Got Stress?
Shortly after my last blog entry yesterday, my laptop had a meltdown. The screen went white-on-blue mumbo jumbo, and then the whole system shut down. When I tried to re-boot I got an error message that said, "Cannot find operating system." Of course, I'd not yet printed out my thesis app. Horrified I packed up the computer and drove over to the store where we purchased it just two months ago. Diagnosis: dead hard drive, data irretrievable. This includes my application materials: two page prospectus, three page annotated reading least, and ten poem writing sample. Also lost--all of my notes for the semester, all the poems I've written or attempted to write since September, my submissions spreadsheet, a chunk of the next issue of TNHR (not poems, which are stored on our server, but design work), drafts of final papers that are due this week, a bunch of email, and who knows what else.
And this is Finals Week.
If one more person asks, "But didn't you back it up?" I'm going to scream. I didn't think I needed to, what with the computer being less than three months old. Silly me. According to the techie who looked at it, new hard drives fail all the time. There's something no one tells you when you buy a computer! The mega-chain will replace the drive free of charge for the manufacturer, but it's going to take three days, and we had to pay them $60 to re-install Windows.
There is a small chance not all is lost. Right now the melty little hard drive is at a little hole-in-the-wall computer repair place that Seth's had good luck with in the past. (The "Geek Squad," on the other hand, gave up right away.) In tech-speak, the drive won't "spin-up" but they're going to try swapping out the electronics to see if they can get it do so. If that works, they may be able to retrieve my documents. I should know something by the end of the day today.
Until then, limbo.
It gets better though. After dropping off the hard drive, Seth and I stop to purchase a flash drive so that nothing like this will ever happen again. While we're in the store I suggest pricing iPods, since that's what we'd like to get each other for Chrismakkuh. (Of course, we can't really afford them, but life is short, and the gift of music is a gift indeed.) As we're standing there, one of the employees walks up and asks us if we want to buy a black Nano that just came in through returns. Indecisive we say, "Not right now, thanks." But we're apparently out of the loop consumerism-wise, because fifteen minutes later when decide to take it, it's gone. Long gone, and can't be ordered. The sales guy looks at us like we're from Mars because we hadn't anticipated this. I'm sure Apple had no idea how popular this little gizmo would be, right (?) and they're not intentionally kept supply low in order to make it seem hot-and-hard-to-get, or anything...right(?) Effing capitalism!
Next stop: Tree shopping, in the hopes of ending the day on a high note. We stop at the Rotary Club tree sale (all proceeds go to charity) where we got our tree last year. Almost immediately we find one that we like. A minute later we realize we don't have enough cash in our wallets, and the Rotary Club doesn't take cards. As soon as we walk away from the tree, we hear a man behind us exclaim, "It's perfect! That's the one I want!" Which tree do you think he was talking about? Yeah, that's the one.
When we finally arrive home with another tree, there's a rejection waiting for me in the mailbox. Rejections are fine generally, but today I feel like I'm wearing a giant "Kick Me" sign.
And no, this is not the pilot for a sitcom. It's my life.
Comments
Oh, Ginger! I am so sorry. This happened to me, and somehow my son was able to get the "melty little hard drive" open and burn everything on it to a CD. Even if the hard drive cannot be resurrected to function, the data might be able to burn--read-only. Then you'd have everything on CD, and you can open and then "SAVE AS" as you need to do.
I have a tip for you--send yourself attachments periodically to a Google e-mail account. That's what I've started doing, and it's much, much faster than trying to back up something. Periodically you can delete your "saved" folder in G-mail as you want.
Good luck!
Posted by: pamela | December 13, 2005 09:55 AM
Pamela just said lots of smart things. I don't have any of those things to say. But I can e-hug you, and I shall.
[hug]
By the by: don't toss the hard-drive until you're absolutely sure that everything is lost. You'd be amazed at what some people can get off of a hard drive. My friend X lost his computer in a fire, and was still able to retrieve a significant portion of the info. Don't panic, Ford!
Posted by: A. J. Patrick Liszkiewicz | December 13, 2005 10:39 AM
Update: spoke to a trusted individual who knows his stuff. Here's his advice:
1.) DON'T trust anything a chain store says. Too often, they want your money. IGNORE them. Regardless of whether or not they're right (and they're probably not), you still need other opinions. So, just forget about what they said.
2.) If the small place you took it to tells you the same thing again, remain cautious. You'd be amazed at what some companies can retrieve off of a hard drive when that's what you're paying them to do. Fires, floods, alien attacks... you'd be amazed.
3.) It's possible that this is a Windows malfunction of some kind, rather than a hard drive meltdown. Sometimes, the two can be so indistinguishable that nobody bothers to try and REPAIR the Windows problem. And this can be done. Oh yes, it can be done. But again: people are trying to sell you things. (Notice that reinstalling Windows cost $60? That's not a whole lot of work for a geek. And by, "not a whole lot of", I of course mean, "zero". It's easy money.)
4.) Start looking into data-retreival companies. They're not all that pricey, and they know what they're doing. This is important stuff that you've "lost"--or rather, "lost touch with", since it's still around but not speaking to you and you don't know precisely how to get in contact with it--and you can think of these guys as private detectives, only with melty, moody hard-drives. Which is sad, really.
5.) Keep me updated via e-mail. We'll help you keep the companies honest, and we're good for hugs and more advice.
Good luck!
Posted by: A. J. Patrick Liszkiewicz | December 13, 2005 11:10 AM
Thanks, guys! For the moment, I'm working on my Yeats final. I hadn't started it before the meltdown, and nearly all of my notes are in the margins of the Collected Poems.
That's how things go with me. I cry, mutter curses under my breath, bitch loudly on my blog, and then get down to doing whatever *can* be done. :-P
Posted by: Ginger | December 13, 2005 11:25 AM
Oh, Ginger, I'm so sorry for all these things.
I know how awful a hard drive failure or computer death can be. It happened to me once, and I felt so violated and betrayed, which are odd responses to have to a machine, but I think it shows that we are inclined to trust the things we think we can "control..."
I don't mean to sound trite, but sometimes wiping the slate clean is a liberation. There is no past, only future. Not what you've written, but only what you are going to write.
Posted by: Charlie | December 13, 2005 01:55 PM
60 bucks to install windows? All you do is put the disc in. Jesus, the nerve of some people.
Posted by: Love Phillip | December 14, 2005 01:04 AM
Thanks the good words! There's still a chance I'll get my data back, but not before Friday, so I have a few very busy days ahead of me. I just keep thinking that by Tuesday it will all be over, and I can slack off for a few days. Oh, Tuesday, Tuesday!
Posted by: Ginger | December 14, 2005 08:51 PM
I had the exact thing happen to me when I was printing the final copy of my thesis for my MFA. All of sudden the printer just stopped and wham. Luckily the computer store was able to fix it in a few hours. There were very panicked hours, however.
I hope you can get the data back!!
(I never back up either, I'm just lucky I post all my poems on my blog)
Posted by: Christine Hamm | December 19, 2005 12:12 AM