I had one goal for last night: transfer all of my Eminem cd’s onto my pretentious iPhone so that I had more than 7 songs at my disposal. Of course, given that PC’s suck at everything, the hard drive crashed during the music transfer process and the computer is now essentially dead.
I’ve been planning on getting a MAC anyway so I considered this a blessing in disguise. But then I had a dark, profound and crippling thought: my book is on this computer.
Panic set in. Not the “oh this is horrible and it will take awhile to get over this” type of angst. This was “I will definitively kill myself in the most horrific manner possible using, simultaneously, a gun, knife and crossbow”.
Because I am prone to freaking out over relatively minor inconveniences, it took two Glenlivets to remember that I had sent copies of the book file to my stepfather and ex-girlfriend. For reasons that I won’t go into here, neither of them are speaking to me at the moment, so I’ll have to make amends with them soon. Given that I’m not all that bright, I’m actually impressed that I even sent it to them in the first place. That’s forethought, my friends, and it’s what this guy is all about (points to self).
So once I have a MAC I’ll return to the B-Sides series. Until then I’ll be trying to retrieve files off of
the abomination known as my PC. Screw you, Dell.
Dells are pretty terrible. I’m sorry your PC crashed. I’d imagine your publisher also has a copy of said book? I’d recommend in addition to a new computer to replace the old one, getting an external HD to backup everything to regularly. Hope it all works out. Really looking forward to reading the book.
The good news is that with a PC, even when it’s completely fried, you can take it to someone who knows what they’re doing and probably get your data recovered.
In the case of a Mac, if it crashes (and yes, they do), your data is more likely lost forever.
Also, you probably won’t need to make amends with your stepfather or ex-girlfriend (girl? I thought you were gay?). Just check your sent e-mail folder instead, you should have a copy of the document there.
Are you making amends with both of them? You should probably get an external hard drive so you won’t have to make amends with anybody.
You need to get an external and start saving to the cloud.
BL1Y knows what’s up. Find a reputable PC repair company (NOT Geek Squad) and just have them pull the files if you can’t find it in your sent messages folder.
Been there, done that. LOVE my mac. And all my data? Mobile Me, baby. Easy peasy.
Good luck!!
My Dell did the same thing. Hopefully this will teach you that external storage is important. I’m not trying to sound snotty, truly. I lost my senior thesis in college this way. Luckily my teacher had the previous draft and I just had to re-edit it.
But really even Macs can fail. You need to get yourself an external hard drive or invest in online file storage.
The hard drives in macs and pcs are the same, there is no physical difference. Whether one crashes inside a pc or a mac makes no difference.
If it’s just your operating system that crashed, data recovery can be done by the average geek, on the other hand, if it’s actual hardware failure, you will likely have to get professional data recovery, where they have to physically open your harddrive. This last option is expensive. A geek should be able to tell you whether your hd is really crashed, or it’s just windows that failed.
It’s pretty easy to get your info back yourself, I can talk you through it offline or on skype if you’d like – not looking to charge anything, just want to help out as a way of saying thanks for all the great articles over the years.
In the defense of Dell, they didn’t make the hard drive.
C’mon Dr. Rob, if you’re going to look at porn, you’ve gotta have a good antivirus program, or yeah, your HD will eventually crash.
Get thee to a geekery, and fetch an IT guy to recover your data for ya. (Porn included, of course.)
Hey Rob:
First, you’re smart like a nail in a foot. That’s supposed to be a compliment.
Second, dude, Linix.
Vista decided, at one of the worst times it could do so, to commit suicide on me and I lost everything. All my music, all of my design software, my resume I’d been working on for days, all of my college papers … f*cking everything.
I’ve since switched to Linix and now my computer runs … like a computer.
I feel your pain, my friend. Good luck getting your book back, amigo.
How much of it did you have done, anyway?
A complete manuscript is done. It’s still a draft but a complete book nonetheless.
Ouch. Loosing creative work is just devastating. Writing all this again? No way. o_O
I will be forever grateful to Googlemail for saving my stuff in the cloud when I accidentally deleted a bunch of scripts from my project folders. Noone to make amends with, just downloading from the Sent Files folder.
For something like this, you need multiple backups. While I was working on my thesis, I had one copy backed up to my external hard drive using Apple’s built-in backup software, Time Machine (which updates every hour by default). But I’d also periodically put a copy on my USB thumb drive, another on a different external and a copy on my webspace (Apple again, MobileMe this time). Hard drives crash, Mac or PC, and you can’t leave something like that to chance.
Google Docs will allow you to upload documents for free, as will box.net and a handful of others. Totally worth the paranoia for something of this importance.
And avoid Linux unless you’re properly geeky. It’s powerful but takes some serious acclimating.
Ex-girlfriend not talking to you? Shocking: you’d better have a good excuse for that.
Do they read this blog and dislike you enough to do something really callous?
I’m writing a book too, and here’s my secret: a $5 thumbdrive. Every Friday is data-backup day. This way you never lose more than a weeks worth of work if the compy dies.
That’s gotta be the cheapest way to do it.
But hey, lesson learned, right?
If I lost my manuscript…it would suck. Best of luck recovering yours!
Dude, this is why you buy yourself an external hard drive and back EVERYTHING up! Silly Rob.
Man, that’s gotta suck. But as has been said above, so long as the HD isn’t completely shot you may be able to get your data back. If you started hearing a steady click click click sound before your comp broke, then you’re pretty screwed. Obviously getting the copy back from other people is easier if you’re not used to recovering files or don’t have access to a second computer for the recovery. But don’t rule it out if you run into problems, or if there’s other data on the drive you need.
Err, and sometimes the people you usually hire to do that can have varying skills, lets just say with 1 power cable, 1 usb cable and absolutely no recovery software I’ve saved 99% of the data for people after … well lets just say I now laugh a little at the Apple Genius moniker. (yes, sometimes when the Apple guys say your data is lost and nothing can be done other than throw away the drive they’re full of something that comes out of a bull)
Obviously investing in either a high quantity thumbdrive (if you don’t have a lot of data to backup) or a small external USB HD and getting backup programs so you can schedule regular backups is a must. There’s a lot of good free programs that can make life much easier. Kevin has the right idea, a cloud storage solution is something you should seriously consider for the more vital things and for the more frequent backups – since it’s offsite it’s better imo to use it for the more frequent and vital stuff. Having a hard backup for less frequent backups is also a good idea though, in case something happens to the cloud server or you can’t get online for some reason.
Oh, and I forgot to say, same as Nick if I can help you out with any questions or other tech stuff through online I’m but an email away.
Also I must say, you handled that initial ‘Wait, my data….’ moment very well, usually when this happens to people they’re either almost in tears or they’re very quiet, pale and look at you like you’re gonna to juggle their firstborn, their childhood puppy and their pension plan over a vat of battery acid and that’s their good news of the day.
Doesn’t your editor have a copy?
Sorry about the crash. That’s every writer’s worst nightmare. I once read an article about a writer who finished a novel, but her laptop got stolen at the airport and she lost the only copy. When asked if she’d rewrite the story (since she did it already) she said no. That experience, the act of creation was lost, and to try and duplicate it would be futile. So she wrote a new story.
Assume the preceding fact pattern occurs in a jurisdiction that has adopted the Freudian “there are no mistakes” doctrine. Analyze Dr. Rob’s role in (1) the computer crash itself, and (2) the failure to create a backup.
Oh man. I think “Bar Review” needs its own entry in the DSM.
Sometimes I wonder if Dell is specifically designed to be the go-to failure of PC purchasing. I had one for a few years and was constantly forced to either reformat the damn thing or risk the loss of all my data. But then someone stole it out of my car, and that solved that. For the record, Apple computers crash just like PC’s do. It’s key to back up your data on a regular basis (yeah, I know, you’re sick of being told that) or at least send your stuff to people that will never hate you. Like I dunno… Jesus.
Also, MAC = cosmetic line & Apples are computers. The first bit of info may be useful in making (temporary?) amends with your ex for the sake of your masterpiece.
Um, so are you also going through a rabid Eminiem phase because of Recovery? I am so obsessed.
In other news, thank god this story has a happy ending. I know someone who spent four years writing his thesis. only to have his computer kick the bucket about a month before the due date. He had no backup whatsoever (this was early 90s). What’d he do? Dropped out of school, turned into a heavy alcoholic, and eventually became homeless.
Please don’t be that guy.
You should install Linux. Windows is horrible. It either crashes or becomes really sluggish after some time. My 3-year-old Thinkpad became really fast after I installed Linux Mint. It is also very easy to use, and you don’t have to get rid of Windows, in case you need it to run certain software.
@Sara – Just install Wine!
Then you can completely migrate to Linux!
Though I would question why you would want to run Window’s applications in the first place….