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.