The Crash of ‘06
April 21st, 2006
Filed Under: England, The Usual Rant
Technology sucks.
Of all the times for my laptop’s hard drive to fail, Tuesday night wasn’t it. In less than 10 days I have to get my first major research project completed for my MA course and now I’m ass out of a computer. With it is about 25% of my recent files for this project that I now have to recreate.
Technically speaking, not all is lost since I do have a backup of my programs and about 80% of my personal files. Plus I still can go to the school to use their computers but the drag there is the limited hours I can be in the building, 9am-6pm, so this has forced me to re-prioritize my efforts to meet my May 2nd deadline with all the present constraints.
But what a crappy time for this to happen. It could have happened anytime AFTER MAY 2ND, but nooooooo. I curse Murphy’s law.
The system was acting funky ever since I got out to London, and mind you the laptop was bought brand new back in December, so something weird was going on; especially since the system would crash every other day, sometimes a few times in one session. I had every intention to get it checked out after my project was completed but now I’m stuck. Unfortunately, I lost two days fiddling with this issue and I can’t afford to waste anymore time with it right now so it means my computer is out of commission indefinitely.
A visit to the Apple store confirmed that I’ll need to re-wipe the drive in order to determine if the problem is hardware or software related. If it’s hardware related, then it’s covered by my warranty and it will be replaced. If it’s software related, then I should be able to successfully re-initialize the drive myself and re-install everything.
Sounds good right?!
Well the only problem now is how, if at all, do I recover the data that’s still on the drive? Apple is recommending a vendor that charges £400 ($800+) for the data recovery to which I almost fainted. How important is the data to me you ask? Well, at this point it’s hard to quantify it all but it’s fair enough to say there are many intangible files I would like to recover like the 500+ photos I just took these past couple of weeks, my MP3 files, personal project files, and emails to name but a few. Before I can move on re-building the hard drive I have to decide if I want to attempt data recovery at all. I’ll be shopping around after May 2nd for a much more reasonably priced recovery service, but if you can recommend any reputable places please do let me know.
And of course the extended Apple warranty I bought doesn’t cover data retrieval whether it’s software or hardware related. I can’t help but feel extremely miffed by that. In the end though, the whole situation has made me realize how much I’ve come to depend on my computer — and maybe that isn’t such a good thing. In the coming weeks I’ll have to re-evaluate this reality and see what I can do to minimize the impact of future system failures like this one.
In the meantime, I’m trying my best to maintain my composure about everything as I’m hauling ass to get my research project completed by the deadline. I’ll probably be incommunicado more than usual so please do forgive me for that. Wish me luck, or just mail me a worthy bullet I can use.
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10 Responses to “The Crash of ‘06”
BILL!
Sorry DUDE! We got your back — all of your friends not even in the same country, with no money to give you and too far away to give you a shoulder to cry on.
We got you dude!
- B!
..:JJP
BILL!, you’re a ƒ@$#n&! goddamn champ bro! That comment easily made my day.
Alvaro
What a pity, Jamie! I hope you can recover all your important data.
See U in just some a couple of days!
B to the Fraser
I agree! Technology does suck! Good luck with the project.
Angie-C
On the brighter side of things, at least you dont have a tumor sticking out of your left pinky toe? …. Good Luck hon!
Kristen Guzman
jamie sweetheart…bummer!
but i am glad you have at least some foresight to back up some of your files. hmmmm….maybe i need to get on the ball and do that with all my loads of dissertation research. otherwise, three, four years of work down the drain.
how are you friend. i know you won’t re-emerge until after the project is finished so when you can, drop a line.
kisses and warm hugs
love Dr. K-love (aka Kristen) and Angelo sends his best, too
Jazmine
Oh Boy, do I KNOW how you feel! I had problems with my lap back in November. I had a melt down. Like crying, pulling out my hair, rocking myself. It wasn’t pretty.
You will get through this.
I guess by now you’ve finished up your project. Hope it went well. Good Luck with getting everything sorted out.
..:JJP
Thanx for all the kind words folks.
The bottom line I guess is that stuff always happens when you least want it to.
Anyways, with my first major research project behind me, and some time spent in Germany decompressing from it all, I’ve already started looking into some data recovery services that hopefully won’t cost an arm & a leg to retrieve all my files. If you know of any services or people that may have good leads, please do let me know.
auni
Jamie,
I think the problem can be traced back to your computer needing to get laid.
auni
blue22.net » Blog Archive » After the Crash
[...] Today I’m providing an epilogue to the nightmare of my laptop crashing to hell back in April. First off, I wanted to say thanks to those peeps that got back to me with their useful suggestions at the time of the crisis. That support meant a lot. [...]
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