my lost love

[michi]

Sunday night, my computer died.

I was settling down for a little online leisure time, when I opened my monitor...lo and behold, a black screen with nothing but "such-and-such folders/files corrupt. insert recovery disc". Or something along those lines.

The words didn't sink in very fast. I kind of stared at the dark screen for a minute or two, slowly absorbing the seriousness of the situation.

See, my computer is definitely the most valuable object to me. I've 1000 downloaded songs stored in it (considering I have dial-up, that's alot :-( ), countless amounts of pictures and avatars, banners, and wallpapers I made with flash fireworks, school projects and essays, this and that software, and etc. It's all GONE. All those years wasted on my computer, for nothing.

*sigh. Someone console me?

~michi

 

[kirei_na_me]

*consoles michi*

michi, I feel your pain. I had my hard drive crash on me not once, but twice in the past 5 years. Both times, I lost everything. Like you, I had hundreds of mp3's, and they are what meant the most to me. Also, lots of pictures that I didn't have copies of or couldn't make copies of for whatever reason.

I learned my lesson the second time, though. I now have back-up discs with everything on them. I am prepared! I will not let that happen to me again, dang it!

You are not alone! I'm sure a lot of us have been there. I would gladly give you a copy of my disc with all my mp3's on it, but I'm thinking maybe you wouldn't like my stuff? I don't have any J-rock in there... :? ;-)

 

[RockLee]

Poor Michi

Man...I know how it feels, it sucks like hell ..although...did you tried to copy things in DOS ???or just connect your HD to another computer and fix your data????(that's what I did)

 

[dreamer]

Hum...It happened countless number of times to some of my friends, but I think you can still recover some of this data with special programs or, if your HDD totally crashed, there're some recovery methods used by firms like IBM or Maxtor (I think it costs about $70/5GB).
As Rocky said you can also try to recover your data via another computer (Win XP can be enabled in network mode only), or if you're using an older OS, there're programs that allows you to do the same thing.
However the best thing to do is to make at least 2 partitions (or having several HDD). In one you install the OS, and you store data in the other one, this way you may be able to save some data if it's an OS-crash. You can also think about solutions like using RAID ,but it's really expensive.
the best thing I can tell you is to buy a CD/DVDburner and back up all your important data (DVD is better for those with a big HDD).
Well now, all I can say is that I'm really sorry that and I hope you can still recover something.

 

[michi]

thanks for the concern guys.

I'm not sure how to restore my stuff. I have a Sony Vaio and I use Windows XP. My father said he'll try transferring my school projects and essays onto floppy discs, but I don't think he's going to retreive the music because they won't fit.

I could try to transfer everything onto anoher computer, but the only other one in my house is my father's, and I doubt he'll let me...maybe with a little persuasion.

 

[EscaFlowne]

XP crashed.....
wow-thats unusuall. Hugs michi, there there you will get most of yoru stuff back don't worry. And start backing up things. Iput all my pics, avas, banners, what not on a host site.

 

[dreamer]

Hum...you sure should try to persuade your father to let you put your data on his computer even if it's for 1hour or so...
BTW: if you're using a laptop without CD-burnR you'd better be careful since you can easily lost the data.
Oh and one more piece of advice: try to avoid moving your computer when it's running because it may cause the HDD to crash...
One more thing; maybe you should try linux instead of windows XP ?

 

[Foxtrot Uniform]

If your computer deosn't work because of there is something wrong with the files used to properly run Windows XP, then if its possible, take out the HDD drive that doesn't work, and put it into another computer and use it as a secondary hard disk. That way, you may be able to gain acces to the filies on that hard disk and move them to a safer source. If that works, either format the hard disk and reinstall Windows from scratch or buy a new hard disk.

 

[dreamer]

Errm... Vaio=laptop
laptop HDD != ordinary HDD

 

[Grandpa Frank]

Works For Me !!

Can't help now, but for the future; I bought an external hard drive to transfer everything I have on my PC to. I only plug it in to back-up to, it's rarely conected to the internet to keep it clean. Before I download to it I defrag, clean out junk files, use spybot to check it, and run a virus scan. This way it seems to stay clean & safe for any time I might need it. It also helps to keep a load off my main hard drive which makes it run a lot faster.
It's a 180 Gig that uses USB2, so it's pretty fast to dump to.The power supply plug pulls off easy so no power to it & no internet into it; it should last me forever, I hope.

Frank

 

[Flashjeff]

Michi:
To quote the semi-immortal Bill Clinton: "I feel your pain." I've had that happen to me as well. But as everyone else here has said, regular, if not daily backups of your data are vital.

I have an external firewire drive for my machine, and I feel much better knowing it's there in case disaster strikes. And even though I have a Mac, that doesn't mean the worst case scenario can't happen to me!

☝

 

[Duo]

Can't help now, but for the future; I bought an external hard drive to transfer everything I have on my PC to. I only plug it in to back-up to, it's rarely conected to the internet to keep it clean. Before I download to it I defrag, clean out junk files, use spybot to check it, and run a virus scan. This way it seems to stay clean & safe for any time I might need it. It also helps to keep a load off my main hard drive which makes it run a lot faster.
It's a 180 Gig that uses USB2, so it's pretty fast to dump to.The power supply plug pulls off easy so no power to it & no internet into it; it should last me forever, I hope.

Frank

[/QUOTE

I think this is the best way to back up your files. Just put there your songs, pictures, documents, files, movies etc in orderly folders and keep it away from programs and what not. The next best thing is to record on CD-R discs.

Sorry you PC broke. Mine too just did recently. I need a new motherboard and processor, but at least my HDD is safe I think. Although I dont have much in cuz i had formatted it before, so I stored everything in CD's. But soon I wana by an external Hard drive. Is so much easier and more simples than burning CD's all the time.

 

[Lina Inverse]

That's pretty bad indeed
I also had occassions in which I lost lots of important data...
Since then I'm backing up everything important, back then on Zip disk, now on CD-R.