Grandad has lost the plot
I didn’t feel like doing much today.
It was a day for sitting doing nothing, so it was an ideal time to do a wee job that I have meaning to do for a long time.
There were a couple of little irksome things about my PC that, well, irked me, and I have been meaning to do a fresh install of the operating system. It’s the kind of job where I can just feed the odd CD into the machine and then daydream while it does its work.
My machine has two partitions. One contains the operating system, and the other contains my data. A system restore usually formats the first one but leaves the other alone. So I carefully copied all the really important stuff onto the second space and started the job.
I had a fine afternoon daydreaming while my laptop gave happy reassuring messages about how well it was doing. Eventually it finished and rebooted.
I went to load up my antivirus and Firefox and all the essential stuff that I had saved on the data area.
The fucking machine had erased both partitions!
Bollox!!
I’m back up and running now, and I’m not getting any of those irritating messages which had been irking me for some time. I had to download my Avast, my Firefox and my Thunderbird, and luckily I had a backup of all their settings.
I have been doing a little mental audit of what I have lost though.
All my sound files are nicely stored on my Sat Nav so no problem there.
I have lost a moxey load of photographs that I had taken recently. I can live with that though.
There were some statistics that I had been gathering for a while now. They’re gone. Knickers!
Worst of all though, The Book is gone. All of it. Not a trace is left.
Back to square one….
Fuck!
*sigh*
You use Windows and don’t back up your back up files? I knew you like to live dangerously, but that’s suicidal. I keep all important data on two different PC’s, an external hard drive, and some of them on a USB memory stick.
Maybe one of the TLA’s that routinely spies on your activities can provide you with a recent copy of your software.
Jim C – Of course I like to live dangerously. It’s my form of ‘extreme’ sport. I have to have some excitement in life at my age?
Have you overwritten much of the data partition?
Try this, free trial should let you see what’s recoverable.
http://www.stellarinfo.com/partition-recovery.htm
Where is the ask grandad category? I need help here and you’re downsizing,jeezus! This damn computer keeps giving me three little beeps now and again and it’s driving me crazy. I went thru and turned off all the little sound alert things I guess I turned on, hell I don’t remember.(Pap probably did it)Trying to think back to when it started,I think maybe when we did that IE8 thing.Can you help me? I know this isn’t the forum for this, but hell,while you’re trying to figure yours out won’t you give mine a thought?Thank you much for any help you or possibly your followers can offer.Hope you get yours done and maybe if your lucky the book is just hiding, waiting to be found.Thnx again.
For an IT dude you have a load of problems with your computers. Real shame about the book . .You don’t back up your files? Bet you will from now on!
Jesus Grandad, there’s a lot to be said about external hard drives and never trusting a Windows OS installer not to muck about with your partitions. Unless, of course, you’re making more of the whole thing than there really is.
But you’d never do that now would you?
@Baino – IT guys are like mechanics. Their servers are tweaked to perfection and spit polished so they shine like chrome on a ’57 Chevy Bel Air. Their personal computers however are usually complete wrecks though.
.-= Kirk M´s last brainfart .. Trying to revive the dead =-.
Sandra – I took down the Ask Grandad bit in case anyone asked me something I didn’t know. I know that is about as unlikely as an honest politician, but there you go.
Three little beeps,huh? The only time I got that it went on to tell my there was no keyboard, and that I could press any key to continue. Not your problem?? Try Firefox! 😉
Baino – I don’t have that many problems, do I? I like mucking about. That’s all. And I am far more knowledgable than those IT blokes anyway. You see, they think that when a disk is formatted, that all the files are gone forever, but I know that the computer just takes those files and scrumples them up and stuffs them down the back of the sofa. Computers are more like us than you think. Incidentally, I found The Book. It was under Minnie’s cage.
Kirk M – I have just wasted a large chunk of time, copying a load of stuff onto one of those external thingies. I don’t do it that often, as at my age I have to be careful what I waste time on.
Bender [and your Better Brother] – Sorry for the late welcome but you got marked as spam. Thanks very much for that tip. It actually did work and it showed me exactly what pieces of furniture to look under.
For a moment there i thought we were going to see ‘1st editions’ appearing on Amazon as collectors items!
Is Minnie the budgie? (or herself!)
🙂
Maybe we should all go back to long-hand writing ….. you know the good old fashioned way!!
Was it much of a plot Grandad?
Mick – Stop wasting space on my precious site! All my book is a collector’s item and I hope it’s in your collection? Minnie is the guniea pig. Herself doesn’t sleep in a cage! [I keep her in the coal hole]
Kate – All is recovered. And it is a brilliantly fantastic plot. [of course…]
You’re welcome. Glad it worked. How many pages have you written?