CRAAAAASH!!!!

[JewelFreak]

Catastrophic computer crash, sob. It closed & refused to re-boot. A tech I called could not retrieve a single word from its 2 hard drives. Motherboard dead as a mackeral. Of course I hadn't backed it up! Lost everything. Every.thing. All kinds of historical & genealogical info. Hundreds of photos, including an enormous file of historic jewelry by my favorite makers. Photos of my own stones & ideas for settings. Of my dogs & cats. Did back up my bank account -- i don't bank online but keep the accounts on Quicken; can't seem to get the check register off the cd. Hardest of all, almost, is my list of bookmarks!

A word to avoid a similar tragedy: Back up your stuff!

--- Laurie

 

[missy]

Oh I am sorry Laurie!! That sucks.

I have a love hate relationship with technology. Can't live without it but it acts up more often that I would like and drives me crazy. Sending tech dust your way that somehow your stuff can still be found!

 

[yennyfire]

I've been there, done that....learned the hard way. It beyond stinks. I am so, so sorry. It's a horrible feeling. Hugs...

 

[diamondseeker2006]

Ugh!!! I am so sorry! And I am the world's worst about not backing things up. I do use Picasa for my pictures and those can be saved on the web, and I do have some documents backed up, but not much else.

 

[sofi]

Please, before you give up, try another technician.

 

[Tacori E-ring]

That sucks! My laptop recently drowned so I know the pain of having a dead computer. I didn't have everything backed up either. It's a painful lesson to learn.

 

[Karl_K]

Sounds like the power supply took a dump.
That is the most common thing that would take out the motherboard and possibly drives.
However it is slightly unusual for it to take out the drives.
Ontrack can recover the data for around $1500 per drive is they are truly not working.
http://www.krollontrack.com/data-recovery/

Getting a second opinion is a good idea.
Did he pull them out and put them in a usb caddy and try and recover the data to another computer?

 

[JewelFreak]

Yes, Karl, he did, with no luck. One drive was totaled; the other came up with a few small pieces of gobbledegook. He offered to take the one that flickered back to his shop & work on it, but not much would've come from it, if anything at all. Not worth the cost. We do have a lot of electricity spikes; I use a surge protector. I guess s**t just happens. My fault for not backing up.

It's a flat-out bummer for sure. Thanks for the cheering up, everyone. Same back at ya, Tacori & Yennyfire.

--- Laurie

P.S. I feel the same way you do, Missy. Love what you can do with technology but my gosh, the amount of time & money spent on it! I actually remember times before computers when I used to get stuff done!

 

[Amber St. Clare]

Yet another reason why I don't put important things on my computer...I'm sorry it happened to you.

 

[daintyG]

I'm so sorry! I recently had a computer crash and I only have one piece of advice that might help. I don't know if you use Facebook, but if you've ever uploaded pictures there, then you can retrieve those files. That's how I got my honeymoon pictures back!

If you're interested, here's how:

In the top right corner of the screen, choose"Account", then "Account Settings." The very last option is to "Download a copy of your Facebook data." Click that and in a few hours Facebook will email you a zipped folder with every file you have currently uploaded to your Facebook page.

 

[KatyWI]

Seriously, investigate data recovery companies. Local technicians have nothing on the technology they have at their disposal. It's worth at least trying to get a price estimate for your specific drives before you give up... Ontrack is very expensive but there are more affordable options!

 

[JewelFreak]

Good advice, Katy. I'll see who i can find. Don't want to pay anything like $1500 mentioned above but if somebody can try reasonably, I didn't know it was available. I took the drives out of the computer so I can recycle the rest of it. Thanks.

--- Laurie

 

[Arkteia]

I can not offer any advices except for support, I have been in a similar situation before, it seems that you had tons of info in that computer, too... wishing you best of luck in finding an affordable data recovery company.

 

[Tacori E-ring]

I have you tried going to ubreakifix? I thought about taking my laptop there. There is another place (through the mail) that will test every piece and bag it for resale to recoup some money. I am going to see if ubreakifix will do the same thing since they are local.

 

[Amys Bling]

AHHHH! I hate that! It happened to me a few years ago, and it's like starting all over again! I bought an 80gig external hard drive after that and back everything up every few months so that I dont have to go through it again. Good luck to you!