I hooked up my external hard drive and began to back up files. You know, my professional photos, all of the sixth grade photos for the graduation video, and all the video files for not only graduation, but for my classroom DVD as well. I also had a treasure trove of files on this external drive including my trip whitewater rafting last summer with my friend, Ron Firmage, and my classroom website.
In a few words, there was a HUGE amount of data stored on this drive
When I restarted my computer and made ready to format, I noticed a second “hard drive.” Now, why would I have that? When it was formatted before, was an extra partition created to simulate an additional hard drive? Well, that might possibly help explain just why my laptop was running rather slowly, and a few items wouldn’t install properly.
I decided to delete the partition, format the drive completely, and then reinstall Windows. As I deleted the partition for the “D” drive, my eyes suddenly fell on my external hard drive near my computer. That is when the horrible realization hit me…I had deleted the partition on my external hard drive!
Now, you may be unsure what a partition is…in an easy word, a hard drive is like a large, dark warehouse. All of the files you store are kept here. The partition is like an index, or database, where a map is kept which tells your computer where to find the files on the hard drive. Without the partition and index, the computer wanders into the “storeroom” and finds nothing there.
I had deleted the map.
I felt horribly sick. I dropped to my knees as the realization of what I’d done washed through me like a tidal wave of dread. I had just destroyed hundreds—possibly even thousands—hours of work.
I just stared at the screen.
I had completely destroyed the final copies of over five hundred “professional” photographs I’d taken, about five hours of raw video footage, and files I need for graduation this week.
Not knowing what else I could do, I did a search online and downloaded a program which claims that it can restore data which has been lost….the program has now been running for over five hours and has only analyzed about 17 percent of the drive.
I am hopeful though…
I hope I don’t throw up.
12 comments:
Being the computer geek that I am I also have computer geek friends. One of the file recovery programs they suggest is called "lost and found"
I don't know how well it really works. Just the more reliable computer guys on my favorite site recommended it to someone who deleted a partition on a win 98 HD.
It might be discontinued by now but you could check into seeing what it was replaced with. I think the manufacturer is PowerQuest.
I hope you didn't use a Norton product. Granted this was many years ago but my computer freaked... and totally frelled up the HD. Lost everything. A friend used a Norton product on the HD and all it did was scramble everything.
GOOD LUCK!!!
My husband used Data Rescue X for his mac and he said it recovered about 95% of the information. By ProSoft Engineering.
I don't know if you're on a PC or MAC. Sorry for the double bugging. I just know that nausea feeling you're going through. I'm soooo sorry.
Oh man... I am so sorry. Something has to work out. I know that sick feeling. I had it when I found out that my school laptop was stolen from my classroom with hours upon hours of work on it. But you can feel better that you are done with Standards Reports and I'm not! :)
I feel sick for you. Losing something - especially something as large as all your work or say a child - really leaves you feeling like your stomach is in your feet, your heart in your head, and everything all mixed up. I hope that things are looking better today, and that all or most of your work was found...I don't want to - and I'm sure you really, really don't want to think about the alternative.
Farscaper - Thanks for the information. It turns out that the software I downloaded was pretty worthless...then I found "Easeus Data Recovery Wizard!" This nifty little program found nearly every file and I am in the process of backing it all up on another hard drive even now as I type.
Jewels - See above comment...hurrah! As for S.R., I certainly hope they get finished soon. I hate them like I hate watermelon (which is a LOT).
LoS - In a popular phrase, "It is well with my soul."
Cool! I will be adding that program to my list of helpful programs. Thanks for the info - glad that you've recovered so much.
Yikes! Scary. Soooo scary! Are you breathing again?
You've inspired me to make sure my stuff is backed up!
OH NO...............
This is the world's worst feeling. Other than missing me terribly, that is.
Jason. GET A MAC.
Leopard has a great little feature called "Time Machine" where you hook up an external hardrive and it backs up all your data. ALLLLLL YOUR DATA.
Realize you deleted a photo three weeks ago that you needed? Well, just open Time Machine and scroll back to three weeks ago...yep, there it is!
Totally sucks what happened...hopefully your restore works out...but maybe you really ought to consider converting to Apple...
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/timemachine.html
I thought I was going to throw up reading this! I hope you recover it all because we all know the awesome work you do. That would be awful!
When I was in college, one of my multimedia teachers told us to "save early, save often, and always save in at least two different places". I did this in college but after I graduated I was working on a video for my parents 40th anniversary and my hard drive crashed and I didn't have about half of it saved in another place so I ended up having to redo that part. It's a horrible feeling.
Wow, that sounds awful! I hope you can get all of you info back. I know how that "lost everything" feeling is!
Farscaper - It worked pretty good. There were a few items which were missing, but I was grateful for what had been returned to me.
Nettle - I inspired myself to do it more than I already am (I usually have everything backed up in one other place).
Emmy - Yup.
Meem - I'll never join the dark side...
Cari - We seem to learn the hard lessons the best, don't we?
Banana - It's not real fun, is it?
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