8.30.2010

RIP Laptop

It was the moment I haven't been waiting for.
My laptop is dead.
As in..
...crashed,
...black screen,
...nada
...done-zo.
Everything is gone.
And I mean EVERYTHING.
Every program, every file, every picture.
GONE.
For the past 4 months my laptop has been acting sketchy.
Like really sketchy.
Not booting up, freezing up, not holding a battery charge, randomly shutting off, etc.
So, I wasn't surprised when I turned it on Saturday evening & after I booted it up, I saw this message, "Windows Error Recovery".
I immediately panicked, had Kevin come check out the computer & I didn't push any buttons until he told me to (he is the computer savvy one).
We ran the start up repair on it & it didn't work, now when I turn on the laptop, I get the dreaded black screen with a blinking cursor on the upper left hand corner. Not good.
Yesterday, we tried running the Recovery Back up disks, but the CD Rom of the laptop doesn't work, so that won't work either.

Oh yeah, and on top of all this, Kate had the stomach flu this weekend, so the crashed laptop was just the icing on the cake.

I am bummed my laptop crashed because it was only 2.5 years old.
I thought it would last at least 3-4 years.
I am not getting a new lap top anytime soon. Kevin has a laptop, so I will just use that.

But the good news out of all of this? Because my laptop was acting sketchy the past 4 months, I have had a bad feeling that it was going to crash, so I have been backing up all my files & pictures on my external hard drive every week. Just 2 weeks ago, I even backed up all my fonts!

I did lose a few things that I have worked on the past week (like cupcake toppers & favor tags for Claire's party) but I can recreate those.

So, the moral of the story? Back up your files/pictures AT LEAST once a week!

I got this laptop when I was 5 months preggo with Claire, so every single picture that I have taken of her was on that laptop. I am SO glad they are all saved on my external hard drive. And, luckily all the photo shoot pictures I have taken & edited were backed up.

And, because I am so paranoid, after the girls wake up from their naps today, I am going to buy another external hard drive so that I have a back up if anything happens to the original external hard drive. Yes, I am crazy, but I would FREAK if I lost all the pictures of my girls lives. I would have to commit myself to a mental hospital if I had lost all the pictures of their lives.

So, stop what you are doing and go back up your files & pictures!

16 comments:

  1. oh man that stinks! I know how you feel...my brand new external hard drive crashed with EVERYTHING on it. I rushed it to Geek Squad and its was gone. Damaged beyond recovery. Luckily I have been able to find copies of the of the pics (like my sons birth, etc) online from my personal photo blog. Whew! Still a huge loss and I get very sad whenever I think of it. I guess this is the Achilles heel of the digital world. Anyway, I wont be poking fun at you for backing up with a second external HD....boy I wish I did that!

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  2. Same thing happened to my husbands laptop. Good news is that if you know someone who has the same laptop you can swap the hard drives and recover all the files. If not Best Buy geek squad will do it for $150 and give you a extended hard drive to keep. I used them when my desktop had a power surge and blew out. Got back EVERYTHING! :) Good luck!

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  3. so glad you were wise and have been backing up. i was doing a good job for a while, but admittedly have been slacking as of late. you're right though, just once a week can make a giant difference.

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  4. I hear ya!!
    I use mozy.com which uploads to an online back up.
    My External hard drive crashed and mozy was able to restore them all to a new drive. Thank goodness!

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  5. instead of buying a second external, you can look into secure online options. i use the AWS (amazon) services and pay only about $3 a month then I have access to them anywhere I need them plus I don't have to worry about hardware (and don't have to take anything "in case of fire". They are secure - we're even using them at work for VERY private client data.

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  6. Oh wow....that is awful! But I'm soo glad you backed up your stuff in the nick of time

    I recommend a MacBook. My MacBook is my third child! My ibook lasted over 4 years until I upgraded last year. I never had a single problem with it, and my boys used it for a year until they dropped it off the bed at their Grandparent's house. It's dead finally thanks to that, YIKES!

    I too back up my photos monthly on an external hardrive. You can't be too safe with your memories I say!

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  7. oh gosh i totally would die too if I lost all the pics of noah!! so glad you saved everything. what a bummer it died. :( hope it's not too long before you get another. and I also hope your little sweetie starts feeling better.

    i have a fun giveaway going on right now.. maybe that will cheer you up. come on over. :)

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  8. Thank you! The princess party was alot of fun, I am sure Claire will have a great one too! That stinks about your LT but I am so glad you were able to save your pics.. same thing happened to me earlier this year!

    oh, FYI- they have some cute Princess buckets at Michaels. They look like paint cans but they are clear... I put candy in them (I actually found princess candy at a walmart when we were at the beach) and tied balloons on the handle for the table center piece..

    Have a great week!

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  9. i wish you would have posted this like 2 months ago...
    i received the same dreaded error message on my laptop and lost EVERYTHING!
    i did not have ANYTHING backed up. the only bit of pictures i have are what are on my blog.
    it stinks. but, i learned a HUGE lesson!!!

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  10. That is horrible but thanks for the great advice I need to back up my computer. I can't honestly say when the last time was that I did back it up. Great now all I want to do is run home and back up.

    Kelli
    xoxo
    loveoursimplelife.blogspot.com

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  11. you should look into Mozy. i back up to an external hard drive and Mozy...check it out!

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  12. Good lesson, I need to do that ASAP!!!!!

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  13. I think we all learned from Julie's mistake... :(

    I guess I should consider myself lucky that my lap top has lasted for 5 years now.

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    ReplyDelete
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