Tech Fail
Those of you awake and paying attention may have noticed I’ve been quieter than usual on the bloggage front. That’s partly due to my workload in general –at the moment I’m juggling time-sensitive projects – and partly because I suffered a tech fail earlier this week.
What makes it worse is that it’s the second time in a month that it’s happened.
I have three computers that I use at various times. For financial stuff and files that need printing, I use a desktop Packard Bell that’s done me reasonable service. Which is more than can be said for the netbook that I use when on the move and at home for some university work – many of you will have heard my swearing before when it decides to get temperamental. The Tosh’s tendency to randomly lock up or simply go back to different screens has encouraged me to hang onto my trusty Sony Vaio laptop, despite it’s being literally held together with sellotape.
Because I switch machines, I back up about once a week onto a USB, although sometimes that lapses to once a fortnight. (You can tell where this is going, can’t you?)
About a month ago my desktop mysteriously failed to re-boot. Fortunately, this is the machine with least permanent files on, although it did have a decade’s worth of photos that Kate had downloaded. Nonetheless, we asked our local PC shop to take a look at it.
Sharp intake of breath. “Looks like your hard drive’s become corrupted.”
New hard drive installed, but the old one was a write-off – none of the data on it could be recovered. And I’m only now realizing how much submission history and how many financial files were on that machine, and how rarely I had ever backed it up. I’ve had to re-input this year’s spreadsheet for the accountant, and I literally have no history aside from the hard-copy files sent through for previous year’s returns.
Nor have I any idea who I’ve submitted which stories to. It’s a bit like having very limited amnesia.
Still, I’ve sort of gotten used to that. Until three days ago…
More tomorrow
