Have a Disaster Recovery Plan in place!

Original Content | 09/09/2023 | by Laz A, Mataz

[Lazamataz]

Harro everynyan. How are you fine sank you.

I found out the hard way, it is critical that each of you have a disaster recovery plan in place, as regards your personal computer and important emails.

One of my computers lost function of its graphics card. It boots fine but I cannot see anything on the monitor except for brief moments. The monitor is working fine; its definitely the graphics card. I was in the process of transferring to a new computer and was about halfway finished.

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.

Well as luck would have it, I accidentally laid something on the return key on the only login into my new computer. You know how keyboards have an extra return key on the far right. Well, my new computer treated the repeated returns as a hack attempt and locked that account out entirely.

I had no admin account except that one. I had no way into the computer because I no longer remembered the email password to that one important account, and since it was an account tied to Microsoft account login, I NEEDED to verify my way into the new computer using that account... but I couldn't.

Long story made short: EVERY way I attempted to log into the important email account and EVERY way I attempted to verify my way into the new computer failed. Every. Single. One. I spent a whole day on it without success.

I ended up reinstalling windows so I could get an admin account I could use, again... the default one. In that process, however, I nuked all my transferred email passwors in the original new computer account.

That one important email account was among the nuked, and every attempt I made to verify I owned the email account by using other email accounts, failed. So, I called the Yahoo Premium Support number and was able to verify to the representative that I actually owned the important email address, which (Thank God) was on Yahoo. (If it was on Gmail, there is no callable support number. Same with any Microsoft-based email). However, because I had made several dozen recovery attempts, I was required to wait a day and reverify with Yahoo and they would reset my password. Excessive recovery attempts lock the Yahoo account for 24 hours, not even a representative can fix it until the cooldown period has passed.

So, I may be able to recover the important email account with Yahoo Premium Support. But, even if for whatever new reason, I cannot, I can plug a new graphics card into the old computer, log into all my accounts with that, and note or change all the passwords.

I use a different password with every single account, bank, credit card, or whatever. While it places me in a jeapordy situation like I am experiencing, it is safest if someone compromises one account.

So, I learned the following:

1. Don't nuke the default admin account on a new computer you are setting up. You may need it someday. Just have a hard password and physically write down the password in a safe place.

2. In fact, write down all your passwords in that same safe location. Be dilligent in updating them when you change them.

3. I hate associating a phone with an email account, but I may want to rethink that. But even then you must be dilligent in updating all your accounts if you lose your phone and need to get a new number.

4. Your disaster recovery plan may differ from mine, detailed about. BUT NO MATTER WHAT, think about what a disaster recovery plan that works for YOU might look like. Think in terms of house fires of floods, or just bungling your way into computer quicksand, as happened to me.

[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?

[Lazamataz]

No sir. It was my shortsightedness in not having a solid disaster recovery plan, and a one-off bad luck event.

[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

[Lazamataz]

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.

Yeah, and sometimes the authentication method of using your phone is counterintuitive.... like when I lost my phone and had to order a new one... but couldn't get into my carrier account because I had phone verification. Derp.

There is also a trend to insist that (for example on Yahoo) that you have to verify with EVERY recovery email account. I had two out of three account passwords in a document, but since I didn't have the third, screw off buster.

Originally I only needed to prove ONE recovery account.

[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.

[redcatcherb412]

Linux!!

[glorgau]

When it comes to regular backups, remember Jesus Saves.

[dforest]

Is that a recommendation?

[dfwgator]

When it comes to regular backups, remember Jesus Saves.

Esposito scores on the rebound.

[Lazamataz]

Yeah, Windows 11 takes extra-special care to make logins ridiculously difficult if you lose a pin and password.

[GaltAdonis]

Try one of these -

Russian abacus - the 'Schoty'.

Good Luck!

[ansel12]

I bought a used W11 computer a few months ago and it seems barely different from W10, I set it to skip sign-in and haven’t seen any pop-ups, ads, sign-in notices, or such.

Have you looked into the settings and googled some solutions and conveniences?

[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.

[Afterguard]

“I ended up reinstalling windows”

Well, there’s yer problem Laz. If ya had a Mac ya could just reset to factory default, put in a new password, and recovered yer files from iCloud. Eazy peazy.

(I’ve actually been there and scary as it was the Mac did make th process pretty straightforward.)

[dforest]

Thanks, I thought I had done that. This is so annoying.