Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Revived from the Computer Graveyard!


My computer has risen from the dead. My husband revived it from the computer graveyard. I have an Apple iBook G4 and it's maybe 3 or 4 years old. It stores over 2000 photos and probably just as many songs on my iTunes.

Why should you care? I am telling you right now, to back up your photos and music. Go....do it right now!

I uploaded my blog on Sunday then decided to take a little nap, while watching football with one eye open. DH says, "You know, We should back up your computer. How many pictures do you have?"

"2024," I say. Then I sleep.

When I woke up to check email....black screen. I could hear the fan, but nothing else. No problemo, I think....DH can fix it. He fixes ALL computer problems within minutes.

This goes on for two days. I am now ready to throw up. Ironically, a friend told me just two weeks ago that she lost all of her photos when her NEW computer crashed. I am counting that as warning #1. Then DH asks about backing mine up, I'll consider that warning #2.

So, last night he goes on the Apple website. Of course my computer is past the extended warranty period. He goes through some of these very technical pages, that I can hardly understand. Now remember, I have a Master's degree in Literacy. We argue over if the computer won't start or if it is "video". I opt for the first option, he the second. (I am thinking...how do I know if the video won't work when the screen is black???). Lo and behold, it is considered "video". Pffft.

After pulling some contortionist-like poses of holding down Apple-Control-R and T (or something like that) ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Wait for the start up tone. Don't let go. Wait for the second start up tone. Let go. GRAY SCREEN! This is progress. After a few minutes of this, there is a start up screen and there is life again!

I dive into the stash of blank CD's and back up 2000 photos in case it dies again. Then today, it starts up again and I back up 3 CD's full of documents. Whew.

Moral of the story....consider this your first warning. Go back up your stuff. :)

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cute post

Debbi said...

Glad you got your stuff off. I just talked all of my friends into buying external drives to back up their pics and stuff. Too scary!

Anonymous said...

SO glad you were able to revive your computer. My DH is always backing up all the computers - his biggest fear is they will crash! But I will remind him to do it this weekend again! We keep everything on a hard drive that he plugs into the computer and streams all the info(pictures, files, etc, and programs (I think)) on to.
Good advise! No one wants to loose all their pictures!
Annette
ink-paper-scissors-rock.typepad.com

Cassie said...

I'm glad you were able to retrieve them. We bought an external hard drive to back up all our stuff after I attended a photography class where the gal said CD's weren't foolproof like we thought. I found your blog tonight through the blog comment thread over at SCS. I will keep scrolling back through your posts - you have some beautiful cards here!

Anonymous said...

OK....I will consider your post as a sign. I'm backing mine up now. So glad you were able to retrieve everything!

Anonymous said...

I'm glad you saved your stuff. I need to do this but I don't know how so I guess it's time to learn.

Laura lok said...

good thing your stuff was saved.

Dianne said...

I had the same problem with my Mac! Thankfully my husband was able to resurrect it to get all of my beloved photos and grad school assignments off of it!!!

It's definitely good advice!

Helen said...

I'm scared now.

Amanda said...

Thanks for the warning -- I am WAY overdue for this!