The WEBADO Blog

Just how on earth did I manage to lose not one, not two but three hard drives in as many weeks?

Easy. One just went poof! And is no longer readable. The two others are even worse off, they don’t respond at all, consequence of a PSU’s untimely death. I blame our power utility for numerous brownouts and surges. This despite having invested into a more than decent surge protector.

All three drives contain data which I’m very sorry to have lost. I don’t have the money or the optimism to try data recovery by the experts, especially since a first estimate shows that for the two drives that died when the PSU expired there’s not much hope at all. At least one of them is under warranty, so the manufacturer will have to send me a new one.

It’s such a shame. Of the two drives that died simultaneously, one was a backup to the other one. The other drive that may not be totally dead (will have to try to see what may be doable with it), was itself a backup of an older video project that has been finalized.

My theory is that I am experiencing these HD deaths because I’ve taken to leaving my PCs on all the time. This, at least in my case, has resulted in way too many HD crashes. Of course the PSU expiring was the nail in the coffin for the last two drives. But its death was also due to having been on for days and weeks without respite.

A couple of months ago I found out why one shouldn’t leave a laptop on for extended periods of time, especially with the sleep feature disabled (as I had mine). They overheat and the drive can get damaged. I almost lost that laptop’s hd that time too. In fact all I could do with it was use the restore cd, so in fact I lost all the data I had on that laptop – luckily it wasn’t much. (Mental note to self to get that laptop cooling pad I’ve been meaning to get – and couldn’t make up my mind on which model to order).

Off to the stores I am to get myself some external HD’s to use for backing up other drives. No more backing up to a second internal drive, it hurts too much if both die at the same time.

Well, not quite a fan I’d say. Rather the opposite.

I got a moderately venomous email through one of my contact forms. I’m used to it. Being a forum moderator tends to bring those on at times. Par for the course. Some kid I may have chastised for being rude and out of order. Usually happens mostly during school vacation. Regularly some swell-headed macho wannabe who thinks testosterone=brains. What I actually think of such guys is not printable.

Invariably they won’t give their actual name (duh!), they will likely use proxies thinking I cannot trace them (as if I really cared) and their level of literacy hovers around gr. 6.

The last one wasn’t quite so pathetic in his/her language skills, just in the content. So it’s somebody sufficiently mature and sufficiently schooled to have made it over the heap of restaurant dishwashers into the pile of hopefully our “skilled” labor force.

I rather suspect this person thinks so highly of him/herself, that any suggestion that he/she may have erred causes such a reaction:

From: Statcounter Visitor <bgates@microsoft.com>

Dear Ms Know-It-All,

Your work, quite frankly, is crap.

You should stop talking down your nose at fourm visitors.

Even the picture you chose for your profile shows you looking down at the viewer.

Try climbing down from your aerie and go to a shrink for a personality adjustment dear.

Merry Christmas

I suppose that by talking down my nose he/she means pointing out their own mistakes in matters about which they came for help in the first place. Or rather more likely in cases where they irately barge into the forum screaming bloody murder, this product is buggy. Never do they think for a moment they are doing something wrong themselves. No, they are experts. And when I find the bug is in their own work, they still protest. They are never wrong. This thing should go the way they imagined it, not the way it actually does.

Oh, well. Can’t win them all. Not even close.