My computer is naked

Carole

How 'bout some ether?
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Night before last, my computer died. Total black screen. We tried everything. Hubby worked on it and worked on it. I enlisted my brother to assist over the phone. Eventually, it was my 17 year old son who fixed it last night. He wiped everything clean and reinstalled everything from the ground up.

Guess what I have now. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. All of my articles. All of my writing. All of my photos. All of the music hubby and I record. Everything. Backup? WE don't need no stinking backup!! My life was on this machine and now it's as fresh as a newborn baby, and with as much stored information.

Backup was something I did once in a while. I haven't done it in ages. It's always something I'd get around to. People, save your information. Your computer can go at any minute, especially if you have teenagers in the house.

And that's my sad little tale of loss. At least this thing is as fast as lightning again.
 

Jcomp

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sorry to hear.
 

MidnightMuse

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Actually yes, they can. What they can't do is retrieve it from a melted pile of metallic goo.

But I've heard after reformatting, the pros can find nearly everything you ever did.
 

Southern_girl29

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We had to have ours reformatted, too, not long ago. I lost all of the new programs I had put on the computer, but all of my documents and all of my pictures were there. Our computer person was able to get them back for me.
 

tourdeforce

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Sorry to hear that Carole.

Hard drives are so cheap now. Get a nice 100+ gig drive and keep backing up your computer even if you just drag and copy the whole damn thing.
 

Little Red Barn

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Sorry Carole. :Hug2:
As soon as I learn how to back mine up I'am going to so it...as well as my laptop. If anyone can tell me I'd appreciate it. ie; What to buy etc.. and how to...Thanks
 
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kimmi 57 said:
Sorry Carole. :Hug2:
As soon as I learn how to back mine up I'am going to so it...as well as my laptop. If anyone can tell me I'd appreciate it. ie; What to buy etc.. and how to...Thanks

I copy the entire contents of 'my documents' onto CDs - I don't have a DVD burner, which is okay. I think when it comes to back-ups, dividing onto different discs is a good idea. If one gets ruined somehow, you still have the others.

I also copy everything onto my desktop computer. I keep a third copy of my 'word documents' folder on a pen drive and email the most important documents to people for them to hold for me.

Paranoid? Yeah probably. Ever since my laptop's 'virus unpleasantness of 2004' I know paranoia is good.
 

Writer2011

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Carole I feel your pain..trust me i've been there before several times :)... No it's not easy but I hope that you are doing okay..
 

CurtisCandy

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Carole, if you're going to have your hard drive searched, do absolutely as little as possible with it until the tech starts scavenging.

As you use the computer, the number of retrievable files will diminish.
 

DamaNegra

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Happened to me also. The computer wouldn't work no matter what so I gave it to a friend's brother to fix. He reformatted it and we lost all our information. I only had some school papers, but dad had all the slides from all the classes he had given for the last 6 or 7 years. He still won't let me forget it :(
 

tourdeforce

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And if, for whatever reason, you can't get a CD-R or DVD-R or external hard drive, then get a gmail account and email copies of your work to yourself.
 

awatkins

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*squeak* Hope you get the data recovered, Carole. Look in the phone book; you might find data recovery experts listed in the yellow pages.

This is why I never save anything important to my hard drives. Flash drives and CDs are vital to my business (and my sanity!).

Good luck with it! :Hug2:
 

PattiTheWicked

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I periodically email myself copies of documents, and then just save the email into my online file cabinet. I figure if my house burns down, I'll just go over to my in-laws and download all my stuff offline.

But a backup drive is nice too. The hub got me a flash drive as a Yule gift, and you bet I'm using it.
 

Christine N.

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I once lost a section of my hard drive. Because the drive was still spinning, the computer geeks (all hail!) were able to get my stuff off for a mere $80.

So there's hope for you. And now I have flash drives that I back up everything on, frequently.

Matter of fact, it's time I do that again.
 

illiterwrite

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Huh. Must be something in the air, because mine died this weekend as well, and I lost a few pages of my WIP. :( Luckily, I did a complete backup about a month ago, so all my older documents, photos, etc. are safe.

Sorry, Carole!
 

WildScribe

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Ick... I have a flash drive that I keep all of my best stuff on.
 

Carole

How 'bout some ether?
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I haven't found anyone who is answering their phone. Waaa. Ok, so it's time to buy a flash drive. Hubby has one for all his work stuff.

I've decided to just let go of it. Everything happens for a reason and the reason is always good, whether or not we can see it or believe it at the time. Maybe I needed a fresh start AND the kick in the butt to back up everything from now on!