Wednesday, January 28, 2009

You'll Never Believe What Happened

I am here to complain; to whine about the last few days.

The unthinkable has happened.

The unimaginable.

My precious iMac decided to go haywire.

I spent the afternoon at the only Apple Store around here with the Genius Bar. It seems that the iMac's filing system has had an error.

Behold, 12,500 photos and home movies are now....gone. No, I am not kidding.

*Note: Nothing we did caused this error.


Let me rephrase that for you. Emily's first year of life is gone. ALL of her firsts. Izzy's first year as a big sister and a year full of achievement for both.

The iMac itself can be repaired and luckily we are just 23 days away from our warranty expiring, but the photos. *sigh* The software can be reinstalled, but the photos.

I have been in touch with a Data Recovery Specialist who will attempt to recover my photos and anything else he can. His success rate is "2/3 of the time". *sigh* You know which third I fall into. There are fees to come up with, but I can tell you I will pay almost anything if he can find even (dare I say) half of those photos.

It really is my fault. I failed to buy a big enough external for backups. I had just finished backing everything up from 2007 before we left on vacation. I ran out of room and disk space for 2008.

I have tried to be calm.

I have held back the tears, for now.

10 comments:

Donna. W said...

Oh, I've had this scare a couple of times! Now I have an external hard drive, and I copy all pictures to it, month by month. Are you saying the guy can't retrieve your files? Or just that there's a 1/3 chance he won't?

Heather of the EO said...

OH NO. I'm so sorry. How stressful. I hope this guy can retrieve them!!! Let's believe he can!

Anonymous said...

OH NO! Every mothers photo nightmare!!!!

NOTE: I backup all my photos online. (Snapfish.com) for free!!! I have all the way back to 2005.

Mommy to those Special Ks said...

Ohhhh no :(. I'm so, so, so sorry! I've been there. I lost the first year of Keeghan's life, too... his first Christmas, Birthday, everything. Pictures of Kennedy after chemo, during her spine fusion surgery... all of 2008 is gone. It SUCKS! I cried for DAYS. Seriously. I still panic when I think about it now. UGH my heart breaks for you! Have you tried Drive Savers? It will cost about $2,000 IF they can get your pics back. Like you though I would have paid anything. *sigh* I'm so sorry :(.

Anonymous said...

i am shocked greif stricken with you! Ohhh my ohhhh i am so sooooorrrrryyyy

NannyJ said...

Fear not, my sweetie - I have a lot, and I mean a lot, of Izzy's first year pics on disc. And, can't you go to your blogsite archives and copy the pics as well as the firsts? Just a thought...xoxo

Stephen said...

I am sorry that you lost all of that information. I keep a backup copy of all my photos and movies and a bootable copy of my whole hard drive on two separate backup drives (3 copies of everything on three different hard drives) because my apartment was struck by lighting a few years back.

Time Machine + the external hard drive that your awesome brother in law gave you could have prevented this.

4 Lettre Words said...

This makes me want to cry. Really....b/c I know what you are feeling. I had CD's with all of Sam's 1st year and haven't been able to find them for the longest time. My best guess is that I acidentally gave them away b/c I give away a lot of stuff. (I tear up everytime I think about it.)

Since having my digital camera (for about 4 years) we have had an external hard drive that automatically backs things up. It's truly priceless.

Jennifer-Eighty MPH Mom said...

I am so, so sorry...that is terrible. I can't even imagine. I hope you can get it repaired soon, and just start all over with the photos. How devastating...I'm sorry!

http://eightymphmom.blogspot.com/

Unknown said...

No! That is so not good! I back up on an external and on CDs - I always hate doing it, just feels like a huge waste of time until I read things like this.