Son of a Biscuit-Eating Bulldog

My work horse laptop, the one that sits on my desk in my office and never travels anywhere, has died. Again. Yes, again - this is the same laptop that had a major hard drive meltdown last year and caused me to lose EVERYTHING.

This time, thanks to Hotrod setting up an external back-up system, nothing will be lost. It's still a giant pain in the backside. And it means that I'm coming to you on my small, slow travel laptop. Hey, I'm grateful for it right now!

So, I'll be calling the guys who installed the new harddrive into my main laptop to see if there's any kind of warranty. Even so, I'm thinking it might be time to get a new machine. The big question is: Should I go to a Mac? What do you think? What kind of machine do you use?

The Devil Is Dead

I finally heard back from the data recovery center about my computer yesterday. Not good. All the data they pulled off was corrupted. Nothing is recoverable. Nothing.

I'm going to wallow in self-pity for a few days since the best book I've ever written is now forever lost to the ether. Sure, I've got the first 179 pages of an early draft, but I can't even think about rebuilding it right now. Date With The Devil is officially dead.

I'm going to work on a novella I've been asked to do, after that, there's a YA I'd like to tackle. I'll reassess Date at that point and see what I feel up to.

Back up your work externally, people. Trust me on this one.

Listen Up

BACK UP YOUR WORK.

Right now. I'll wait. Done? Good. Why am I harping on this? On Wednesday, my main computer flashed the blue screen of death. Even technical genius Hotrod couldn't save it. See, my computer decided it no longer wished to recognize my hard drive. You know, the place where all my files are stored? Including the nearly complete first draft of Date With The Devil (all 374 pages). Actually, every book I've ever written is on that hard drive, but only DWTD matters to me at the moment.

Sigh.

I took it to our local computer guys and long story short, they couldn't retrieve the info but they have a lab they can send it to. This lab has a medical grade clean room, where they'll strip the hard drive, put the important bits into another hard drive and save off the info. They're 98% sure the lab will be able to get all my files.

Cost of this process? Are you sitting down? $600 to $2000. I'll wait while your heart rate slows to normal. Dear, sweet Hotrod didn't blink an eye. Well, he might have blinked once. Regardless, he knows I need these files back.

I guess this means I won't be buying any new shoes for a long time.

Sigh.

The real kicker is, I know I'm supposed to be backing up my stuff to disk or flash drive or emailing my self copies. So I could have prevented this, but my laziness won. This is the most expensive lesson I've learned so far in my life. Don't make the same mistake, okay? BACK UP YOUR WORK.