Tuesday, September 25, 2012

I'm Fallng Out Of Love With Technology

September 25, 2015

Good afternoon.  You know something?  You folks are great.  No matter how bad things get, you always have encouraging words and thoughts.  It really does help.  This latest drive crash put me in a really bad tailspin.  But I'm getting to the point where I know everything on the drive is gone for good, and I have to figure out how to go from here. 

All my new designs and work was on that drive.  All my newest resources from the last six months was on that drive.  All my photographs since June were on that drive.  All my previous backups were on that drive.  Folks, don't buy Seagate hard drives. 

For years, I have stayed with Seagate drives because they seemed to behave much better than the other brands.  Well, guess what?  I'm wrong!  The last two laptops that crashed and the last two external hard drives that crashed were Seagates!!!

I used to back up everything on CD's and DVD's, but have found that they won't always work on the next new pc or laptop that you buy.  So now I have tons of stuff backed up on discs that isn't doing me much good. 

Technology seems to be thriving, but it doesn't seem to care about saving anything.  To me, that's sad.  We as consumers listen to the sales pitches and buy the products with a false sense of security.  The really good stuff is not sold to the consumer.  Instead it sits in just a few labs, waiting for us consumers to run into problems and then it can charge us ungodly prices to fix these messes. 

I called Seagate to see about retrieving all my lost data.  For a measly $1000, they will give it a try.  BUT, there is no promise that they will be able to retrieve much if anything.  They just will give it a try.  They do have cheaper prices that start around $600 and up.  I called Best Buy, asked the same questions, and got pretty much the same answers.  They can't retrieve any lost data, and would have to send the drive out to the manufacturer.  For the same prices!!!  With the same No Guarantee!!

When I asked each company why the prices for retrieval attempts were so expensive, they told me that it was because the equipment they needed to use was very costly.  Amazing!  If I were a criminal, the police wouldn't have any problem retrieving all my lost data to make sure there wasn't some incriminating evidence there.  But I'm not a criminal, so that's that!

Wayne will pick up my drive later today to see if he can do anything.  But,  he is not holding out any hope either.  I threatened to take him off my favorite persons list and my Christmas card list, but he just laughed at me and said "Oh well!" 

All my beautiful photos of Pogo are gone.  Boo Hoo.  It's losing all my photos and art projects that hurts the most.  So, I took a few new photos to share here on my blog.   Here is one of my roses, and a new photo of my precious Pogo. 



The next thing I will be looking into is saving everything in cyber space.  I haven't heard of anyone losing their stuff from cloud storage, so I will have to check it out.  If you know of a better way, please do let me know.  I do use external hard drives, but they are only good until they die.  And they do.  If you don't believe me, ask me and I'll tell you!

I usually start my blog post off with a bit about the day's weather.  Today I did not.  I got up a bit late this morning, with just enough time to get dressed, take Pogo out, and then we hopped into my car and headed off to my appointment at the nail salon.  My poor fingernails have been badly neglected these past few weeks.  But now they look nice again.

As for the weather today, it's an absolutely gorgeous, perfect day!!!  The sun is shining, there's a nice breeze, and the temp is in the 70's.  I really couldn't ask for a better day.  One of the forecasters on the weather channel on TV was saying that we can look forward to another winter very much like the last one.  Cold wise and heating cost wise, I have to say that I am looking forward to another great winter.  I just hope that the rest of the country does not have to go through all the same really bad weather that came to them this whole year.

Tonight, Janet and I are going to our second camera club meeting.  The last one was interesting, but a bit boring.  I'm hoping that tonight's meeting will be more fun.  We shall see.  So, till tomorrow, Y'all have a fabulous day.

Hugs, Edna B.

6 comments:

Andrea @ From The Sol said...

I think we all know that pain you are feeling over losing everything. Those pictures and artwork are a part of you. I lost the first year of Izzi's puppy pictures and it still makes me sad. Forturnately I had a few that were in print and my granddaughter had some too. I also found some on an internet program I had used to make a slideshow for my friends blog ... that was a treat when I ran across those. Have you used anything like that? Maybe you could go back and find the things you saved there. I am trying to think of the name of it, but,being an old poop, I probably won't remember until next week sometime. If I do, I'll send it to you :)

What are you using to post on your blog? I assume your computer must be working, it is just your storage that crashed, right? I hate to say it, but I have a Seagate hard drive that I am putting my backup on ... now I am nervous about it. My husband doesn't want me to put anything out in cyberspace for storage ... he doesn't trust that it will be safe. I am much more wreckless than he is, but then, I think he overdoes the "not safe" thing too. Oh well, I take it from day to day ... here's hoping.

At least you know you can count on Pogo ... he will be there for you when you need him. Hope you have fun at your Camera Club tonight ... maybe someone there will have some suggestions. You never know :) Need to go, have much to catch up on around here. There is always a price to pay when you go away for a few days. Be well, Edna

Andrea @ From The Sol

The Queen Jester said...

I'm the worst one you can possibly ask about backing things up....since I seldom do. I really need to improve my habits on that. Sorry about the loss of the photos. Did you take it anywhere to find out if they really are still there on the hard drive? It's amazing what those geeks can do.

Anonymous said...

I too use CDs & thumb drives to back up my info. I recently tried using DVDs and, while the files burned to the DVDs without problems, I could not retrieve any of the files I'd saved. Hope you are healing from your fall. Leona in Florida

Nani said...

Oh Edna, I’m sad to hear about the drive crash! In this day and age we all have so many important and precious digital files. The loss of a hard drive can be almost as devastating as what a natural disaster can do to your home.

I'm behind on my backups, but I use extended hard drives and CDs for storage. Generally I have 2 copies of everything to use. Do you do a hard drive back up? If you do and include picture and art files, you can salvage those. I did an accidental delete of too many files once and was able to retrieve a lot of files I didn't even realize I had backed up with a system restore. The only things I really have in cyber storage are scrapbook freebies I’ve made and some photos on flickr, but I'm a little leery about security with personal files and documents.

I’d read up on cloud storage companies and make sure you pick one that has a good security record. I have some free cloud space with my virus software contract, but not enough for my full backup and I just can’t afford to purchase more right now. So I do my backups on an EDH.

As far as retrieval of information, serious thought; try seeing if there is a computer club at the local community college. Someone might take on trying to retrieving your info. I was blown away with the knowledge of some of my classmates in my security class that were in the club at school. They are geek hobbyists and love a challenge.

Great big hugs, Nani

smiekeltje said...

If you were posting on Blogger pictures, they probably were stored on Picasa web. If still so, you could go there for your pictures and download them. May be an idea?
Don't know anything about cloud storage, and I am as The Queen Jester, seldom or never do any backup. I know, it's not a good thing, but I am too lazy for it I think. I do try to put my kits and sometimes resources on cd. And I also made some files from resources and uploaded them to Mediafire.
But as soon as you are ready for it, I gladly will make files for you from the resources I have and upload them so you can download them. And e.g. pictures of Pogo, you can go to your blog too and save the images from there. Probably not the best quality as the original ones, but you will have them.
But who knows, may be Wayne can retrive something from the disc?
I know it feels aweful loosing all your stuff, somehow you feel floating on a big sea, not knowing where to go.
Going to post now, you still have a great day,
Hugs
Kyra

Mat's Merry Memoirs said...

So sorry about losing all your stuff, it is a real pain when that happens. I store on external drives and even on CD's all my photos and my GIMP or PS tools that I accumulate! I have also some stuff of importance on Cloud with no problems so far! Lovely rose and of course, cutie patootie Pogo! I also thank you for the freebies. I did not turn my computer on at all yesterday! LOL! Hugs for a terrific day despite the computer problems! Mat