Good morning gardening friends, Some of you may know, my old dinosaur of a computer crashed about a week and a half ago. I had been backing up the files and folders for over 9 years, at least once a week. But in the past year, I got really lazy and hadn't done it. I'm sure paying for it now. I especially lost photos. My husband and I have been together over 33 years, and some of those pics were from when we were kids...I'll never see them again. I'm going through old discs to see what I can find, but it sure is scary thinking I may not have them. Also lost records I kept on my gardens and plants. I take pics of different seedlings, ages, days to germ, what they look like at certain ages. Scientific records on amphibians...I have a microscope...lost my slide views and data... This be a lesson to my friends...Back up your work weekly!!! I will never make that mistake again. I haven't been posting much here (and I like to) because I've been scrambling all week to find, recover, reinstall all that I can remember. Some of my stuff is in cyberspace, so able to retrieve. Lol, I would have lost my husbands' and mine (updated version) websites if they weren't up in cyberspace! So apologize if slow to answer... I'm trying to get this computer to look and feel as much like my old one as possible. I feel like a dear friend has died, and taken many memories with them. Lesson learned. The hard way. Edit details-If I don't say why, you can bet it's spelling. I get up early and type in dark. Also, this new keyboard is smaller than last, so it's really screwing up finger placement. Sorry about all the dits. Until I get used to this board, I'll be doing it a lot.
So sorry to hear about your computer crashing. Have you considered having a computer specialist try to retrieve your photos and data. I have had two friends whose computers crashed use the Geek squad (through Best Buy) and they were able to retrieve most of their data. I know it is sad and frustrating to loose all those photos.
I learned the lesson of backing up my computer the hard way too Bodhi. Now I do it on a regular basis as I have so much stored on it. My eldest lad said that sometimes data can be recovered from your old hard drive by a computer geek. It may be worth your while to 'phone around and see if there's anywhere they will undertake to see what they can recover for you. I now have a USB stick that I've tranferred all my photographs on to just to be on the safe side.
Oh, Nicole, how sad! Please do see if someone can't retrieve photos and information from the old computer. And as Eileen said, those USB sticks are very handy--we have one for photos and records, and use it for back-up.
I feel for you Bodhi. My computer expired as well a month back. Thankfully I had backed up the most important stuff, photos, financial records etc... but I did lose some things I would rather not have. Here is a relevant topic http://www.gardenstew.com/about12704.html To me the best solution is to back up online. I really hope you can recover your photos. If your hard drive is not damaged it may be worth it (if you have the spare cash) to go to a specialist data recovery company to retrieve the files. They can recover data from even badly damaged drives.
Thanks so much for the kind and thoughtful words friends. I was so upset I completely trashed the computer. It went to graveyard yesterday. I had been repairing it through the years, and was so careful. It was 10 years old, and I still had 43 percent of the hard drive unused (out of aq mere 80 gigs, I do know how to save space) But it was just too old, and this time so complicated I just threw in the towel, so to speak. Yes, the 'Geek Squad' had worked on it twice in the past, and done well. But the dinosaur screen, limited drive bays and constant 'tweaking' by me insisted it was just time. I did lose some receipts, I'm not one to keep stacks of paper around...everything gets scanned and saved that way, or I subscribe to online bill pay/receipts, etc. Only one will be an issue. It's a seed order that should have been here last week. But I order from them a lot and remember the total, so I don't think it will be an issue. Thanks dear gardening friends for your concern, I know many of us go through this same thing. Hopefully I've learned my lesson. Gino and I are buying blank discs tonight. And now I will go check on my babies, my new seeds/hopefully seedlings, and perhaps if they are peaking through the soil I can snap a few photos for a new folder!
Pity you got rid of the machine. We lost a hard drive like this but with a bit of fiddling I managed to recover all the files that were on it. If anyone else has a crash like this DO NOT discard the machine until you have tried everything to recover the files. It can be done, unless the old drive is physically damaged.
It is an awful feeling to realize that a lot of information is unretrievable. But sometimes you surprise yourself with what gets saved on disks. I hope you recover some of your data and pictures Bodhi. At least there are pictures on Gardenstew. Good luck with the recovery process. Jerry
