Friday, March 28, 2008

Start Over

Above: What a section of my PC music library used to look like. This is how I 'sort' my songs.

Then there was this. It was supposed to be a non-destructive recovery. Instead, what happened was the complete eradication of all the data on my PC.
All data, including Windows itself. It was a suicidal recovery.


The Downsides:
-My PC's original 40-gig hard drive crashed and burned, taking the contents of my 180GB secondary drive with it. Except for a pitiful handful of CD backups, I lost eight years of data, including irreplaceable personal photographs, writings and music . I spent years scanning old photos, transferring music from deteriorating tapes to digital...converting records to mp3...downloading songs...accumulating blog fodder. I had thousands of songs- enough to do any sort of radio show...aargh...some are on CD, scattered across a shoebox full of mix discs, but most are are gone forever...the computer programs that helped me find songs; to scan them for viruses ; to record 'streamed' tunes; to edit them for airplay etc - all gone.
I can't even open a simple PDF, much less edit .wav files.
I'm gonna be downloading and installing for a long, long time...

- I had more car trouble, but I fixed it OK; however,I managed to inflict a wound on my pinkie finger that probably should have been stitched...two days later it's still bleeding a little. Ow.

-I lost every program and application I had; all of my saved games ; all my bookmarks and settings...the music editing software that I have relied on for years is gone and I can't afford to replace it...1,000 unfinished novels (most still in the 'Title' stage, heh), gone forever...I lost three years of radio recordings...I can't open Word docs or Excel sheets...the list is as painful as it is long.

Long...

... installing Widows updates is taking forever. One of ninety-two? 91 to go? Fuck.


Upsides:

-My pal Blake was able to install Windows on my 180GB drive and get my PC running again. He fed me a home-cooked meal too, so big kudos to him!

-I'm getting Office Suite soon, so at least I will be able open Word docs etc.

- Gmail is a good back-up. I found a copy of my resume attached to an old email .
Also, I can recover a few choice songs from other emails and my calendar is still intact.

-In the middle of all this PC hell, I got a call for a job interview next week. I don't wanna jinx myself, but damn, it's hard to get an interview these days, so it's something to look forward to...more to follow if it pans out.

-I have 160 pics saved on my camera, including some featuring my Grandmother that I want to save forever -and the two above.

- I found out that I have friends here, in real life and here in blogville. I don't know why I keep forgetting that...it's a known issue and I'm working on it as best I can.

- I wasn't an informed consumer when I bought my PC back in 2000-ish. I thought that having a lot of 'value-added' software on a new PC was a good thing. It is not.
I wound up with a ton of useless crap that did nothing but slow my rig down.
My PC used to have 40-45 processes running at any given time...I had problems with games, large music files, Youtubes etc...now, with all that extra crap gone, I'm running 22-25 at a time and my ancient relic of a machine is fucking flying (at least by my low standards)... over the years I have spent a lot of time and money on new hardware and have not been overly thrilled with the minor improvements- but without all that extra crap, it zips right along...a PC from the year 2000 that can handle Pentium 4 programs? Sweet.

The thing to do, given the chance, would be to save everything you wanted to keep onto an external drive and then build a computer from scratch ( a lot easier than you might think) , then load the external drive onto your new PC.
Note: Start with a good firewall and a resident anti-virus scanner.

(Or buy a Mac)

So, I lost almost everything but at least I have 175 gigs of quick-acting hard drive to run around in and fill up with anything I choose...you can fit a lot of music on 175 gigabytes!


I'll be around soon... now I have to get my printer working again.....and find drivers for my sound card...and video...

Peace be with.

11 comments:

Susannity said...

Holy flying f&%k. That just sucks Allan. Thank goodness for Blake!

more cowbell said...

AAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!! OMFG, that's giving me a serious panic attack just reading about it. My sincere sympathies to you.

Sling said...

HOLY CRAP!!!...That sucks to like,the 10th power allan!
I've dealt with this so many times,I've learned to make regular backups to CD of all my stuff.Still,I always end up losing stuff when this kind of thing happens.
You got the right attitude though.It's a good time to clean up and reorganize.

Citymouse said...

i need a good back up

yellowdoggranny said...

holy shit! that sucks..bites..and blows..sorry my friend...

Anonymous said...

Yikes, I am so sorry. And you've just remined em I haven't backed up my hotos on the external drive in a while. I need to do that.

billy pilgrim said...

sonny built my computer from scratch, it would have been a lot cheaper to buy a pre-assembled one. i spent a lot on the case and power supply after losing a hard drive due to a burned out power supply.

did bob marley ever record bad boys?

Allan said...

Sus- Blake is a Marine. He is good at stuff.

MC- Panic was my first option...but it's working out. What's lost is lost ...might as well get on with the new. Thanks for the symp.

Sling- All my stuff would be a LOT of CDs...I have some, lost more. I'm getting an upgrade soon, will have back-up...

CM- We all do.

JS- #5...#5!

CW- Learn from my tale of woe!

BP- My geek friends help me with cost control.

No, but he recorded with Peter Tosh, who was a bad MF.

AngelConradie said...

omg i woulda gone into a complete decline dude...
thats just dreadful!
i back up almost obsessively now since i have lost 2 laptops!!!

the blogger formerly known as yinyang said...

Wow. I think I'm going to go back up the stuff on my computer now.

Anonymous said...

I store all my music on various Snapdrive.com accounts. It's free. And awesome.