What Do you Do When.......

The other day I came home from work and wanted to look at a few pictures on my external drive. When I went to open the drive I saw that it wasn't listed. Where was it? It was there that morning. So I restarted my computer, no luck. I unplugged the power and the USB cord, waited a couple of minutes and plugged them back in. Dang - no luck.

I decided to try it in DD's old laptop: no luck.

So did a brief search on the Internet, lots of possible possibilities as to what the problem could be. None sounding to promising. So the next day after work I stopped at Staples, asked them what may be the problem. They suggested a new USB cord as the original could have died. So I bought a new cord, plugged it in. Still no luck!!

To say that I was getting frustrated and a bit panicked was an understatement! I knew what I had on that drive. Things so important to me that the drive felt like a piece of the family. Especially since my son got it for me about 1.5 to 2 years ago.

I had over 40,000 of my photos, over 1,000 photos from the kids cameras, 4,000+ fonts and lots of older documents I have worked on in the past several years. Fear was setting in as I couldn't figure a way to save these files.

I decided last Friday to called Geek Squad in Eugene and get their opinion. They said they could try and see what the problem was and if they could save my files. I decided hat since I was going down to Eugene to celebrate DD's b-day I would leave early and stop by Geek Squad. I had to purchase a new external in case they could retrieve my info, plus the cost of their work - cost $299. Yikes!!!! I left with fingers crossed that things would work out and not cost me any more.

As I was working on Monday I knew I missed a called and had a voice mail, so during lunch I listen to the voice mail and was thrilled to hear that Geek Squad WAS able to save all my data. The former drive was saved in a case, but the outside casing was not usable. They returned it all back to me. Can you see the hard drive in the plastic static free bag (bottom left)? I am saving that for a semi back up. LOL

So after work I headed back down to Eugene. Picked up the pieces of the old drive and the shiny new smaller sized 500GB drive. I was still nervous about how much of the past drive they did actually save. I wouldn't know for sure until I plugged the new drive in. So - right after getting home I plugged the drive in, opened it up and .....YIPPEE!! it was all there!
Photos so precious to us - there!
Fonts I have collected - there!
The kids photos - there!!

Old documents - there!!!

I am whole again.

Thank Goodness!!!