I guess I am assimilated

And there wasn't any resistance along the way either.  I hardly even lifted a finger.

I am referring of course to the recent laptop crash (or the laptop disaster of 2011 as I am calling it, patent pending...).  All these years of being entrenched in the world of high tech had made me pretty damn comfortable with keeping everything I need to know stored digitally, not on paper.  And I am a fiend about backups also, because Murphys law always seeks out those unguarded.  It is kind of like the pride of lions hunting and choosing the weakest of the baby Zebras.  (sorry for that visual this morning... where was I going?)

So it didn't really come as a huge surprise when the drive on my laptop took the big dive, and wasn't repairable.  What did surprise me was how ineffective my backup program was!  Back when I was a sysadmin, I would have tested this out to make sure it worked.  On my own computer, not so much.  I have brought back some photos and documents that I had erased by mistake, and that works great.  So I was convinced everything else was good.

Stupid, stupid, stupid...

All the email, and all of the bookmarks are gone.  Zip, nada...

Turns out that the old laptop which was running Vista, has things spread out across different places than the new one with Windows 7.  In the past I have been able to hunt down these locations and move the correct files back into place.  Even though I found those places, the files are different in structure now.  So the end result is a lot of lost data.  I knew better than to trust email as a storage medium, and now I got burned by it!

For those of you who sent recommendations on laptops, I truly appreciate it.  This time around, the finances dictated the decision and a Toshiba Satellite A660 was the replacement.

So all of you fine folks out there that I know off of blogger and Facebook, if you want to still communicate directly with me, please drop me an email at jchrishull (ATSIGN) comcast.net so I can rebuild my address book.

Comments

  1. I recently went through this with a desktop. Fortunately, it didn't completely die and I was able to pull the most important information off the computer before I sent it off to the great server in the sky.

    I'm thinking I might have to get my own laptop soon (if I'm going to meet the aggressive writing goals I've set for myself this year), so I'm sure I'll feel your frustration once again when I try to load all the information that I need and want onto it from my desktop. Ugh. Technology. So great, and yet, so frustrating.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't even have a laptop. I win.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is why I use gmail. When the computer dies and I have to get another one, I won't lose any of my email or contacts.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yay for your new baby! Did you get a funky coloured one? Thats what I like about those little Toshibas, they come in all sorts of crazy. I lovingly stroked a purple one at Christmas when I was laptop hunting. I believe I even purred.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I assume the new laptop is running Windows 7, which is a huge improvement over Vista!

    ReplyDelete
  6. done, Email.



    Mac is where it's AT.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Yet another reason to hate Vista. I had it for 3 weeks before my Win7 CD arrived in the mail. I was never so happy to see the mailman in my life!

    Good luck with the new 'puter!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Ugh. Same thing happened to my sister once. Her computer kicked the bucket and she lost almost all her son's baby pictures which were stored exclusively on it. Very sad. That's why I never delete my pictures off my memory cards when I put pics on my computer.

    I hope you enjoy your new laptop! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Went through that a year ago.

    Sucks!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Oh that sucks. Maybe we should go back to cave drawings. Those seem to last forever...

    ReplyDelete
  11. Well after I had my hard drive crash, I certainly feel your pain. You'll be happy that you have social networked as much as you have because at least all the videos and pictures you've posted here and FB are safe, albeit at low resolution.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Done!

    I had a crash on my laptop, which is my main computer, a couple of years ago. The worst loss was a whole season's worth of pictures of my son in little league. And of course it was the year he went to the championship. Fortunately my ex was willing to share the pics she took.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous11:50 AM

    Sorry to hear that you 'pooter died. I'm guilty of being lazy when it comes to backing up my hard drive and keeping my folders organized. If anyone deserved to have her computer crash for lack of effort, it should have been me. **touches wood** But I read your post last night (tried to comment from my iPod but couldn't for some reason) and it left an impression on me. I've spent the morning working on decluttering my computer. Hope things are up and running for you again soon. Enjoy your new gadget. - G

    ReplyDelete
  14. Hmmm... Point well noted. ::rummages thru nightstand for flash drive bkup::

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Photo Challenge, Day 8. The final day.

Handicapped Assessable