Throughout history, there were very few opportunities for ultimate loss in a short period of time. The only way to lose all of your information, papers, and life works, is through perhaps fire at the worst. However, even then, there is some warning attached to it. While running out of your burning house, there is the chance to grab that birth certificate or what not.

 

But with the development of the personal computer, all that has changed. Everyone in the world has felt it. The feeling of “Oh my goodness I saved that file to the wrong drive”, or “Crap I just emptied the Recycle Bin” or the ultimate “OMFG my hard drive is grinding”.

 

This, happened to me. I’m sitting browsing the web like a normal human being when all of the sudden a horrifying clicking sound comes from my hard drive. A sound that, to any computer-savvy individual mean death to data. A massacre has occurred on your disk platters, and if you weren’t backed up, it’s all gone.

 

Luckily, I did backup. I have learned from past experiences that hard drive backup is critical and that regularly backing up files can spare you from worse things. But what was salvaged wasn’t amazing:

 

• Photos post-Sept 4 that are not online are now gone
• Documents post-Dec 12 are now gone
• Websites are spared for the most part, as they are online, however some joleblog development was destroyed
• All Applications are gone (I can redownload them and re-install them, but still several hours of work)
• All Application settings are now gone
• Mail is gone

 

Great.