Catastrophic Computer Failure; or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Restore.

It had to happen eventually... This computer is seven years old and other than a couple of Blue Screens of Death and a spate of restart problems a few years ago, it was doing well. Sure, it had slowed down considerably, but with seven years worth of crap on the hard drive, it was inevitable.

 

Then, I come home from a day shift on Wednesday to find that my system file had corrupted.

 

All (that was not on my recently purchased external hard drive) was lost.

 

Kinda sucks.

 

Luckily, I did purchase the aforementioned external hard drive not too long ago for just such an occassion and did manage to put the important things on there such as my stories and photos and stuff. And I did backup my iTunes purchases onto disc a couple of years ago. I hadn't purchased much since then so I wasn't too freaked out, but I did buy three audiobooks (Red Dragon read by Chris Sarandon -- abridged, Carrie read by Sissy Spacek -- unabridged, and The Dune Audio Collection where excerpts of Dune were read by Frank Herbert.) However, the backup disc doesn't work and I don't have all of my purchases on my iPod as it's only 4 GB. The audiobooks aren't on there because there's not enough room for them and all the music I like to have on hand.

 

I've emailed Apple hoping they can help me out. I thought they had a one-time only type dealie where if you had something happen, as I did, they'll give you back your entire library. If it happens again and you didn't back up, then you're pretty much SOL. I haven't heard back yet, but I really hope they'll help me out...at the very least with the audiobooks. Those three audiobooks were awesome, especially the Dune one because I'm a big Dune geek and hearing the author read it, even if he was a little dry, was amazing. Chris Sarandon's reading of Red Dragon, the phenomenal book that introduces Dr. Hannibal Lector (or Lecktor if you want to be picky), is unforgettable and Sissy Spacek's Carrie was so much fun to listen to not because I think it's a happy go lucky story (which it's not, of course), but because it's her reading it. I'd gotten them for the late nights cleaning and building before and during the film festival.

 

What's really going to suck is the time that will be dedicated to re-ripping CDs to iTunes. Thankfully, I haven't thrown any of them out, but I love music. I have lots of CDs. I have just about every Stevie Nicks era Fleetwood Mac CD AND her solo work. This is going to be fun...

 

As for everything else, I'm really not that concerned. It sucks that I had to pretty much start over with my computer -- seven years of accumulation is a lot of stuff -- but if I don't know it's missing, I guess I won't miss it since it's gone. And, on the bright side, my computer does seem to be happier...if not substantially lighter, but oh well.

 

I have movies I should review, but I think I want to start loading my CDs into iTunes first...