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<DIV>Hello, all. I'm resending an earlier em that I sent to
Rod off-list about his hard drive crash as it appears that Rod's
original posting has indeed created some discussion about the role of the
ubiquitous computer crash and different reactions to "loss". </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Regards,</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Rick </DIV>
<DIV>
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From: RICKBARRY<BR>To: rgscarter@gmail.com<BR>CC:
heather.dean@yale.edu<BR>Sent: 4/27/2009 6:53:25 P.M. Eastern Daylight
Time<BR>Subj: Re: [Personal_archives] Starting off personal digital archives
dialogue<BR></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial
color=#000000 size=2><FONT face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>
<DIV>Not to diverge from the discussion at hand but more to come to the aid of
a colleague in distress -- one familiar to me from several years ago and I'm
sure to many others.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Firstly, DON'T DO <EM>ANY</EM>THING until you've thought it through
carefully. I know that sounds crazy, but you can make things worse by taking
the wrong option. With my own crash, I started out with a company that was
near my home and brought in my PC. It cost me $100 to find out that they
couldn't fix it with their <STRONG>software </STRONG>tools and that I'd need
to take it somewhere that had an authorized clean room to take the hard drive
apart. (Unless an authorized site, forget any PC warranties you
might have.) They sent me to On-Track that happened to have an office only a
bit further away. For the same price they would take the HD apart and diagnose
it and put a directory of the files in my PC that the could recover "online"
(in those days on an electronic "bulletin board") along with the cost of
recovering them. If I didn't accept the cost, they would return my
hard drive and the $100, The deal was that I couldn't open any of
the files but only see the directory/file names before deciding to go and
paying. To my amazement they listed over 75% of my files. They told me that
they probably could have recovered all of them, but by using a software first,
the operation of the software simply exercised the heads more and that had
destroyed some files in the process. Luckily, almost all of the files that
were lost were software programs, not my data directory, which didn't bother
me at all since I knew I'd have to reformat the computer and reinstall any
software I had put on myself anyway. So if you've brought it to someone who
doesn't have a clean room, try to intercept them until you can consider the
matter further. I don't know of other firms like OnTrack but there may be some
others. At the time OnTrack was the only one I could find and they were
outstanding. (They have customers who, if they revealed them to you, they'd
have to kill you.) </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I had paid $2200 for my PC. The cost of recovery was $2500. I complained
that the recovery cost was more than I had paid for the PC. Of course I knew
the answer, but I thought I'd try.And of course they reminded me that what we
have on our computers is usually much more valuable than the PC itself. I
sheepishly agreed and was very, very pleased to get those files back,
including recently prepared workshop presentations (how about losing 300 PPT
slides?), consulting client files, etc.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I don't know what the deal is today but based on my experience of that
time 15 or so years ago, I'd suggest you look at their site <A
title=http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/
href="http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/">http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com</A> and
especially for individual users: <A
title=http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/home-users/
href="http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/home-users/">http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/home-users/</A>
</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>An interesting aside, OnTrack has the below on its current site:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>"Every day, we create and store more and more of our personal life
electronically on computers- having a significant impact on one’s life. The
impact of <STRONG>data loss</STRONG> for situations in which the data can not
be easily recreated can be emotional - photos, personal financial records,
family documents, confidential and private information and more. All hope is
not lost." Quite apropos to the purpose of the current discussion,
I'd say. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>And in future, of course.....You know. Backup in more than one media --
old PC, CD, USB drive (they're getting bigger all the time), external hard
drive (around $100), or rent space on the WWW, some of which are free for the
first 2 gigs or so. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>When I was a naval aviator back in Vietnam days, while in training -- in
those days, unlike with Air Force pilots, Navy pilots had to qualify as
navigators also. While in nav training they told us: There are 2 kinds of
pilots: those who have been lost and those who will become lost. It was true,
including for me. I now say: their are 2 kinds of PC users: those who have
crashed and those who are going to.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Good luck. I feel your pain. Oh, so I feel your pain... </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Regards,</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Rick</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>In a message dated 4/27/2009 10:34:06 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
rgscarter@gmail.com writes:</DIV>
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<DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>Hello all,</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>Suffering a potentially devastating crash of my work computer late
last week - I am still waiting for word on the status of my data,
fingers are crossed - I have been reflecting on some of the challenges,
issues and possibilities raised by Cathy's articles in a very concrete way.
I know I backed up the "important" work files, but am pretty sure I lost
most of the personal items that have accumulated on my cpu after 5 years, as
well as all my email which, for some strange reason, I never thought to
include in the backups. I keep thinking to myself, "was that kept? hmmm, it
was a work in progress and on the desktop so perhaps not. oh no..." Despite
thinking that I was rather on top of things, it seems I may have overlooked
a great deal of records, what Cathy calls "the countless items that are in
the middle, the quotidian artefacts of everyday life..." The music
collection, the articles saved to be read at a later point, the untold
amounts of notes, images and other things that I can't even recall having on
the computer at the moment but will no doubt go back one day to find it and
realize it is lost. And this experience has certainly made me think of the
limitations of my digital possessions at home. From the research Cathy
describes, it certainly sounds like I am not alone in having given
insufficient thought to my personal digital archive, but that doesn’t make
me feel much better about the work that needs to be done to safeguard
it.</FONT></P>
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size=3></FONT> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>Already there are a few themes emerging that I hope we can
investigate this week - the idea of re-encountering which I find extremely
intriguing; the implications of benign neglect in the analogue and digital
worlds; decentralization of storages; and, as Catherine & Heather have
already flagged, the psychology behind the creation, use, and storage of
digital artefacts. I am looking forward to hearing the groups thoughts and
experiences as we traverse the "delicate tightrope between euphoria...and
uncertainty..." in the digital age.</FONT></P>
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size=3></FONT> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>Rodney</FONT></P></DIV></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV></FONT><FONT
style="FONT: 10pt arial,san-serif; COLOR: black"><B></B></FONT></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV></FONT><br/><font style="color:black;font:normal 10pt arial,san-serif;"> <hr style="margin-top:10px"/><B>An Excellent Credit Score is 750. <A HREF=http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1221621499x1201450105/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072&hmpgID=62&bcd=AprilExcScore428NO62>See Yours in Just 2 Easy Steps!</A></B></font></DIV></BODY></HTML>