You know how you’ll be reading a bunch of blogs and having a grand ol’ time and then someone will mention something about their hard drive failing? It usually goes something like this: ZOMFG!!1! YOU WILL NEVER GUESS WHAT HAPPENED TO ME. MY HARD DRIVE FAILED AND I LOST ALL MY DATA AND WAAAAAAAAH! I HAD YEARS AND YEARS OF INFORMATION, VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION, INFORMATION LIKE PICTURES OF MY PRECIOUS BABIES AND IT’S GONE, ALLLLLLL GOOOOOOONE!!! WHY ME, GOD, WHY ME?
Yeah.
Well.
ZOMFG!!1! YOU WILL NEVER GUESS WHAT HAPPENED TO ME. MY HARD DRIVE FAILED AND I LOST ALL MY DATA AND WAAAAAAAAH! I HAD YEARS AND YEARS OF INFORMATION, VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION, INFORMATION LIKE PICTURES OF MY PRECIOUS BABIES AND IT’S GONE, ALLLLLLL GOOOOOOONE!!! WHY ME, GOD, WHY ME?
You see, I’m like one smart motherfucker and stuff, so I asked for an external hard drive for Christmas last year, because I did not want to lose YEARS of information and pictures and OMG, DID I MENTION THE PICTURES? OF MY BABIES? YES? I DID? BECAUSE THERE WERE YEARS OF PICTURES! OF MY BABIES! So, I got the external hard drive, the WESTERN DIGITAL MY BOOK ESSENTIAL EDITION hard drive and I happily transferred FOUR MOTHERHUMPING YEARS worth of STUFF, VERY VERY IMPORTANT STUFF on to it. And then I felt all safe and secure and I was so proud of myself for being grown up!
But then? Then I noticed how SLOW my computer was running and OMG, IT’S TAKING ME AN HOUR JUST TO TURN THE FUCKING THING ON and so, well, you see…I deleted all the pictures off of the computer because they were SAFE AND SECURE on my external hard drive.
Today I tried to access my hard drive and grab a couple of those pictures off of it and my hard drive started cackling like a fucking maniac and I said WHAT? ARE YOU LAUGHING? THAT IS WEIRD, DUDE. WHAT’S SO FUNNY? THE PICTURES OF MY CUTE BABIES ARE FUNNY? YOU ARE GIGGLING AT MY CUTE BABIES?, but the hard drive cackled a little louder and said HUH UH, BITCH, I AM SICK AND TIRED OF SITTING HERE BEING IGNORED ALL DAY LONG AND YOU KNOW WHAT? I QUIT, MOTHERFUCKER, and so I said BUT MY BABIES! MY CUTE BABIES! DO YOU SEE THE PICTURES OF MY CUTE BABIES? and the hard drive said …. NOTHING.
So I called WESTERN DIGITAL regarding my MY BOOK ESSENTIAL HARD DRIVE and they said, and I quote, “Bummer dude,” and gave me the phone number of a data recovery service. (Okay, so they didn’t actually say bummer, but I don’t know what they did say because THEY DID NOT SPEAK THE ENGLISH.)
I called the data recovery service and do you know what THEY said? They said “Oh, sure! We can fix that no problem! Just have your bank call us with the loan information!” and I said “What? Loan information?” and they said “Oh, you didn’t know? WE CHARGE 9 MILLION DOLLARS PER HOUR AND IT WILL TAKE AT LEAST 800 HOURS TO RECOVER YOUR DATA.” and I said “OH! AWESOME! BECAUSE I HAVE LOADS AND LOADS OF MONEY!” The only problem was that what I said was a lie.
After that I called some local guy who was CHIPPER about the whole fucking thing and he said “Yeah, WESTERN DIGITAL is the worst! People bring me WESTERN DIGITAL hard drives all the time because they’ve failed!” and then I said “JUST GET ME MY PRECIOUS BABIES” and he happily explained all the reasons that he probably wouldn’t be able to recover the data himself and that probably the 9 million dollar per hour company would have to do it, but HEY, GO AHEAD AND BRING IT IN AND WASTE YOUR TIME AND MINE! I’D LOVE TO TAKE A LOOK!
And so I brought it in and he started LAUGHING because the situation, it was…funny? I guess? No. NOT FUNNY, MOTHERFUCKER.
He ran to the back and brought out a WESTERN DIGITAL MY BOOK ESSENTIAL EDITION hard drive that was identical to mine and said OH, LOOKY! SOME OTHER DUMBASS BOUGHT THE SAME PIECE OF SHIT HARD DRIVE AS YOU! AND HIS IS BROKE TOO! AND I CAN’T FIX HIS! NOW LET’S SEE IF I CAN FIX YOURS? HEEHEE HAHA! and I said DO YOU HAVE A RAZOR BLADE? I THINK I NEED TO SLIT MY WRISTS.
So here I sit. Waiting for him to call me with news and wondering if I am going to be taking out an extra mortgage on my house just to recover the pictures of my PRECIOUS BABIES.
All of this to say: BACK UP YOUR MOTHERFUCKING HARD DRIVES, DUDE. Do not be like me. Just don’t.
Oh, I know. You are sitting there thinking “I should really just do it. I should just back this shit up,” but in the back of your mind YOU KNOW that you won’t. And I just have to say FUCKING DO IT, MAN. I’m tellin’ ya. You have no idea what it feels like to realize that FOUR YEARS OF YOUR BABIES LIVES are now gone. Seriously. Like you are going to remember what your PRECIOUS BABIES looked like without photographic evidence? Doubt it.
Oh, and I’m not sure if I mentioned it or not, but the hard drive that TOTALLY FUCKING SUCKED was from WESTERN DIGITAL.
candygirlflies says:
Oh, my very deepest sympathies…
When this sort of thing happened to me– when a “techie” from a certain store that rhymes with “Muture Flop” WIPED MY ENTIRE COMPUTER when he was supposed to simply install a new program– the response I got when I phoned was:
“Ma’am? If you don’t stop swearing, I’m going to have to hang up the phone.”
(Because, you know? I am FLUENT in Stevedore.)
I replied, “Buddy, if you hang up this phone, I will appear at your front counter in under fifteen seconds. And then you will have to deal with my fury IN PERSON.”
Seriously? Look around for an independent “geek” to have a look at that hard drive… They don’t always have to cost the earth, moon and stars. You might be surprised what can be recovered!
Good luck, sweetie. I feel your pain. I do.
xoxo CGF
candygirlflies’s last blog post..Honestly.
July 30th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
citystreams says:
Oye. That really sucks. I love that you outed Western Digital. I’m tempted to do that with this horrible flag company that screwed up our uniforms.
Sidenote: I was scrolling trough your previous posts and read about the time-out vs spanking debate. Have you tried squirting vinegar in her mouth? My friends use that on their four yr old. She laughs at spankings. If her Mama even hints about the vinegar spray she starts changing her tune, though.
citystreams’s last blog post..Battle Weary
July 30th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Shannon says:
Oh my God. The universe is totally broken right now. My life has been one moment after another exactly like this post. Nothing is going right and I am really starting to believe it’s not just me. Which is strangely comforting. Tonight my husband waited online for two hours to speak to a customer service agent to book a flight with reward miles program only to have the dude hang up with him halfway through booking the flight. He had to call back and wait ANOTHER 2 FUCKING HOURS in the queue and is just now talking to another agent. I wouldn’t be one tiny bit surprised if there were now no available flights because that would be exactly what our life is like right now.
I truly hope that your luck turns around quickly! And that you get back the pictures! Of your beautiful babies! WAAAAH!!!!
Shannon’s last blog post..good night, sleep tight, don’t let the lab assistant bite
July 30th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
KD @ A Bit Squirrelly says:
Oh SHIT! I am so sorry. I seriously am making copies tomorrow first thing. Seriously. I will do it. I hope you can get it all recovered without a second mortgage.
KD @ A Bit Squirrelly’s last blog post..When All Hope Was Lost…
July 30th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Zephra says:
Quote”Sidenote: I was scrolling trough your previous posts and read about the time-out vs spanking debate. Have you tried squirting vinegar in her mouth? My friends use that on their four yr old. She laughs at spankings. If her Mama even hints about the vinegar spray she starts changing her tune, though.”
That was the only way I got Sara to stop biting when she was 4. Only had to do it twice.
I am in the process of putting all my photos online with Kodak, Flicker, and a few other places so they are always there no matter what happens to my computer. I have heard a great many complaints about external hard drives. Maybe a usb drive would work too.
July 30th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
David King says:
Not only did I go to my closet and hug my backup server, and then think about fucking it, but I also hugged myself for my mad data recovery skills
baha
sorry i couldn’t resist
David King’s last blog post..Toys make everything feel better*
July 30th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
Mrs. Schmitty says:
Oh no! I don’t know what to say. I hope to hell you can recover those photos!! Keeping fingers crossed.
Mrs. Schmitty’s last blog post..Mummy Won’t Play That, Though It’s Tempting
July 30th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Mary Jo says:
OMG, I am so sorry Karly. That is just terrible. My husband’s work hd failed once and it was freaking expensive to recover. Good news (for his company) they were highly successful and recovered almost everything to the tune of about 2 grand.
MJ
P.S. Backup all pictures to a drive and to a DVD.
July 30th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
much more than a mom says:
Well, crap! Did that happen after you read about mine, or before? I feel you, sister.
much more than a mom’s last blog post..Notes On The Chalkboard*
July 31st, 2008 at 12:09 am
Lexi says:
Egh…I feel your pain with this one. My computer blew up….overheated, wtfever. The entire thing was fried. They tell me all data is unrecoverable. But I was relieved, because I’d put all my PRECIOUS BABY PHOTOS on a CD…whew.
Until I put that CD in the new computer…and realized that some DUMBASS (who TOTALLY knew better) had burned a motherfucking shortcut to my pictures on a CD. So mine are gone. For good. Minus those (which, thankfully are my favorites) that I’d put on a blog…
Lexi’s last blog post..Sad
July 31st, 2008 at 12:58 am
Angie says:
I’m sorry, this sounds mean but it’s so ironic…. I’m ROFLMAO. My hard drive also puked this week, with TONS of stuff on it that hadn’t been backed up on CD yet (I make like THREE copies of my babies’ pictures, dontcha know, but hadn’t gotten the last batch down yet). And the docs I do work for are a little frenzied cuz THEIR SHIT I HAD TYPED GOT ATE AND NOW I HAVE TO RETYPE IT ALL!!!!!
I cried. I cursed (a lot). I begged. The whole sackcloth and ashes bit, ya know.
I spent enough time over at my own place, bitching about this experience. The good news is, I beat that bitch - ON MY OWN. I managed to get back my babies’ pictures and most of my other stuff, too. And it didn’t cost me my firstborn or even any body part (not that they’d want them, since they’re mostly useless anyhow).
I’ll root around and see if I have another epiphany, maybe I can help you, too!
Angie’s last blog post..Conquering the Beast - Part II
July 31st, 2008 at 2:53 am
Angie says:
Hey, Karly: I found this, and maybe you can do what I did with my PC, and reinstall the actual DRIVE into another enclosure (NOT Western Digital - LOL):
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1464&p_created=1158253904&p_sid=BrhlFCHi&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MjI1LDIyNSZwX3Byb2RzPSZwX2NhdHM9JnBfcHY9JnBfY3Y9JnBfc2VcmNoX3R5cGU9c2VhcmNoX2ZubCZwX3BhZ2U9MSZwX3NlYXJjaF90ZXh0PW15IGJvb2sgcHJv&p_li=&p_topview=1
Your data files SHOULD still be intact, if this is just a hardware failure, and reinstalling it to another enclosure MIGHT make them accessible. I just bought one at Circuit City, and it wasn’t really all that much $$$ and only took about half an hour to gut my PC and reinstall the drive. Seriously, if I can help, let me know.
Angie’s last blog post..Conquering the Beast - Part II
July 31st, 2008 at 3:12 am
Carol VR says:
Save the the pictures to CD next time, than they are always there as a secondary backup.
July 31st, 2008 at 3:58 am
Queen of Shake Shake says:
Oh my god, that sucks in such a terrible, terrible way. I hope the pictures are recovered.
Queen of Shake Shake’s last blog post..If French Women Don’t Get Fat, Does This Mean They Don’t Blog in France?
July 31st, 2008 at 4:43 am
sam (temptingmama) says:
OMG. OMG. OMG.
I am backing up right now.
And I have been contemplating an external hard drive with Western Digital at the top of my list.
Not anymore!! I don’t have 9 million dollars!
sam (temptingmama)’s last blog post..For Your Editing Pleasure
July 31st, 2008 at 6:01 am
Kristin says:
Oh that sucks. I don’t have an external drive, yet. I have started the process of backing up 3 1/2 years of photos onto CD, just in case of a catastophic failure. I am lucky that my dad is my computer guy….
sucky sucky sucky
Kristin’s last blog post..So when are you going to have kids?
July 31st, 2008 at 6:48 am
Lisa says:
Ack! I think thats the external hard drive I have. Now I’m nervous.
Lisa’s last blog post..Brilliant Blogs
July 31st, 2008 at 6:51 am
Melizzard says:
Okay not making me feel good back the ton of work data that I just off loaded on a WD Passport drive YESTERDAY and then the cat knocked it on the floor but I’m breathing breathing…
I’ve had two internal drive crashes in the last couple of years and Geek Squad was awesome at recovering the data (off drives that Dell replaced Thank You extended warranty) It took them a few days but I think I only paid about $100 the first time and $200 the second because it took longer.
Melizzard’s last blog post..One of the things you won’t find in a pregnancy/parenting book
July 31st, 2008 at 7:38 am
Jill (CDJ) says:
So, I was just about to say, “I’m such a dumbass that I have an external drive, but I haven’t even used it to back up my hard drive.” Then I was going to get my external hard drive and perform said back up. Then I realized it’s a WEstern Digital
p.s. I second the kudos to Geek Squad. Love me some Geeks!
Jill (CDJ)’s last blog post..Update on Midwestern Mommy
July 31st, 2008 at 8:12 am
Karly says:
CGF: I would have KILLED that employee. Seriously. Can you sue for shit like that? Geezus!
July 31st, 2008 at 8:46 am
Karly says:
David: I seriously thought about asking if you could help me out, but AND TAKE NO OFFENSE FROM THIS PLEASE I was scared that you wouldn’t be able to do it or something would go wrong and then I would HATE YOU FOREVER. I just figured with this I was better off taking it to someone who I will not be seeing at Christmas and therefore not likely to want to stab while I’m eating ham.
You know you’re my usual (free) go to computer guy. That makes you so happy, doesn’t it?
July 31st, 2008 at 8:50 am
Karly says:
Lexi: Oh, that would be horrible! Thinking you had them all there and then…not. Computers are so dumb!
July 31st, 2008 at 8:51 am
David King says:
LOL well honestly you will probably want to stab the local guy. There’s just something about a guy with other Western Digital drives laying around that are coasters.
David King’s last blog post..Toys make everything feel better*
July 31st, 2008 at 8:53 am
Karly says:
Angie: Thanks for the link. You would think that maybe WESTERN DIGITAL tech support could have given me that as an option…but then again, they probably get a cut of that 9 million dollars so why would they want to do that? I have a feeling that that is what I’ll be paying the computer guy to do. He’s fairly cheap though, so that’s ok. If I messed it up, I’d just hate myself.
Thank you so much, though, for trying to help me out!
July 31st, 2008 at 8:56 am
Karly says:
Sam: Check out a Seagate. Apparently they are much better, offer a 5 year warranty (compared to Western Digital’s 1 year) and are similar in price.
July 31st, 2008 at 8:59 am
Karly says:
Jill, Check out Seagate hard drives if you want a new one! They are better quality, come with a 5 year warranty (compared to Western Digital’s 1 year) and are similar in price.
July 31st, 2008 at 9:00 am
Karly says:
David, Yes, but better to stab him than stab you, no? And he explained the reason he can’t fix them and it’s because the “arm” (like a vinyl record?) goes bad quickly on the WD drives and if it scratches the disc then you are screwed. But if it is another problem or the arm has not scratched the disc then he can pull the info off. So…I am having faith in him. For now. Besides, I don’t have to pay him if he can’t fix it. And at that point I will be coming to you and making a deal: You can have Cleatus if you fix my hard drive.
July 31st, 2008 at 9:04 am
ali says:
oh.
my.
god.
backing up right now…
ali’s last blog post..i have waited SEVEN years for this…
July 31st, 2008 at 9:53 am
Cris says:
Oh man that sucks hard. And I totally can relate. Except I was all “All my music is gone? Are you effin kidding me?”…without even a second thought of all those precious baybee photos. But P-Man’s brother is some sort of idiot savant who got it all back for me. He rocks.
Cris’s last blog post..I’ve gone and moved
July 31st, 2008 at 10:11 am
Suzi says:
Oh, man. I had a very similar experience earlier in the month, right when I was finishing a big web project for work and getting ready to leave for a business trip. I was referred to a local Mac guy, and I’m telling you, he saved my life for a hundred bucks. He said that only rarely is data truly unrecoverable. In my case, it was all there, and that drive is now installed internally, with another external drive for backup.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:31 am
Michelle says:
Damn. Back up?? Like on a CD? I will start nagging my husband about that immediately. good luck with the recovery. I’ll bet you get them all back!!
Michelle’s last blog post..The Big Race!!
July 31st, 2008 at 10:49 am
Gretchen says:
OMFG. Nightmare.
I used to back up our photos onto CDs (after the sweet-tea-in-the-laptop incident), but when our safety deposit box was full (! Damn, I take a lot of pics) I signed up with Carbonite. Assuming the whole thing isn’t some sort of twisted pyramid scheme, I should be able to recover every document I have backed up on their system. For like $50 a year and requiring NO EFFORT ON MY PART, it seems like a good deal.
If (When) my computer craps out on me, I’ll let you know if it works. In the meantime, let me know if you want to sign up … I get some kind of referral thingee if you sign up through me. You can check out the service at http://www.carbonite.com/
Also - carbonite was what Han Solo was frozen in during the Star Wars movie. How cool is that?
Gretchen’s last blog post..Liza of the Dance
July 31st, 2008 at 11:30 am
Vicky says:
I just wanted to say I sympathize. That sucks. Hopefully someone will be able to get the photos back. The same thing happened to me a year ago. Lucky for me my husband is a computer geek and was able to restore the photos but lost some documents. I much rather have the photos anyway. Good luck.
Vicky’s last blog post..Beer Fairy?
August 1st, 2008 at 6:31 am
LK says:
Oh. My. GOSH.
Mine just crashed too. And while I don’t have four years worth of pictures of my babies on there, I did have some pretty dern important paperwork, as well as some cool pictures.
Luckily, Hubster and I put a lot of stuff online, so we had copies of our most important pictures. It doesn’t change the fact that my hard drive crashed less than a YEAR after getting my brand-new computer. Bitches.
LK’s last blog post..My Big Birthday
August 2nd, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Cassie says:
I hope everything is recovered quickly and cheaply! I have yet to back up my computer, but I probably should get on that.
In other news I stumbled upon (not using the Stumble Upon program, just when I was wondering around the internet) your blog 2 days ago and read a few of your posts and found myself laughing. So, I started way back in 2006 and read my way to this latest post, and laughed my ass off along the way. I must say you are one of my new favorite bloggers now.
August 2nd, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Kelley says:
Happened to me too my lovely. Two years of specialist data from my sons home program AND all the materials I had designed and was going to start a business with.
POOF
GONE
Dammit.
We paid some dude a kidney and he got back some stuff. All of it useless. The materials and the photos were gone. MoFo.
Gunna back up again tonight. AND have a drink in your honour. Cause that is some major suckage there babe.
Kelley’s last blog post..I was going to write a post…
August 3rd, 2008 at 12:56 am
Llizz says:
DAMN!!!!!!! I just recently bought a 160G hard drive from Toshiba…HAVEN’T BACKED UP THE HARD DRIVE YET…what Mom, let alone one of twins, has the damn time to figure out how to make one system (NTFS) work with the other (FAT32)?!?!? I mean, seriously! I SURE AS HELL HOPE THAT TOSHIBA IS NOTHING LIKE WESTERN DIGITAL! Luckily, I do all of my shopping on Amazon AFTER reading the reviews, and there were TONS OF PEOPLE BITCHING ABOUT WESTERN DIGITAL EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES…GO FIGURE!!! But yeah, I’m a true paranoid nut! I put all of my babies’ pictures on CDs…FLASH DRIVES…and when I finally get around to it…this damn external (hopefully not a piece of shit!) hard drive! I FEEL YOUR PAIN, THOUGH! 2 years ago, I LOST A WHOLE LAP TOP OF INFORMATION…pics, music, MY LIFE!!! I truly hope you get all of your info back and it doesn’t cost much of anything!!! XO
August 3rd, 2008 at 8:29 am
Leslie says:
Aw, Karly. That sucks.
And you’re right. I totally need to back my shit up, but as I type that, I know I’m not really going to do it.
I hope you’re able to recover everything.
Leslie’s last blog post..Haiku Buckaroo III: Haiku With A Vengeance
August 4th, 2008 at 12:17 am
Jenni says:
So what you’re saying is… back up our shit?
I wasn’t sure, so i was trying to read between the lines.
And oh yeah, boycotting Western Digital.
Jenni’s last blog post..The Daughter-In-Law Rules
August 4th, 2008 at 9:29 am
A Mom Anonymous says:
Oh man. I sure hope they got them recovered for you! That just sucks big time!!!
A Mom Anonymous’s last blog post..One for my oragami obsessed son
August 4th, 2008 at 10:22 am
In the Trenches of Mommyhood says:
Ummm…great reminder?
I have a brand new HARD DRIVE sitting by my computer. With 4000 pictures still on my computer, slowing it down. I need to do that transfer tonight. Stat. And thanks to you, will now know to back up the f’ing thing.
In the Trenches of Mommyhood’s last blog post..The Beach Incident
August 5th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Jerseygirl89 says:
That fucking sucks. I’m sorry.
Jerseygirl89’s last blog post..Newsflash: Rubber Gets Hot In The Sun
August 5th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Gerri Sue says:
I read your blog while I’m incessantly (or not even) bored at work. It cracks me the hell UP girl.
I KNOW you probably already know that at least you have the pics that are backed up on Flickr, right?
I know it’s not all of’em, but it’s something! You can dismiss me like a schmuck for saying so, but thought I’d mention it…..
Gerri Sue of the “Internets” (that cracks me up too, btw)
August 6th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Flights to France says:
Yes we can feel your pain but can’t realize as it hasn’t happened with us. That’s why old is good. Hard copy of past remains forever. Atleast no fear of data loss. Just needs care. Dear don’t be upset! Take more snaps of your child and keep safely in an album with comments. No more tears! Just more photos of your four year child in different mood.
April 9th, 2009 at 4:54 am