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Thursday, October 4, 2012

Crash and Fall

Normally when I don't blog for awhile, it's because I've been on a last-minute vacation or something else super fun like that. I wish that was the case! It's been a very long two weeks, aside from a few happy days spent with Liz and her babies in Idaho. My grandma was in the ICU, we had problem after problem to sort through with our house, we got bummer news from a doctor, we actually canceled a vacation, we continued to deal with little issues from our PCS, and...

The most unfortunate of all non-life-threatening events occurred. My external hard drive, containing all of our pictures and videos since the beginning of time, crashed. This has pretty much been my greatest fear since as long as I can remember. As a little girl, I used to worry that our house would burn down and we would lose all of our pictures -- the loss of pictures being the problem with that scenario. Basically, this is my worst nightmare.

I've always made sure to have everything stored in at least two places, but with the move, I got horribly behind schedule. Most older pictures are backed up, most newer ones are not. (Luckily, I still had a small sampling of pictures from Jake's birthday and party on my camera just in case, because I'm paranoid like that.) The biggest tragedy is that we only have about 10% of our videos backed up. All of the cutest little videos of my sweet baby... I just can't even begin to tell you how absolutely devastating this is to me. I'm so sick about it.

It's a rather long story, but the short version is that the hard drive had a rapid decline and actually crashed while I was trying to copy things over to a new hard drive. (Just the most important folder even, since I worried that copying over too much at once might overwhelm the drive.) That makes this all the more frustrating since it's not like I was just naively going about my merry way when I lost everything. The hard drive is currently with professional repair hope #1, after which we'll take it to computer whiz #2, and if all else fails, we're prepared to pay inhumane amounts of money to the data recovery company that we selected after hours upon hours of research. The internet tells me that with my model and symptoms, even the data recovery experts only run a 50/50 chance of getting my files back. We have every extremity crossed that at least our most favorite videos of Jake can be recovered. At the risk of sounding horrifically dramatic, I might die if it doesn't work.

On a happier note, we welcomed fall by driving the Alpine Loop post-computer-apocalypse. We loved taking in the scenery as we played at Aspen Grove. The colors are so vibrant and beautiful this time of year! On a sadder note, it's sort of freezing and I'm really missing warmer weather and beaches and Disneyland and California and our home and, well, you get the idea. Like I said, kind of a bummer two weeks. But! We're going on a little road trip to one of our very most favorite places in the entire world this weekend and are very excited about that. And we're all happy and healthy and doing great overall. And the mountains are so pretty right now...

11 comments:

  1. Ugh. Awful, I'm so sorry..

    The colors? So beautiful. so.so beautiful.

    I'm sorry to hear about your grandma, what a stressful time you're all having. :(

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  2. Oh Ashley! I am so so sorry. You have had a tough couple of weeks! A hard drive crash is like my worst fear! I'm praying and hoping you can get everything back.
    Your photos are absolutely stunning. I need to get up in the mountains again. And I also need to tell you thanks for taking photos for me at the baby shower. I really appreciated it!!

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  3. Beautiful fall pictures !

    Poor grams!



    Brooke

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  4. I'm sorry that you've had a bad few weeks. I'll be praying that the videos and photos on your hard drive can be restored! Your photos of the leaves are so beautiful.

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  5. Ashley! This is super random, but I've been following your blog for a little while (love it by the way)...and I'm super sad about your pictures! I actually just wanted to tell you that my brother-in-law has a data recovery business, and he is AWESOME! He also is a VERY good deal compared to other data recovery companies, and he will only charge you if he can recover your data. Anyway, just wanted to give you another possible option. Let me know if you'd like his info.

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    1. Jenny, you're so sweet! If this company doesn't work out, I'll be getting in touch with your brother for sure!

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  6. So sorry about the videos and pictures. That totally stinks. It is also one of my biggest fears. I just paid an online service to automatically back everything up, but I have to go in and manually do video which this post reminds me to do. I hope it can all be recovered.

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  7. This exact thing happened to me last month. EVERYTHING was on that hard drive. All of our time here in Japan, our travels, EVERYTHING! I had "purchase a 2nd hard drive" on my to do list for Sept and the last week of August, my current one bit the dust. I sobbed. For days. I am still devastated. Shop #1 had no luck and it's currently at shop #2 who told me they charge up to $1600 which again brought on lots of tears. UGH. I am so sorry for your loss. I pray you are able to retrieve all of your photos and videos at minimal financial cost.

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    1. Oh, Jes, I am so, so sorry! I know how you feel, and it really is devastating. Our hard drive is on its way to a company with the same estimate. I hope that they are able to recover your pictures! Memories really are priceless.

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  8. Losing all my photos is one of my biggest fears. I actually just finished backing up everything onto an external hard drive and thought, "Whew! I'm safe!" But now I'm thinking maybe I should buy another one??? Or burn a bunch of discs??? Gosh, can you ever really guarantee your photos are safe? Maybe not.

    Anyway, YOUR PICTURES ARE INCREDIBLE!!! Holy holy holy, you're making me miss Utah soooo badly. I know you're bummed about being away from California, but just know that I am really really envious of the fact that you are where you are right now. Utah is wonderful and I love it and miss it so much. So at least if you can't be in Cali, you are still in a really really great and insanely beautiful place. Beautiful like, looking at these pictures almost makes me cry beautiful. Thank you for posting these! I've come back to look at them three times!

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  9. Thanks so much for the condolences. Hopefully there will be a happy ending! It's on its way to the data recovery company now and we should know its fate within a week. I'm dying inside a little bit.

    But yes, Utah is so beautiful right now! Autumn is such a kind transition to the cold :)

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