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Monday, October 6, 2008

Take it from me....

....it is so very important to back up your computer! Let me tell you a little story....

For months, Geoff and I have discussed how we need to back up our pictures on the computer in case anything should ever happen to my laptop. I have had that laptop for just over 2 years....so that's 2 years worth of pictures! I have printed some here and there....I mostly print certain ones out individually here at the house when I need it for a scrapbook page...that way I can print it to be whatever size that I want it to be. Also- in this digital age and with our daughter and with our new camera...we just take so many pictures, it would be uncanny to print them all! Most if the time we take about 20 at a time, and really only a few are worth keeping. And I know, I know...I should just go ahead and print out those few that are good, but I guess I get lazy. I think..eh...they're on the computer...I can get them anytime...nothing will happen to my computer. I can hook my computer up to the TV and play a slide show...I can make a separate slide show....so many things I could do! So we bought a few thumb drives and began backing up our photos.

Now fast forward 3 months.....

Saturday morning I was messing around on the computer with some pictures and photoshop, and I noticed that the computer was running very slow. Pretty uncharacteristic. I didn't think much of it, except that it was probably because we had so much stuff on the computer that we needed to get rid of some of it to make room for new things. So after lunch, we ran to Best Buy and actually purchased an external hard drive. By the time we got back, it was time for Parker's nap. I sat down to write a quick e-mail and this time, it was so slow. I would type a few words and then have to wait about a minute for them to actually show up. This went on for a couple of minutes, when it finally froze. Nothing. I finally just turned it off...decided to take a nap...and deal with this mess when I woke up.

I woke up.

Geoff tried to start the computer to begin uploading everything to our external hard drive and nothing. Still nothing. Well- I say nothing....there was a blinking file in the middle of the screen with an "X" in it! I knew immediately what this meant. It was gone. Everything was gone. This immediately reminded me of Carrie (for all of you Sex and the City fans) when her computer crashed and she got the "Sad Mac" face. Only, I didn't get the "Sad Mac" face....I just got the "X"...which seemed a bit more harsh! (and by the way....I think that episode was just on TBS the other night...)

Blablabla....to end a very long and drawn out story.....we took it to the Apple store on Sunday afternoon and had their tech support staff only confirm what we already knew in our hearts....our hard drive had crashed! The girl did make me feel better in saying that it wasn't anything that we did (because, you know, you go through this period where you think that it is something that you did or didn't do), but that it's not a matter of if your hard drive will crash, it is more of a question of when? She compared it to tires and that they can only rotate so many times until they get to the point where they are too worn out to work. Geoff did take it to work today to see if he could try to pull anything off...and of course...there was nothing....zilch...zero...nada...

The good news....we had successfully already backed up all of the photos through the 4th of July...and I still have pictures in our camera since the day after Parker's party.

The bad news...I don't have any pictures of Parker's last 2 months of her first year....

Some more good news...our Apple is still under it's care plan, so we get a completely new hard drive for "free" (and that is in quotations because "there's no such thing as a free lunch...")

Some more good news...we have our health and wonderful family and friends. There are definitely worse things that can happen! Hopefully, this story will even help someone else! Unless...that is....everyone else is already backing up, and we are just out of the loop (which is highly probable!)

Have a good one everybody...

3 comments:

Kelli @ Our Growing Family said...

Thanks for that...I have known in the back of my mind that I need to back up my computer, but I always put it off. Now I am going to do it. It is a must!

Viv said...

Well sweet girl, I guess that's why your old Aunt "B" hasn't completely moved into the digital age. I am sorry, but you know you are right you have a wonderful family, heath, and bunches of beautiful pics of Parker. Love you, Aunt "B".

Anonymous said...

Your Aunt B is right - so many good things but it still makes me
realize I need to learn how to back
up even with CD's
Love ya,
granny

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