So yesterday I set up my to-do list, and I settle in with my cup of coffee #1, and I lift the lid of the trusty workhorse laptop (whose name is Archie to Nero-the-cranky-desktop), and…
The screen displayed not the usual “okay boss, hopping to it!” energy, but the unending beachball of doom-about-to-fall.
And sure enough, soon after that: everything froze.
Not having time, patience, or any other valuable commodity to spare, I finally did the only thing I could do: a hard reboot.
And got the Grey Screen of UnBooting.
We’ll cut the begging, pleading and attempts to fix it myself using all the helpdesk things that never work. I got a Genius Bar appointment at 2pm.
…Four Hours Later….
It took TWO geniuses to fix things (the second was named Lex. I can has an Evil Genius? I can!), but at 6pm I was on my way back home with a new hard drive, and the promise that yes, it was all working now, all I had to do HONEST was plug it back into my Time Machine/Time Capsule, and everything would be restored. Really. Trust us*.
Having a hard drive fail, when you’re mid-book, and being told “yeah, it happens” does not make one feel inspired to trust. I’m just saying.
I want to give kudos to my geniuses, though. They were dealing with a writer on deadline, whose writing machine had just failed under her fingertips, who had stormed into their bar on a quivering high of coffee and not a hell of a lot else (me to a friend, via text: “oh crap, I haven’t eaten anything today. It’s 5pm. I’m about to go into meltdown”) and kept me from utterly losing it, even when reinstall after reinstall failed.
Anyway: if you haven’t backed your shit up today, whatever your shit may be? Take a moment. Do it. Trust me. Full system backup. Every. Damn. Day.
And now, I need to finish this coffee, open up my (restored! Up-to-date!) files, and get the hell back to work.
*edited to add: they were right
*hugs* So glad you got your stuff back!! I’m now off to back stuff up. You’ve inspired me.
Having had the same experience in December you have my sympathy but, like you, I found Time Machine to be a godsend. Now, with the cloud, even better!
Oh god, I really need to start doing daily backups again. Because…yeah. AUGH.
I’m glad the geniuses fixed things and got you up and running again!
Glad your backups were working properly, time-machine is great.
You may want to consider using Dropbox though. It shows up as a folder on your drive, like any other folder, except that it is automatically synced to the internet, and replicated to any other computers you have Dropbox installed on.
A free account has more than enough space for text-based files.
http://www.dropbox.com
I tried Dropbox. After they changed their ToS without warning, I decided that I’d rather be the only one in control of my data. Ditto other “storage companies.” Cloud storage is great -until the company goes bankrupt, they decide to try monetizing their content (us) or there’s a dispute over payment due to the inevitable bureaucratic screwup. Since this is my job/career, I tend to the cautious side.
All good points, and thanks for spelling them out. I hadn’t really thought of it that way before.
If anyone else wants a summary of the ToS changes, lifehacker has a decent one up at: http://lifehacker.com/5819430/should-i-be-worried-about-the-change-to-dropboxs-terms-of-service