"Everyone loses data ONCE in their life," the Mac Genius said yesterday. "I myself lost $50,000 worth of images, so I know what you're going through." Well, maybe he does. I know I am not alone. A quick glance online will confirm that this sort of thing happens all the time. Still, it's horrible.
On Friday, I was writing a simple e-mail (Pippa: I'll get back to you soon.) when my laptop froze up. It just… ceased. The screen stayed stuck. My cursor clicked nothing. I turned it off and it wouldn't boot back up. Over the course of the day, while being repeatedly interrupted, I went through the apple.com troubleshooting list of steps. I took the battery out; I pressed various combinations of buttons to reset this and that. But all I got, when I got anything more than a blank screen, was this ominous black file with a big blinking question mark. I tried reloading the software… nothing. So then Ben brought it into the genius bar to see what was up (while I took Isaac to his acting class… he's going to be the Tin Man in the Wizard of OZ!).
Later on Ben called with the bad news… it's DEAD. It's gone. The genius took the phone for a moment and suggested that I call the data recovery people, those "surgeons" who work in a "clean room" and who can get it back. I did call… they can get it back for $2,000.
All the while Isaac was with me, telling me knock-knock jokes as we drove home:
Knock-knock
Who's there?
Glock.
Glock who?
Glock fart burp head.
This comedy did little to soften my sadness. I spent the whole afternoon actually crying… crying my eyes out. What it amounts to is two years or more of lost work. Work that means nothing to anyone else in the world and is worth nothing in financial terms, but to me…
It's journal writing really, writing through my pregnancy with Elias, his first days on earth. I am feeling like a friend has died. I am so upset with myself that although I had a little wonderful 4gig flash drive rattling around in my purse I never took the one-second step of moving the documents over there. I will now rend my clothing and sit in ashes. How did I not see this coming??
Hard drives are mechanical, the man said. They break. But don't be too hard on yourself. Even IT guys do it. We even have repeat customers.
On the up side, we did find a bunch of photos I thought I had lost on another computer. (Project of the day, back them all up!! Send them to snapfish!!) Some of my writing may be still there in a dusty computer in the garage that has no power cord. (Project 2 of the day, seek and find a power cord to an original iMac.)
Trying to keep it in perspective. People lose things. People lose things like other people. People lose everything they own in fires (like my mom and max did 8 years ago), or hurricanes, or other disasters … it happens.
So, I guess you grieve and then you move on.