Computer Problems, possibly Fixed? · 1:34am March 17th
So a short while back my old XP Machine, which I'm using as an "Archival Computer" for things like pictures, word documents, and playing older non-Steam games, had a crash were the hard drive holding the OS for it kicked the bucket. So here's the story behind that;
Before it happened I was having trouble get the anti-virus I was using to renew, and after fighting with it for a bit this thought hit me: "Wait, I'm no longer even using this thing for the internet, so why am I bothering?"
So I shut of the computer and unplugged the internet cable, seeing as most sites on the net can no longer even be accessed by XP anyway there's really no point to having it plugged in (and removing the need for an AV in the first place since I always scan things before putting in my external, which I can use to transfer pictures and other files from other to another), and turned it back on.
And it tells me there's no operating system...
So skip forward to now, I had to reload the OS since onto a new drive because the original is completely fried (as in even the "Magic Box" used to extract data from even dead drives wouldn't work) and I got a scare when the other drive with my docs and pics wasn't working with the box. Now, I haven't added any new pictures since the last time I backed every thing up, only sorted them into their proper folders and renamed some, so if lost I'd only have to do that again which would have taken some time. But what worried me was the word docs since after the last time things were backed up I edited and wrote new things, which was not backed up.
In this case if lost I would have to rewrite a fair bit, which also would have taken a while.
However, after reloading the OS and plugging in the drives I'm very happy to say that at least for the pictures everything is still there and safe, other then having to reorganize them which I know is going to take some time, but I'll take that over having to go through resorting and moving pics to their proper places again. As for the word docs, I'll have to reinstall the program I was using (which I think is on my external, not 100% sure) in order to access them, but the new ones I made (and as far as I know not backed up) are still there so I'm guessing they're fine as well which is a huge relief for me.
I'm going to have some things to fix and set-up the way I want it, but other then that things with it are good as far as I can tell.
I'll let you guys know if anything changes and keep you updated in the comments below.
To end this blog with an important lesson: If you start having issues with anything on your computer, important program, hard drive, don't matter, Always. Back. Things. Up. on an external drive or even a USB, especially after you make many changes or get things the way you want it. That way if something goes wrong you still have it and not go through what I just did.
Words I definitely live by; I back up my computer every week, and on two external drives - one for usual backups, and then another just in case I lose the first.
5772609
Good idea, been trying to get into the habit of at least once a month since I'm the type to add a bunch of stuff but I end up forgetting half the time.
But at least this time I didn't lose any of the stuff I hadn't backed up.
5772794
Thank goodness for that.
I'm pretty sure I would lose my mind if I lost all my work on my stories and characters
. Hence why I try to make sure it's always backed up.
5772801
Can completely understand that, for I'd be in the same boat if that happened to me.
5772913
Yup. We've both worked too hard on our stories to lose them due to some glitches or faulty hardware.
5772936
So King, I did some more thorough checking and I can confirm my Pictures are all fine, my word docs... well I have good news and bad news;
Bad news is that at least two of the docs I made seems to be missing, now I can't say if they're simply gone or somewhere else for whatever reason but I won't know for sure until I get LibreOffice reinstalled and search for it, if they are lost that is going to suck but more on that below.
But the good news is the edits I've made to my older and larger ones seem to be fine, since looking at the last one I edited it's telling me it was last modified earlier this year, before the drive kicked the bucket so that's a huge relief for me. As for the seemingly lost ones; if they are truly gone it's not too much of an issue for one was a rewrite of a personal story for practice and I still have the original unmodified one and the other I can rewrite fairly easily since it didn't have too much on it. But I'm going to check the other flies on the drive they're on before anything happens. As far as I can tell they're the only missing ones and I'm hoping that's the case, but I'm not getting my hopes up too high just in case.
5773075
That's very good news.
Your point about not getting your hopes up reminds me of a quote by one of my favorite characters; 'Expect the worst; that way you have a chance of being pleasantly surprised if the best happens.'
Here's hoping that more good news comes soon. 👍
5773088
Well from the looks of things the missing ones might have been saved to the dead hard drive, which is an SSD so the chances of getting them back if that's the case are pretty much zero, but thankfully those look like they are the only losses and as I said one is rewrite of a personal story for practice and I still have the original unmodified one (in hindsight that was a very good idea) so that's not too much of an issue since the memory of most of what I had written is still fresh enough, heck I could probably make some improvements or changes. Same can be said for the other so rewriting that one should not be a problem either.
To be honest; I'm not that impressed with the SSDs for a number of reasons, like this case for example and the fact that if you have to reformat them (most likely because of a virus) it messes up the drive while with the standard ones you don't have these kind of issues.
Still, the fact that the rest was safe is a massive relief for me, since rewriting that would have taken quite a while and since I was checking I made sure to back-up both my pictures and the edited word docs, so if something goes wrong I won't risk losing any of that.
Now it's just a matter of redownloading certain drives and LibreOffice, which I didn't back-up so that's gonna be interesting
, and resetting things up. But that shouldn't take too much longer hopefully.
5773090
We'll see. Thanks for keeping me in the loop. 👍
Dealing with computer problems can be incredibly frustrating, especially when unexpected glitches occur. One common issue is when devices suddenly stop communicating. I once had a day at work where our android barcode scanner refused to connect with the system. No matter how many times we rebooted, reinstalled drivers, or checked the connections, it just wouldn't work. It was a stressful reminder of how reliant we are on technology and the importance of backup plans.
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Agreed, and having backups is a lesson I learned hard.