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Beyond the Lone Islands

http://dawntreader-island2.blogspot.com

Sunday 15 November 2009

My Computer Died



After writing the previous post on my desktop computer, I turned it off and went out for a walk, and to get a few things from the supermarket. When I got home and turned on the computer again a couple of hours later, it was dead. Apparently it had some sort of sudden heart attack - important system file damaged or missing...

I called my brother the Computer Wizard on the phone (he lives in another town), and we tried a few things, but it did not work. He did find a web page for me with some other suggestions and I might try them another day when I'm less tired, but my hopes are not high...

Well, at least I still have the laptop and so I'm not out of internet connection! But the laptop too has been complaining about being tired lately and a couple of times threatened to go on strike. (Had to unplug the battery and reinsert it to restart.) Apparently neither of my machines has been very pleased with my blogging habits of late...!

I will have to start thinking about getting a new computer.

The worst thing about the present situation is that I have all my edited photos on the dead one; as well as the PSP software; as well as a lot of personal documents and whatever; as well as that's the one connected to the printer; and...

I do however have some of the photos stored in the Picasa webalbum. (The ones I've already used on the blogs + a few yet unpublished.) The original photos from this year I also have on a memory stick (which I hope is still alive). Photos from previous years I have on CD-R, and also some older documents. It's mostly things like edited photos and documents from this year that are gone unless they can be recovered.


Apart from the loss of Data, I can also foresee a considerable loss of Time and personal Energy over the next few weeks, trying to fix things.

For the next few days I had already scheduled posts for my Picture Book, so no immediate panic. And (now I'm repeating myself, just to help myself breathe calmly) the laptop is still alive so I'm not without internet. And... I don't know what I'm complaining about, really. Still feels like I just lost a friend, though!


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9 comments:

mo jour said...

ich fühle mit dir, liebe mo in schweden! festplattencrash ist mir letztes jahr passiert - wie lästig. es kostet soooo viel zeit und geduld, alle dateien und den ganzen rest wieder zu rekonstruieren ....
hoffentlich ist bei dir noch viel zu retten! dein post hat mich daran erinnert, dass bei mir längst wieder eine datensicherung auf extern fällig war ;-) dafür danke: ich habe es sofort erledigt.

maybe your computer suffered from an autumn depression and committed suicide. please don't forget to cheer up your laptop now with an extra light or so .... also in order to help it come over the loss of its 'brother'

Scriptor Senex said...

Many commiserations on your loss. I hope it can be resuscitated long enough to extract your photos.

I recently backed up everything I had and put it on a passport drive for my daughter to keep. That way if the house burns down I've still got my photos. I guess it says how much they mean to me.

Kittie Howard said...

You have my sympathies. I got this new computer because the old one just died. Know the sense of panic/loss you're going tru. It's horrible! Anyway, saw your photo of Sweden and just had to drop by. I had visited Sweden before, but my husband had not. The opportunity came so that both of us could go this past summer. We had such a wonderful visit. You live in a little slice of heaven!!!

rae said...

Oh no! This is the WORST! I wish computers would give a warning alarm before they died, so you could save all the good stuff!

DawnTreader said...

Thank you all for your sympathies.

mo jour - And so I learned a new word in German: Festplattencrash! There were hardly any computers in use yet back when I studied German...

Scriptor - At least I do have back-up of the original photos, I'm just regretting now that I have not kept updating the backup with all PSP edits too... I'll probably have another think about saving more into Picasa or Photobucket or whereever in the future too.

Kittie, hello. I don't know what photo first caught your attention but you might also want to visit my Picture Book, you'll find the link in the margin.

Rae, yes. The thing is I know full well I ought to do external back-ups regularly as routine but of course the crash happens when you have not bothered for a while!

Dan Felstead said...

Dawn Treader...You mentioned that you had your Paint Shop Pro on the desktop...do you have the disk that you can reload it again or is it lost? If you lost the editing program...I will offer some help if you want. I use Photoshop to edit my work. It is very expensive but there is a "little brother" to this program called Photoshop Elements. I used it before I went to photoshop and you can do many of the things with it that photoshop does. I don't have the latest version of it but you are welcomed to this program if you want it..I would be glad to ship it to you. If you are interested, just let me know your shipping address via my email:
felsteadd@gmail.com and I will send it to you if I can find it! I am sure I can. I do not use it anymore but it is a good program to edit photos...somewhat difficult to learn but if you are smart enough to master the English language...believe you can master this as well! There are books available at your book stores to help with it. Just let me know.

Dan

DawnTreader said...

Dan, that is so kind of you!!! I will get back to you when I have a better grip of the situation; first if there is a way to restore the lost system file on the computer, and second what to do if there isn't. I don't have the PSP disc but my brother might, it was he who put the computer together for me in the first place.

Dan Felstead said...

Dawn Treader...ok...just let me know. I don't want anyone like you who has made so much progress on their photos over the last year to stop putting out the goods! Hang in there and keep your chin up. Also, you might want to look into "Carbonite" if it is available in Sweden. It is the cheapest insurance you will ever buy and it is a life saver.

Dan

DawnTreader said...

Thanks Dan. Don't worry... There might be a temporary break in photo editing of PSP-kind, but whether I/we manage to recover lost data or not the whole thing will probably result in purchase of a new and faster computer. Don't want to rush into it though, but in the meantime I hope the laptop will stay alive...

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