DECISIONS AND SOLUTIONS!

This painting is one I re-photographed the other day.  It is titled "The Autumn of My Life".  It is on YUPO and utilizes lots of George James' special techniques.  It looks nothing like anything I have ever done but I like it and it was so much fun in the making.  That, in my opinion, is the purpose of my art...to have joy in the act of creation.

Well, when you are in the Autumn of your life, there is no time to waste!  With the help of my son, Bill, who actually understands how all this technology works, we discussed his research into recovering data from a crashed hard drive.  I only  had two companies to work with because it requires a special room with a super clean environment and local, small individuals don't have that set up.  I could go with company "A" who is an authorized agent of the manufacturer of the hard drive (which was only 2 years old and still under limited warrantee i.e. they will replace the hard drive for free but not pay for the recovery....the hard drive was $235.  This authorized agent's cost of recovery $700 up to $2700. OUCH!!!!  If they couldn't salvage anything, no charge.   Recovery company "B" agent of a competing brand of hard drive, equally qualified to do the work, even on my brand, BUT it would void the warrantee by the hard drive manufacturer.  Company "B"'s recovery charge a flat $1500.  No charge if they failed to recover data.  Everything on my computer was backed up except the photos, so that was the only data I was interested in.  I get to see what they recover and then decide if I want it.  No charge if I don't want it even after they did the work.  That relieved me of my biggest concern...paying $1500 for data I still have on my computer!   I reasoned that the odds of the cost being less than $1500 with company "A" were remote and the odds of them being the full $2700 was a real possibility, so I opted for the known quantity and forfeited the warrantee replacement.   Staples Office Supply is handling the whole thing, so we took it there and they will pack it up and ship it off.

Now, I still need a backup system.  A good friend who had this very nightmare situation a few years ago uses a device called a "passport".  It is so cool!  The size of an IPhone, it has a 500GB capacity and uses a USB port connection for $120.  I can get a second one as a backup to the first and store zillions of photographs without using up all the memory in my laptop.  My new Snow Leopard operating system is backing up the computer EVERY HOUR!  It has something called "Time Machine" which allows you to retrieve lost data.  Sadly, it wasn't installed at the time of the big hard drive crash.

I will update this saga when I find out the results of the recovery effort.

I am sharing all this as a cautionary tale.  I hope others take the time to back up their valuable information so they don't have to go through this.  There are businesses that store data for you on the internet for a yearly fee of around $45.  In retrospect, that sounds like a bargain compared with the cost of retrieving lost data, plus there is no guarantee that it is even possible to get it back.  Blank cd's are cheap and a good way to store your photographs.  This is the best new years' resolution you could make.