Grrrrr, but ok

[lalicopa]

For the last few days, my computer has been super sluggish. I've had to do hard restarts at least a dozen times. Last night, I got an error message stating that some file in my system configuration was missing and I needed to put in the disc that came with my computer to set it up again. I did that (basically) and it took me to "system restore". The messages I got with system restore were that it would put my computer back to factory defaults, but would not delete any of my data files.

Ok, cool, right?

So I do it, it takes a while because it appeared to be copying all my files *somewhere*. I put the computer back on and could not locate any of my files. NONE. My Documents was empty. Nada.

I started freaking out. I called my sister in law who is a techie and she told me that usually the data is somewhere and retrievable. But I couldn't find it anywhere.

I called HP's customer service. I got some woman in India. She informed me that if I did System Restore that all my data was gone forever. I asked for a supervisor. He started helping me (or at least it seemed) and then we got disconnected. So I called back and got another woman in India. She also assured me that although the computer told me that none of my data would be deleted that it was gone. Forever.

I called my sister in law FREAKING OUT. She told me to search for jpg files, so I did. They are ALL there. Thank GOD.

Oh, did I mention the incompetent ASSHOLES at HP charged me $49.95 because my computer is out of warranty? I'm disputing the charge FOR SURE. I'm livid.

Once I saw that my files were all there, I got hysterical crying. So grateful that the last 2 years of my stuff is still there. All the pictures of my kids. Yeah, I know. I bought a one terabyte hard drive and I've already backed up everything now. I'm still so frazzled, and it's been a frustrating day on all accounts. I'm looking forward to tomorrow when everyone's gone and I can get a little peace and get my computer back to where I want it.

Comments

[catyak]

Hindsight is wonderful, but have you considered also copying the pictures to CD or DVD? That's a way of making a cheap backup that won't easily be overwritten and is relatively small and robust. I do that for our picture and email archives every few months. Because it's a full backup each time, earlier pictures end up on multiple DVDs so there's even greater protection.

D

[lalicopa.livejournal.com]

My pictures are HUGE...I put most of the summer pictures on CDs for my sister in law and it took about five, and that was with editing. I'd need hundreds to take off everything I've got on here.

Hopefully the external drive will be all we need and I'll be more careful. I'm still pissed off at those folks in India who gave me incorrect information!

[catyak]

A DVD is much better than a CD as a general archive. Admittedly it might only be 1000 per DVD but it's still reasonable. We seem to have something over 10,000 pictures in our archive, so that'll be several DVDs required. If you have a more modern DVD drive then you can use dual-layer DVDs and get almost 10GB/disc.

D