[AT] OT: Computer crash and data loss

[dean at vinsonfarm.net]

A few days before Christmas I was using my six- or seven-year-old desktop
computer and went to open some particular file or other, but couldn't get to it
because the "My Documents" folder was inaccessible.  The computer was otherwise
working fine at the time, but okay, no big deal, some glitch or other, time to
Restart.

Upon restarting, I saw some error messages about disc sectors being corrupted,
or something ominous like that, and the computer launched the CheckDisk
program.  A few minutes later it was done and began to start up Windows like
normal...but never made it.  Kept looping back and forth between the initial
Dell screen and the Windows start screen, without ever really starting Windows. 
I was eventually able to boot up from a utility disc I'd kept from when I bought
the computer years ago, but couldn't read anything on the C: drive.

Two weeks and two visits to computer-repair places later, I'm resigned to my
fate:  The hard drive simply crashed for some reason, and cannot be repaired. 
After some web searches and phone calls, it appears that data-recovery services
involve big bucks:  Likely at least $1000, perhaps $1500 or $2000 depending on
the nature of the problem.  I'm reluctantly concluding that there isn't anything
on there that's worth $1000 to recover...but doggone it, after several years I
had a bunch of stuff that I'm not happy to lose.  Financial planning documents,
spreadsheets, web browser bookmarks annotated with password reminders, old
emails I'd wanted to keep, address and phone number records for friends and
family, photos, a whole series of periodic reminders entered into a calendar
function, etc.

The ironic part is that about a week before it crashed I ran across the external
hard drive I'd purchased about four years ago specifically for data backup
purposes, but which I'd quickly abandoned because its automatic-backup feature
was a huge memory and CPU hog and bogged everything else down.  I did have the
presence of mind and discipline to regularly back up my one most critical
financial-records file, using a thumb drive, but everything else is just gone,
out of reach.  Dag nab scagaraggit anyway.

So, just a reminder to folks, don't forget to back up anything you don't want to
lose.  I'm not a big fan of "cloud" backup services, but will be a lot more
disciplined about using that external hard drive or making backup CDs or
something.  Meanwhile, back to the drawing board...

Dean Vinson
Dayton, Ohio (soon to be Saint Paris, Ohio!)