Did you know?

that a computer hard drive can break? not what we frequently refer to as "crash" where you got a virus or some software issue, but BREAK.
I didn't know this.

We returned home from our Christmas travels and of course I headed right for the computer, needed to download pictures, check emails, etc. Instead,I got the blue screen of death.

Long story (it's been over month since I've posted so yes, it's long) short, the little man who sits in there and writes everything down, died.

After exhuasting all our options here at home, Jeff took the computer in to the shop. THey assured us that no matter how crashed it was, they can nearly always bypass the issues, save the data, then wipe it clean.
The day wore on with no report. Finally in the evening, the phone rang. Jeff made ominous noises like, "oh really? oh my! Oh dear. I see. Uh huh, Uh huh. Oh. Well. " It did not sound encouraging.

Apparently, there is not a little man in there writing everything down, there are however little record player thingies (I'm not making this up, I looked it up and saw pictures) in there where all the data is recorded. Something broke. the little magnetic records can no longer spin. the little reader/writers can no longer read and write.

I am a bad person. My husband supplied me with a second hard drive so I can back things up. I used it for storing my volumnous digi-scrapping files. I haven't backed up pictures or files in over a year.

They told us that they can't get our data off, someone can, but they have to take the hard drive apart, take out the little magnetic disks, and put them onto something else to read them. This does of course cost $$$. At this point we have the broken hard drive and will save money and hopefully someday be able to recover all the data.

So anyway, it's been a long month of no computer, replacing the drive, reloading all the systems, etc. I am now nearly all back on track.

Lesson learned. back up your stuff. back it up. the little man in the computer will not live forever.