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.

[TangoLimaSierra]

Everybody becomes a backup fanatic eventually. It always takes a crash and data loss to realize the importance of backups.

That lesson will be a cakewalk when the grid crashes. There won’t be the luxury of just replacing a hard drive or laptop. I have been the pain in the ass to my friends and family about preparing. Some have actually done a little. Most just roll there eyes. Human nature is what it is.

[TangoLimaSierra]

paper printouts for passwords, bills, insurance, etc.

I realized I don't know anybody's numbers. Although I can still remember my best friend's number from childhood.

Anyway I started wondering what I'd do if I was a ways from home with a brokedown car and dead cell phone. So I printed out my address book and keep a copy in each car and motorcycle. Don't know why it didn't occur to me before.

[itsahoot]

Even easier if you keep a backup drive. Older Macs let you boot from anywhere as long as you have an operating system installed, even boot from another computer. Start the a computer holding down the T k and it will start up in hard drive mode, connect it to another computer and run utility on it or even reinstall the OS. nOr import the files to another computer.

The Apple silicon has made that a little harder but still possible. I have a few Old Power Macs that I bought used 8 or 9 years ago, never turn them off and they still run fine. But I always have a duplicate of my start up drive on an external disk. I am down to about 5 computers now because at my age I really only need one computer and an iPad with a sim card for on the road or doctors office, don't even own a phone anymore, don't leave one unless wife takes me and she has one. You can make phone calls with the iPad anyway if you want to.

I remember my days with PCs hated them then don't want them now. Put in a hard drive and you have to get your machine's windows re-certified, same with adding ram, what a hassle. Of course with the new Apple stuff nothing is upgradable, external add ons only. Well unless you are a real techie, saw a guy upgrade ssd on motherboard of a Mini last week.

[Clutch Martin]

I like the 20 round, 30’s just too damn hard to reload for me unless you get that little special machine. And sometimes you know you just can’t be hauling a whole bunch of little extra special tools around just to load up a mag.

[Clutch Martin]

I used to know how to use a Abacus somewhat we had to learn how when I was in middle in Bangkok, it was part of the curriculum as a general interest... but when one of the classmates complained to the teacher, who was Thai, the teacher explained that the reason she was showing us was to help us from getting ripped off at the market.

It was interesting. That Korean finger method of doing math is also fascinating I’m sure it’s on YouTube someplace.

[stylin19a]

I get it. i have a speed loader and u are right. takes up too much space which could be used for additional magazines.

[algore]

“Error Message: Your Password Must Be at Least 18770 Characters and Cannot Repeat Any of Your Previous 30689 Passwords

View Windows products that this article applies to.

Article ID : 276304
Last Review : January 29, 2007
Revision : 3.3
This article was previously published under Q276304

SYMPTOMS

loadTOCNode(1, ‘symptoms’); If you log on to an MIT realm, press CTRL+ALT+DELETE, click Change Password, type your existing MIT password, and then type a new, simple password that does not pass the dictionary check in Kadmind, you may receive the following error message:

Your password must be at least 18770 characters and cannot repeat any of your previous 30689 passwords. Please type a different password. Type a password that meets these requirements in both text boxes.

Note that the number of required characters changes from 17,145 to 18,770 with the installation of SP1.NOTE: This is not a common case; it occurs only when you configure Windows 2000 to authenticate against an MIT Kerberos domain.”

“The number of required characters changes from 17,145 to 18,770 with the installation of SP1”