drive.

The hackers are better than microsoft.

I may go back to my old windows 8.5 laptop.

[glorgau]

When it comes to regular backups, remember Jesus Saves.

[GaltAdonis]

Try one of these -

Russian abacus - the 'Schoty'.

Good Luck!

[joma89]

I hesitated to connect backup recovery methods like a phone number to my email but eventually realized it was necessary.

Thanks for advising everyone of this need.

[webheart]

Transfer the hard drive into a new box. It will be like nothing ever happened. Unless you are using windows 7. If your old computer has any expansion slots you can get a second video adapter. Or use a USB 3 video dongle.

[ansel12]

“””I was able to log into my most important email account (the one just about everything is tied to, bank cards, credit cards, my Steam gaming account, everything.”””

You can have your email forwarded to a second account for backup.
I have all my email accounts forwarded to the email that I actually use daily and I can even answer from it and it uses whatever the first email address was for the response.

[Track9]

You could have brought your computer to The Mac Shop in Wilmington, Delaware. John Paul would have fixed you right up.

[P.O.E.]

My rules of thumb:

At least 3 different digital places (I have 4: PC, Cloud, DVD, External HD). I keep an HD at work, too

At least two physical copies:

paper printouts for passwords, bills, insurance, etc.

I wait for a sale and run photos through the lab and get physical prints.

[usconservative]

Yubikey ... just sayin'.

Don't keep your passwords and MFA on your computer at all.

As for my investment accounts, online banking, etc.. I keep that all in a secured & encrypted VM that I start up only when I need it, ensure it's secure (no malware, viruses, etc..) and then shut it down when I'm done and take it back offline.

By offline, it's on a separate, removable SSD.

Yes, I have a duplicate of it also.

There's your recovery plan. You're welcome.

(Let me know if I can help my brother from another mother. Always here for you.)

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

Each time we've "enjoyed" an adventure something like yours, I took the offending hard drive out, got the proper connector and used it as if a slave drive -- yeah, I know that's old verbiage -- off of which to read.

All such can then be read by a new drive with those programs which happily open all the "data," as if nothing happened.

And use a stand-alone to daily -- if very active -- or weekly backup of all important files and programs. Keep all installation programs separately, so that they can be re-installed on another drive. For our most expensive couple of programs, I also burned DVD copies for safekeeping, along with all passwords in an encrypted file.

Best wishes.

[Clutch Martin]

Keep a flashlight flash drive with all your files, all your photos, at all your music. Software comes with the computers you buy after the event. Flash drives should be stored off site and updated at least once a year probably every 6 months if you’re heavily involved with lots of file activity.

Keep canned beans in the cupboard for emergencies because you don’t have to cook it and they’ll last quite a while even without refrigeration once opened. Just about everything else requires a heat source which could be difficult.

Safe drinking water is the most important. If your house is still standing and you need to flush your toilets use your swimming pool above ground and ground if it’s still exists. Know how to purify water with the ditch method.

Know how to start a fire from scratch without a fire starting device. It’s a good recreational activity until you get it down to a science. Fire Starting devices includes magnifying glasses ...etc you need to learn how to create friction & start smoking up some tinder.

Fire starters are not tinder. BTW a magnesium sparking rod is cool. So us a megger or some 9v’s and 0000 steel wool.

Don’t have any fire starters? Vaseline on cotton balls stuck away in old medicine containers work great. So does cooking oils on a paper towel. Keep tarps handy, you might be sleeping under one. Garden tools help alot.

I know this article is just talking about computer files but I figured a little extra info during Hurricane Season might be useful.

Maintaining 98.6° Fahrenheit is critical.

[sauropod]

Will send u a FReepmail.

[logi_cal869]

Free advice:

OneNote for passwords. NOT the online version: Only the local HDD. You can treat a USB drive as the host and sync the USB to local installations on multiple devices running OneNote just by inserting the USB (automatic sync).

OneNote pages can be password protected (128-bit encryption). I’ve used it for logons/passwords for nearly 20 years. I have over 150 unique logons, including FR. I haven’t lost a password since I became habitual about updating my logons as they changed. I keep my parent USB file backed up and maintain awareness of its location like my keys & wallet. I also use it to keep account & card numbers.

Additionally, OneNote serves the web archiver in ways unlike any other program:

Try copying an entire web article and pasting it into a page: It automatically strips HTML, pastes nearly all photos (few exceptions, depending on web page formatting) and keeps hyperlinks...AND pastes the host page URL automatically at the footer of the pasted content. You can organize into sections as well. I’ve got >20 years - and nearly a gigabyte of data - of web archiving saved in my OneNote, including content from 9/11, and it seems immune to bloat performance (it NEVER crashes or runs slow). You can also paste PDF files directly into pages, as well as Office docs.

If you use Windows, the odds are that you already have OneNote. It’s a component of Office that most everyone ignores, but the last time I looked it was also available as a free standalone download.

Enjoy!

[Georgia Girl 2]

My most important emails are from Bud’s gun shop and Healthy Pets. 😏