Last Sunday I took an unpleasant trip to the Apple Store to find out why my external hard drive would not be acknowledged by my Macbook when I plugged it in. In short, I was told that my hard drive stopped working and that the only chance I had of recovering my data was to go through a company that charges more than my honeymoon for their services. I looked into other alternatives and it looks like that’s the going rate.
I know what you’re thinking – did you back up? Yes, some of my photos were backed up, but many of them were not. You see, I take a lot of photos and as they overtook my little Macbook and then my external hard drive I found myself with no more space. I recently downloaded Dropbox, but I have yet to really come up with a formal back up system for all of the data I accumulate. And before I could solidify an official process, it was too late.
I have uploaded a lot of photos to my Flickr account. And while it makes me happy to have them there, they aren’t the original files and therefore, the quality will never be the same.
But knowing that I just can’t spend the money to attempt to bring back my files, tonight I spent some time perusing my Flickr account to reassure myself that not all is lost.
Then I came across this photo of a work-in-progress replica of a boat that Mike and I saw on one of our trips to Gloucester.
Stumbling across this photo turned my sadness into optimism a little. While I will never get some of my original photos back, rebuilding my library of memories will be one heck of a work in progress. And even if the end result isn’t perfect, it will always represent something great.
I feel for you! That happened to me once before, turns out you can’t drop an external hard drive and expect it to work. now i keep everything once backed up on my external portable hard drive and again on a desk top shelf unit external hard drive. It’s a bit more work but it lets me sleep at night.
Wow, what a positive way to spin a negative situation! Gotta tell ya, I’d be pretty devastated even though I’m an eternal optimist. If I even lose one photo my day is ruined!
oh honey I feel for you!! This happened at my office a couple of weeks ago and my boss spent thousands recovering the files. Did he learn his lesson? nope still no backup here. I hope you find a way to get them back!!
uggh, sorry to hear
i’ve recently started to just buy new memory cards for my camera as another backup. so i have them on my computer, on my external, some are on picassa and then the memory card. And that is a gorgeous shot of the boat!
Wow what a gorgeous photo- right in line with a great outlook! Definitely devastating news- but what a great way to look at it- as just stepping stone into the new life.
Wait, isn’t the point of an external hard drive that it’s your “backup”?? Do I need another form of back up?? (haha this sounds like a convo about something else…). I just recently learned I REALLY need to use my external hard drive; now I need something else, too? Sheesh.
I’m so sorry! That’s really sad… But it’s true, you will rebuild everything and your blog has so many good memories on it, too
Just make sure to back up the wedding pics!
I feel for you, hopefully you can rebuild your library to an extent.
That sucks. A similar situation happened to me a few years back (laptop hard drive just up and died on me) and I lost a ton of personal photos and some documents that held a lot of sentimental value.
I now backup daily to an external hard drive as well as an online backup service (Mozy). Redundancy is key, and I think ideally you want on- and offsite backup (to mitigate nightmare scenarios like fire, water damage, etc.)
I like Mozy – good price and I’ve been using them for a while. Although I haven’t yet needed or tried to *recover* anything….maybe I should test that out.
pictures are so invaluable! hope you get some back. xo!