pheeewww close call
Do you sometimes think 'Hmm it's been a long time since I made a back-up...I'll have to do that this weekend". And of course that weekend it does not happen and then you plan it again...and it doesn't happen?
If you recognise this pattern, stop reading now and go and make a back-up.
I have a desktop computer which is sitting at my desk, next to Jan's desk that has its own computer (yeah if you merge two households, everything is double!)...but actually I hardly ever used my desktop as we also had a <1 year old laptop. That one is in the living room and was usually in the evenings on my lap when watching tv etc. As a result, all pictures got first downloaded on the laptop because that makes a cool picture show screensaver with all my pictures, ... since a couple of months we have an external harddrive in order to make a little network between all computers and to back-up our important data. I did transfer...a little bit but never finished it.
And then it happened last Monday evening. Jan wants to login on the laptop and it doesn't boot. It doesn't even show the first bios screen, ...it simply does nothing. Black screen. Only a black screen.
....
G: "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah help my pictures, last year's pictures are all on the laptop."
J: "well the laptop is in warranty and we have a backup of everything, so no problem"
G: "...eummm we don't quite have a backup of everything. We lost last year's pictures, except the New England one"
My mind raced, started making inventories of what was on the computer, while its screen remained stubbornly black.
We quickly found the warrenty, but we feared that they'd service it by starting a system recovery while erasing the hard disk. No no no, I did not want to loose my pictures, my dear pictures, my memories.
It was already late at night so we went to bed, but I couldn't sleep. I wasn't tired anymore. I was mourning for the loss of my pictures, I was angry for not making a back-up, I was trying to remember which pictures had already been posted on a website, which ones I had copied for my parents and would be on their computer as well, etc... My sighs, my turning, ... kept Jan awake as well until we both got up again for another session of computer CPR.
Removing the battery did not work, removing the memory did not work, surfing the internet did not help (except that we learned that those HP notebooks had had hardware problems before and that in the US the warrenty had been extended). Finally at 1 AM (while I was neurotically cleaning all the piles of papers on my desk next to him) Jan was chatting with an HP technician in some support session who also concluded that it must have been a hardware problem, but he recommended to buy an external case for hard disk drives that could read the hard disk. If the disk itself was intact and the laptop was simply not starting up, we would be able to copy the hard disk before sending it in.
And so it happened today. Thanks to a "Silent, slim and stylish Icy Box" we've been able to read the hard disk from the laptop, make a full back-up. And I have allll my pictures again! Wooohoo, Jan is my hero ! And I promise to never postpone a back-up anymore. I learned my lesson.
And now we can send the laptop to HP without worries what they'll do with our hard drive. I've got all my visual memories back. And I am rediscovering my desk with my PC again ;)
If you recognise this pattern, stop reading now and go and make a back-up.
I have a desktop computer which is sitting at my desk, next to Jan's desk that has its own computer (yeah if you merge two households, everything is double!)...but actually I hardly ever used my desktop as we also had a <1 year old laptop. That one is in the living room and was usually in the evenings on my lap when watching tv etc. As a result, all pictures got first downloaded on the laptop because that makes a cool picture show screensaver with all my pictures, ... since a couple of months we have an external harddrive in order to make a little network between all computers and to back-up our important data. I did transfer...a little bit but never finished it.
And then it happened last Monday evening. Jan wants to login on the laptop and it doesn't boot. It doesn't even show the first bios screen, ...it simply does nothing. Black screen. Only a black screen.
....
G: "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah help my pictures, last year's pictures are all on the laptop."
J: "well the laptop is in warranty and we have a backup of everything, so no problem"
G: "...eummm we don't quite have a backup of everything. We lost last year's pictures, except the New England one"
My mind raced, started making inventories of what was on the computer, while its screen remained stubbornly black.
We quickly found the warrenty, but we feared that they'd service it by starting a system recovery while erasing the hard disk. No no no, I did not want to loose my pictures, my dear pictures, my memories.
It was already late at night so we went to bed, but I couldn't sleep. I wasn't tired anymore. I was mourning for the loss of my pictures, I was angry for not making a back-up, I was trying to remember which pictures had already been posted on a website, which ones I had copied for my parents and would be on their computer as well, etc... My sighs, my turning, ... kept Jan awake as well until we both got up again for another session of computer CPR.
Removing the battery did not work, removing the memory did not work, surfing the internet did not help (except that we learned that those HP notebooks had had hardware problems before and that in the US the warrenty had been extended). Finally at 1 AM (while I was neurotically cleaning all the piles of papers on my desk next to him) Jan was chatting with an HP technician in some support session who also concluded that it must have been a hardware problem, but he recommended to buy an external case for hard disk drives that could read the hard disk. If the disk itself was intact and the laptop was simply not starting up, we would be able to copy the hard disk before sending it in.
And so it happened today. Thanks to a "Silent, slim and stylish Icy Box" we've been able to read the hard disk from the laptop, make a full back-up. And I have allll my pictures again! Wooohoo, Jan is my hero ! And I promise to never postpone a back-up anymore. I learned my lesson.
And now we can send the laptop to HP without worries what they'll do with our hard drive. I've got all my visual memories back. And I am rediscovering my desk with my PC again ;)
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Comments
So yeah -- PHEW! For you AND me!
Carol