As I was trying recover from my last hard drive crash and rush to back up, I had yet another, more serious crash. All my document files... personal pictures, movies, yadda yadda. Needless to say, I'm a bit upset. I just spent the last two weeks recovering over 30,000 (out of 45,000) files to have them totally erased.

So, I'm asking... begging for those authors who have collected stories, have stories themselves, or who have managed to get the MacVS stories off of the now defunct site (and RDAD's site) please send them to me privately

*editeditedit*

...through my profile.

Thank you...

Yikes! I dunno if I have any of that stuff saved... but I'll check for you.

*pats distraught trtl tenderly on the head* What rotten luck!

Thank. I appreciate it.

If things happen in threes, hopefully I'm in the clear... the first crash 2 weeks ago, my video card *pooed* out (don't know if c r a p would pass the filter) my DVD/disk rewriter/CD player stopped working... then the crash.

Wait! That's 4... *slump*

I'm so sorry to hear that! Like Loth, I'm not sure what all I have saved, but I'll see what I can do.

So sorry to hear about your computer crash, trtl! Hard drive failures are right along side natural disasters.

Oh no!! Sorry I don't have any Do you back-up stuff? I never do, ( as my PC is tied in with my son's and the stuff can be retrieved there )but it sure would help

Normally I do, but as I was getting ready to back up, I found that my DVDR/RW didn't work anymore. *scream* I had a Iomega 250MG back up drive, but for the life of me can't be found. I have a feeling it went with the old computer stuff I donated... I haven't had the need for a floppy drive for years (but it's going on the shopping list now...)

See, I'm a bit of a computer hog. I have 4 drives, now 3... the newest one (which I felt reasonably safe because it was under a year old) housed all my important documents. Medical records, legal papers, pages of html for my site, books, fanfic (yes, that's important too ) my own writing, and the stories that I was betaing. Plus photographs, music, and personal vids.

I don't play games, download suspicious files... none of that. I use Notepad, Word, Photoshop... that's all. The crash was a fluke... I can't think of anythink else. I defrag often, check for viruses... *sigh*

Thanks all, for letting me vent. You are a great bunch of folks!

What I would suggest is to buy several multi-gig flash drives, and back up to them. They don't die as often as hard drives.

And to conserve space, I would store all files in .zip or .rar archives (about 20 meg per .zip or .rar file is best.) with greatest compression.

Vent away, dear lady. You have my deepest sympathies!

I'm with Tygr on using thumb drives for backups (cheapcheapcheap), although I don't have the time the pick through files and zip them up first. I just shovel entire folders onto the thumb du jour and let them take up what space they may . . . but don't take this to mean that I back up my own computer nearly as often as I should!

Flash drives also make interesting novelty jewelry . . . I had a bright blue one that I made into an earring as a joke. This is not recommended if the flash drive contains any important data.

trtl, I have a pretty big fanfic collection that includes all MacVS, a lot of the fict on here, and Elaine Stouse's Mac fict. Let me get it all together for you and I'd be happy to email it to you this weekend. PM me with your preferred file format and your email addy.

That's what my son said... so it's on the shopping list too. (Now if I could only stuff a new Macintosh computer in the shopping bag...) Think anyone would notice?

I did have most of my files .rar-ed, but that added to the problem... it's a negligible savings in the document files, so I'm going to forego compression except on the program files.

Jewelry, huh? Why not... they have SAK's with flash drives, so why not?

Thank you!

((HUG))

Oh man trtl. That SUCKS!!!! I feel your pain, it happened to me in March. My solution was to invest in a stand alone hard drive. I have a 60gig drive I bought at Circuitt City for $80. I consider it cheap insurance and all of my documents, photos and important files go on it.

I have the stories from MacVS, and a couple that I have downloaded from the fanfic.net site.

Tandt14 probably has a better collection than I do. I only have the first 2 Elaine Stouse stories.

Let me know if there is anything I can do to help or if there is anything that you are missing. I might have it.

Thanks for the offer, Grrl. Hopefully tandt14 has the Mac files, and I got unexpected help from the Jackfic crew. Amazing people... all of you.

(one of my drives WAS the backup drive... I just took it out of the case and stuffed in my tower because I need the USB connection for my camera...)

OOoh, you poor thing. a hard drive crash scares the bejeebies out of me...all my kids photos etc are stored on the pc. I can't offer any help except a shoulder to cry on, but someone did tell me that cds or dvds are more reliable storage than flash drives, but I wouldn't know. My computer knowledge would easily fit on the back of a postage stamp, with room to spare for a new fic...

er...do you think tantl would post me her fic as well?

My understanding is that the blank CDs and DVDs you can buy are not particularly reliable . . . they're cheap, and it does't go together. My firm uses standalone hard drives for the important stuff, and runs multiple backups -- and I think kids' photos are just as important as the stuff I'm paid to safeguard!

I entrust my own stuff to flash drives.

My understanding is that the blank CDs and DVDs you can buy are not particularly reliable . . . they're cheap, and it does't go together. My firm uses standalone hard drives for the important stuff, and runs multiple backups -- and I think kids' photos are just as important as the stuff I'm paid to safeguard!

I entrust my own stuff to flash drives.

I would trust a DVD over flash drive any day. I don't trust anything which relies on an electrical pulse to work. because it can just as easily be undone with a like-wise electrical pulse as the one that put the information there. all it takes is a little static zap from your finger to mess up a flash drive.

I'm not sure how a DVD can be unreliable? unless someone puts a giant scratch across it.

But the ideal solution is another Hard drive. which you can just copy everything onto.

... I got nothing.

If and when I have the time to read fan-fic, then I actually remember to read it, that's it. I don't save or store any of them. Sorry. Sorry about all your pics too. That sucks!

Well, as "luck" would have it, hubby's drive went out last night. (Grr...) We bought them both at the same time, and we've never had a problem with Seagate drives... 'til now.

Both stand-alone drives, both 150 GB drives, both under a year old. He stored programs and games, I stored documents and pictures. We both treat our computers really well... the only difference is that I took the backup drive out of the case and put it in my tower.

So I'm probably get a combination of flash drives and discs, and get a new DVDR/RW-maybe try a different brand. The one that died was a Sony... although the new Sony 18X LightScribe burner looks good... but I shouldn't go with anything too flashy, since I REALLY don't know much about computers overall. There's the $$$ factor also.

I actually miss my old Iomega drive,. It was a workhorse. I just outgrew it.

The thing that hurt the most was losing the photographs... a lot are on the Internet, but a lot weren't. I will never make that mistake again...

Thanks anyway, Nymphy... I've actually got the fanfic problem almost solved.

Thanks everyone! You've all been terrific!