uh uh, my computer has crashed....

[giovanni]

Ok, I lost all my files, all my pics, all my songs, all my mails saved, all my passwords...

BUT WHO CARES.....life is not in a computer...next time I'd better save everything on an external disc; most of my pics are in my head, most of the passwords can be taken again from the sources, my mails saved are part of my past and the most important ones are saved in the disc of my brain, my songs are in my hands and I can play and record them all again (I have them on cd anyway)...what else...ah, life is beautiful!

I will soon have a new computer, but by now I'm working on a small notebook, it costed just a couple of hundreds of euros and it's a very nice piece of technology; if some of you wrote to my stewartcopelan.net account, please re-send everything again (using the same account anyway, as I will restore it in the next few days).

Life is cool, my new job adventure is giving me great vibes, my mother's death experience a few weeks ago is something from the past and even if it's a great loss, I can say I learned a lot from it and the world around is treating me well...so the future is bright, I gotta wear shades.

Talk to you soon bros and sistas, my lovely gang!
Giovanni - stewartcopeland.net

[Howstupidmrbates]

You have a great attitude about it, Gio! Sometimes life throws us curve balls. Sometimes you swing and you miss....but sometimes you KNOCK IT OUT OF THE PARK!

[Horacio]

Positive true Energy for you and your plans.

[Divemistress of the Dark]

Aw, poor Gio! Can you take it to a shop where they might be able to test the hard drive to see if any of the files can be saved? Sometimes that's a possibility.

Thanks for checking in, friend! xoxo Dive

[ltwoman]

Happy New Year, Gio! Life is good. Thanks for giving us an update, though, as you had a very "busy" 2010.

Moonstone has gotten in touch with me and also had The Big Crash but she is able to use her daughter's computer periodically until the dust clears.

And before all this technology we wouldn't have had this problem!

[smax]

a very calm and philosophical approach, Gio, well done..........

and you're right; did you actually need any of that stuff you've lost? when was the last time you looked at your holiday snaps from 3 years ago?

although i'd go fuckingmonkeynuts if my computer breaks.

[zilboy]

Computers are proof that God has a sense of humor.

[Kim]

Computers are proof that God has a sense of humor.

Yes, a sick one, and when I die I expect to find him laughing

[Kim]

Gio, I feel your pain. My laptop had a virus a few weeks ago and in order to "cure" it, I had to reformat the hard drive, so I lost all my photos and docs . Ugh!

It's good that you have a positive attitude though

[conroy]

Always keep your data on a different volume, preferably a different physical hard disk, separate from the volume that contains the OS and system files. And always make redundant back ups about every six months and keep one of those stored at separate location in case a disaster strikes your house for the stuff you really want to keep.

[moonstone]

[quote="ltwoman"]Moonstone has gotten in touch with me and also had The Big Crash but she is able to use her daughter's computer periodically until the dust clears.[/quote]

Hi Gio

As Laura says, my computer crashed too and I thought I'd lost everything. After lots of searching I discovered that all my files had emptied themselves completely but they showed up in All programs. I couldn't access them but they were still there.

Anyway my clever daughter and her boyfriend came over and managed to retrieve everything onto memory sticks then they wiped the computer and re-installed everything. Don't despair as you probably haven't lost everything, with a bit of luck you just need someone who knows how to retrieve it all again.

All I've got to do is re-install i-tunes and hope that everything is still there or I'm gonna have to buy Bongos stuff again.

Hope you have similar good luck.

[DirtyMartini]

Oh, honey.

You've got an insanely good outlook on it, at least, Boss. Oftentimes, when I'm faced with something that I really need to just shrug off rather than stew in (no pun intended), I try to channel you and SuperCat (WWGP/GSCD?) to get over it and move on.


As Conroy said above (and at the risk of sounding pedantic/repeating myself from another time), backups are your friend. Doesn't even have to be hugely complicated: just keeping a spare hard drive (it's not expensive) on your desk to dump files onto regularly can work. (Copies on optical media work, too; just take longer, which makes it less likely to be done.)

More intense but really good for the vital stuff, the 3-2-1 Rule:
* 3 copies of important files (original, plus 2 backups)
* stored on 2 different media types (such as hard drive and CD/DVD)
* 1 copy of which is stored offsite (like at a friend's or family member's house)

I also back up some stuff like photos via online cloud storage, which is a mixture of steps 2 and 1. But the really important stuff is copied onto a hard drive and kept at my dad's house. We see him every few weeks anyway, so dropping off or handing off a drive for him to store at his place isn't tough, and we know that, in case of a total meltdown, our important info is only a couple of hours' drive away.

[Divemistress of the Dark]

I try to channel you and SuperCat (WWGP/GSCD?) to get over it and move on.

"Nothing is fucked, dude!" Hee hee hee....I can just hear her...

Um, anyway. Thanks for the good advice, too, DM. I'm gonna take your advice on the 3-2-1 rule. Actually shelled out for a Blu Ray burner not that long ago - they're $300 but they'll burn discs up to 50 gb. Useful for saving big ol' photo archives of, oh, say, rock concerts.

I do have two backup drives for my main laptop, and swap 'em out A, B, A, B when doing backups. Just don't think one can be too paranoid on this issue (especially when you're forgetful like me and one of your drives is one of those small ones not much bigger than a deck of cards. Watch me leave it in a cab. Which reminds me, I really probably ought to either encrypt or passprotect that sucker sometime.)