The blame game

      In the aftermath of any disaster, people look for reasons. They want to know what happened. They want to know who's to blame. It's a natural response to world that seems senseless. We want it to make sense. So we make it make sense.
      I've been considering my computer meltdown, trying to trace the threads of it.
      1. I write a lot. You wouldn't think that would be a contributing factor, but it is. I write so much -- my computer had at least 500 or 600 poems on it alone (including fragments of poems and ideas that I thought I'd get back to someday), four completed plays, five or six started plays, three completed books, four incomplete books, 30 or so magazine articles, nearly seven years of monthly family newsletters, etc. -- that it became impossible to print everything and store it. Thus, I started to rely on electronic back-up.
      2. I take and scan a lot of pictures. My computer had around 350 photos on it. Once again it was impossible -- and too expensive -- to print them all. Thus they stayed on my computer. I also relied on electronic back-up for these, but it was harder. Photos take up a lot of space on a hard drive. To accommodate them, I started copying photos over to CDs.
      3. I used to back-up a lot because my old computer -- the one before this one -- didn't have much room on its hard drive. I had to archive older photos and some writing because I simply didn't have room for them. I did backups due to necessity.
      4. Four years ago this Thanksgiving, I purchased a new computer. It had gigs and gigs and gigs of hard drive space. Back-up seemed less urgent and more of a chore. I drifted away from my weekly back-ups and went to monthly back-ups.
      5. I realized that I needed a better back-up plan after a minor computer scare. I purchased a second hard drive and got a program to "ghost" it.
      6. Everything goes as planned for a couple of years until a few months ago when my computer started acting funny. I worked on it and reinstalled the operating system, disk scan, virus check, spyware check, etc. It seemed to function, but sometimes it was quirky. It was out of warranty so I don't send it back to be fixed. It does what I need it to do.
      7. Two weeks ago, the problems get worse. I think that maybe my hard drive is failing so I make sure that the ghost program does a complete back-up of my programs.
      8. Sunday my computer is dying. It won't open programs, won't do much of anything. From the DOS prompt, I back-up my computer again using the ghost program. It takes hours to do. I look at the files on the second hard drive and see that they're there. I do not, however, open any of the files or check to see if they're okay.
      9. Monday, my computer dies. I attempt all the usual routes to restart it. No go. I'm upset, but I feel my data is safe.
      10. A computer repairman works on my computer. He formats C drive. There are some problems so he formats my hard drive again. Still it doesn't work. He does a "low-level" format. No go. He starts talking about me needing a new hard drive. He then discovers it's my processor gone bad. I can't afford a new processor, but he has a used one that will work. He reloads my operating system and a few essential programs. The reformats worry me a little, but I think that D drive is fine because he didn't format it so I decide I'm just being paranoid. (At this point, although I don't know it, it's too late.) At this moment, I've spent about $150 dollars. Cheaper than a new computer. I can handle this, I think.
      11. But D drive is not okay. A few months ago, Microsoft released a security update that messed up the ghost program. The company that sells the ghost program supposedly notified their customers that they needed to download a fix; otherwise, the ghost doesn't work right. I didn't receive the email. Which is odd since I receive plenty of their ads. But when I made the ghost back-up my hard drive over the old back-ups, I effectively destroyed them.
      12. I spoke with data recovery company representative on Wednesday. She tells me that three formats, including a low level one, and copying new programs to the hard drive make it unlikely that I'd get back much. And it's expensive. But they could recover some of it. She can't estimate how much until they look at it. I asked about D drive and explained the situation. She said that the two back-ups and the fact it had been writing gibberish as well as the ailing processor probably made a mess of things, but they should be able to recover some of the information on it. She says, "It's a shame your hard drive simply didn't fail. We successfully recover almost all data in over 90 percent of those instances."
      13. So Wednesday night, I removed the old hard drives and put in a new one and installed my operating system on the new one. I will keep the old drives safe until someday that I have the money for the date recovery company. Or maybe I will come across a cheaper alternative.
      14. The disasters kept coming. I discovered that only a handful of those old CDs will work any more. I tried them on my computer, my roomie's, a friend's computer and my work computer. But one in particular does work. I recovered some precious photos of my parents. It overwhelmed me for several minutes.
      15. I called the ghost company and burned the phone lines. Their response was basically that A) my version of their program was a few years old, and they no longer supported it, and B) they released a fix and weren't responsible for my failure to download it, and C) would I like to buy a suite of their tools, but D) they had no way to recover files. I hung up, but left several blistering messages on their forums. Doesn't help anything, but makes me feel better. I will never use them again and will dump their virus program, too, when the present subscription is up.
      But I mostly blame me. I should have checked those backups and CDs. I should have a third line of backup outside my computer. When things are precious, you should protect them as much as you can. I didn't go far enough. I didn't do as much as I should have. Most of the time, the world is forgiving of our errors of omission, but when it isn't, we pay. And sometimes the bill is horribly high.