Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Hard Drive Failure

Well, my work computer entered a terminal loop Monday morning when I tried to boot it up. Our ITC department came to pick it up and I found out today the hard drive was completely fried. Our expert was unable to save anything and had to reformat the entire machine. I got it back Tuesday afternoon with a mind wipe.

Fortunately, I'm rather obsessive about backing everything up and didn't really loose any data. I did loose many hours of work, though, since most everything I do these days involves computers and email. That meant I had about six straight hours of work at home that evening, work I should have gotten done at school.

Between that and having to restore all my files on the computer on Tuesday, I had to let visiting blogs slide completely. But I should be able to get back on track tomorrow.

*****
In other news, I got some more copies of my books in and can offer signed copies at something of a discount if anyone is interested. The prices are below, and these prices include shipping and handling, which makes the discount fairly reasonable.

Cold in the Light: $12.50

Any Individual Talera novel: $14.50

Any Two Talera Novels: $28.00

All Three Talera Novels: $40.00

I'll throw in a copy of Strange Worlds of Lunancy, which has a story by me and is subtitled "The World's Silliest Anthology," for $5.00 with any order. (I only have 3 of these, though)

If you're interested, email me at kainja@hotmail.com

Until later!
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39 comments:

writtenwyrdd said...

Well, at least you didn't really lose anything important. But it stinks that you lost so much work time!

Lana Gramlich said...

Sorry for the hassle. At least you did have your stuff backed up, as you've said.

Erik Donald France said...

Good you had everything covered; always horrifying when stuff like that happens. Sucks to have to double up work at home.

I'm on the road this week, but will order some books to send to one of my sisters. Off to email . . .

the walking man said...

What are books? ;-P~~~~~

Sidney said...

Sorry to hear about the computer. That is a headache. I'll send out the word on Twitter about your deals.

G. B. Miller said...

Glad you were able to reconstruct your files and e-mails, in order to slave away for six hours at home (w/o pay. i remember those days with dear old dad).

The book deal definitely sounds intriguing.

Monique said...

Computers are wonderful until things go wrong. I'm glad that you didn't lose anything important unlike me. I lost the lot and not because the puter is bust, but because my printer went caput and my computer (the one I write MD on) is so old that no printer can be connected. Time to get something better and the, as you so wisely do, back up everything.

Randy Johnson said...

I feel for you, Charles. Something recently infected my computer and my nephew did the "mind wipe." Rebooting with a fresh program left me scrambling to recoup all my bookmarks and email addresses. Fortunately I had nothing unrecoverable on it.

Heff said...

I may have a similar failure brewing on one of my home systems - the one I keep THOUSANDS of mp3 music files on...with NO backup.

When will I learn ?

ivan said...

Too dumb to use word,retiging from work long before PC's-- I copy and paste everything. If things go kaput or I accidentally delete,there is always the deleted item. Or I can use Find if I remember the slug headline for the initial "create mail" compositon.
But then now and again, I crash and have to go across the street to my inexpensive techie who says my machine is so full of smoke, so dirty, he can't work on it without havin an asthma attack....But then maybe he had found the spot where Daddy saves his pornies! So he sells me a new machine and this one soon gets its discs worn out and a virus or two from those naughty sites I visit--- only when drunk,you understand-- and that's my story and I'm sticking to it... It is my excuse. Sort of a moral holiday from the usually circumspect and proper former prof...Hey, those girls are gorgeous...Must be getting a new crop in...But I keep thinking of those Arab traders and Easern European Scarlet Pimpernells. Zap 'em all.
Pure evil.
So last night, full of guilt and woe, I went to my techie again, 'cause I had more wallpaper and spam than Adolph Hitler and felt just about as evil.
So the techie turns on my computer, clicks onto a "Tools" entry or two and up comes, unwanted, an icon top right, and in full colour, are of "Wet Girls" and they are all fetching, bothered and largely undressed.
"Pervert", the techie hisses.
His wife, looking over our shoulders adds, "All men are perverts."
Guity as charged, I guess.

"I was doing research, research, you understand!"
"Yes Professor Pee," she mocked.
"Reseach."
Still new at computers, I asked,"What do they mean when they say TMI?
"That's what we have up on your screen. "You got too much information, Doc."
Hoisted by my own petard.
Or was it leotard?
I gotta get anothe wife!

Charles Gramlich said...

Writtenwyrd, time is precious.

Lana, you sweet.

Erik, time is the most critical component.

Mark, if you have to ask you don't need to know. ;)

Sidney, thankee.

G, in my profession there often seems a very small distance between work work and home work.

Monique, I had to change my word processor because no printer would run it.

Randy, I did lose my bookmarks so that is a pain, but I can recover those pretty quickly.

Heff, that sounds like a Looming problem.

Ivan, perhaps you'd be better off seeking free range porn. :)

Aine said...

Yuck-- I hate it when that happens!

I still blame the mouse. I think it crawls into the hard drive and gnaws on the silicon while we are sleeping.

Glad you didn't lose data!

laughingwolf said...

rats... someone should come up with a better computational idea

can your school set up a central storage system wherein all staff/faculty/student files are automatically dumped, say every 15 minutes, or so?

accessible by password, of course

since i have all your books....

BernardL said...

The phrase 'hard drive failure' ranks as one of the most horrific in the English language. I've had it happen. :(

Charles Gramlich said...

Aine, That's about as good a theory as any.

Laughingwolf, they do have storage on the mainfraim but it's limited. The stuff I had there was saved, but I had far too many files to keep them all there.

Bernardl, I'm so so glad I had everything pretty much backed up.

Barbara Martin said...

I try not to keep files on my computer and keep them backed up for just in case. "Hard drive failure" is a scary thought for writers or anyone who uses a computer.

Mary Witzl said...

Remind me to back up my work as soon as I finish this comment. I just know this is going to happen to us again...

moonrat said...

i was wondering where you were! you've been awol for awhile.

i just bit the bullet and bought a new computer myself (after months of whinging). may we all be better off for it.

Steve Malley said...

Pardon me... I think I need to go back up some things...

;)

Miladysa said...

LOL @ the walking man

Sorry to hear about the mind wipe - pleased to learn it wasn't too much of a disaster though!

My old faithful is still fried but the old man says it was cheaper to buy this new one than it was to repair it :(

Gary Dobbs/Jack Martin said...

I've got to learn to back things up. I've lost important date several times in the past by being lax about backing up.

Travis Cody said...

That's a shame about your computer. I live in fear of that happening to my personal laptop. I've finally been able to back up my music. I need to do the same with my writing.

Charles Gramlich said...

Barbara Martin, I back up obsessively, keeping some files in three places, two different computers and a data stick.

Mary Witzl, yes, take it as a warning, I'd say. Back thee up!

moonrat, It's also been pretty busy at school. Congrats on your new compy. That's always nice.

Steve Malley, good idea.

Miladysa, supposedly all they had to do with my old one was wipe it completely. So far so good it seems.

ARCHAVIST, In the past I've lost stuff I really really didn't need to lose, so I'm more careful these days.

Travis, I'd definitely do so. Those data sticks will hold a lot of stuff and make backing up pretty easy.

SzélsőFa said...

I hear you talking about having problems with PCs.
I'm having those, too.

Now it's the sound card ont he secondary computer, and the first one is still in the service - we are practically gathering money to be able to get it home again. Pfft.

laughingwolf said...

good to know, thx

Charles Gramlich said...

SzélsőFa, computers are fickle friends for sure.

laughingwolf, no prob.

BIBI said...

What a bummer! My computer went on the fritz Monday. Do you think the two are related and planned together do such a thing?!?
Thank goodness for laptops!
Have a good one Charles!

X. Dell said...

I have the other Taleria novels in my reading queue. But, somehow, I think I'd rather read about the thoughts going on in your head as you restored your backup programs.

Crushed said...

Does that only apply to Us readers?

How would you work it if someone from the Uk wanted to take up your offer?

Donnetta said...

Boy, that was crummy. At least you had it all backed up. Makes me think I'd better do that, too. Or do so in the future when I get serious writing. Good lesson to learn through your pain!! D

Vesper said...

This reminds me of the importance of backups... Glad you didn't lose your files.
I have all the files that really matter to me on a memory stick, but every now and then I have horror flashes that involve the loss of this memory stick.

Charles Gramlich said...

BIBI, it probably was a conspiracy between those two computers, and who knows how many more. perhaps they were planning a take over.

X. Dell, my thoughts during that process consisted primarily of one long: "son of a *&$(*

Crushed, hum, good question. Let me look into the postal charges. I suspect it might be a bit more because of the postal stuff. The books are available on Amazon UK btw. But I'll check on the postal stuff.

Donnetta Lee, losing anything that way can be a pain, but yes, having backups made it much less stressful and I didn't think about killing myself.

Vesper, makes me think of a story idea. a guy loses his memory stick and ALL his memories are on it.

Barrie said...

I'm SO glad you're obsessive about backing up. I've had two hard drives crash in the last two years. What is going on? Both were Macs though, and I think they're more likely to crash.

L.A. Mitchell said...

Thanks for the reminder to back up. I'm sorry you lost all that time:(

Michelle's Spell said...

Oh Charles,

That sucks! I get upset if I lose so much as a paragraph! But you're smart to back up. I've learned that lesson the hard way before and spent the better part of a month redoing everything.

J. L. Krueger said...

On my personal computers I always build them with a separate data drive. The drive most likely to fail is the one with the operating system. Yet another great lesson on the importance of backups!

SzélsőFa said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
SzélsőFa said...

Detto what J.L. Krueger said.
I've heard that no important data should be stored on a same drive with the operating system (C disk).

Charles Gramlich said...

Barrie, this was my office computer, a PC, adn I get a lot of stuff sent to me by students so it was probably a virus of some kind.

L.A. Mitchell, At least I can afford the time, although I begrudge the waste

Michelle, I was having trouble with it before and actually took it to the tech folks for a virus scan. They didn't find anything, but I was occassionally losing a paragraph or so when I went to save stuff. It seems to be working much better now.



J. L. Krueger, that's a good idea. I hadn't thought of that.

SzélsőFa, that's new to me actually. Makes sense, though.