(Names have been replaced to protect identities)
Approximately 3 weeks ago...
Scharff Family Member #1: "Hey, SF Member #2, let's transfer all of our pictures from the computer onto this external hard drive. Then we won't be taking up all this memory with pictures. And if something were to happen to the computer our pictures would be safe. "
(Anyone remember that word from English I called "foreshadowing". This conversation would be a PRIME example of the literary term.)
Scharff Family Member #2: "Great idea. That'll also motivate us to finally get all our pictures of Wade organized by month."
SF Members # 1 & #2 spend HOURS organizing and transferring pictures that weekend (and deleting the originals from the computer). They are so pleased to be able to easily locate any picture they want. One member is even motivated to work on Wade's scrapbook!
Approximately one week ago.
SF Member #1: "Honey, the computer won't read the external hard drive."
SF Member #2: "Ok, stay calm. Maybe it's just a fluke. Wait and try again later."
They try again later...and then again later...and then a week later. No luck.
Turns out the external hard drive crashed. Was this related to the massive dumping of pictures onto it...who knows? We have discovered that the files may possibly be recovered if we send it off to a "clean" lab where they can take it apart. As you are probably guessing, this costs a pretty penny. They charge by the file! Woah! You can imagine how many pictures are on that thing. It could cost upwards of $500!!!!!
Stay calm, Robin.
So, does anyone happen to have a "clean" lab in their basement and the mad skills required to recover files? Yah, I didn't think so.
Plan B (like we would even consider the costly plan A, ha!) is to amass the pictures of Wade we have loaded on the internet and that we can beg, borrow & steal from you guys.
Today's lesson: Always back up your files immediately.
3 comments:
Here's my lesson learned: not only do I burn to a CD, but I upload my pics to Walmart.com the day I upload to the computer. My working theory with this is that if my computer crashes, I will still be able to get prints of the really important stuff. You can also share these with family so they can print anything they want for themselves. I started doing this after or CD burner on the old computer broke and then started doing funky things with my USB stick.
I'll try to get my underground techy lab up and running soon....
Robin...Greg says there is software that you can buy for about $50 that should be able to retrive the files. He doesnt know that name of it but I'm sure they could help you at the computer store. Good Luck getting pictures from everyone...we had to do that for our wedding since the photographers film slipped and he didn't get any pictures.
I wish I could offer some help for getting the pictures back. We don't have basements in TX or else I'm sure Mallory and I could use our mad skills to help.
Matthew backs our pictures up on an external hard drive, so I'm less reassured by that now. As for organizing pictures, I use Picassa. Its free software from google that is great for organizing your pictures. It works with blogger too. I'm sure that if I didn't have my blog to share pictures, Mallory's would spend a lot more time on the camera before going to the computer.
Post a Comment