Multo.com :: Visual Magic

LOVE MY MACS

I love my Macs – seriously – no other tool besides my camera gear has allowed me to express my art so fully. And now, proof again that Macs are truly badass.

Have you ever had an officemate that borders on, oh, I dunno, psycho? Lucky for me I was saddled with one this past summer, and she, in a selfish and ridiculous move, ended up crashing not one but 10 of my hard drives. Over a terrabyte of data inaccessible. To say I was inconsolable for the few hours after fully realizing the situation goes without saying. I did consider homicide but I’m too peaceful a person, (I really just wanted to sock her a good one in the eye, for the idiot factor alone). I had backed up data on redundant drives, but she took the whole drive farm down, in one fell swoop.

So cut to trying to save the drives – nothing worked. No application made it better, and quotes for data retrieval were well outside of my budget. I sorta shut down creatively, or at least became cautious. I moved my office home, and I worked on what I could. I tried to make peace with the content that was gone, and notified clients of their lost data (oooh that one really hurt and cost me a bundle). I considered suing, but the silly person who did this isn’t worth much, and what’s the point, really, but to stay angry? That’s not me. I’m all speed ahead, even if I’m wounded. And this loss truly wounded me, as a sole proprietor and an artist.

Cut to a week ago, some more research and I happen upon two programs – an updated version of Disk Warrior and Data Rescue II. I snag them from Digital Society, and held on them for a few days, not really wanting to be disappointed all over again. I had a sense at the back of my brain not to give up completely, but take a break from the trauma of data loss, and then try again when the dust settled.

This morning, I’m sitting at my desk, procrastinating again, and eye the two applications to the side of my monitors. I see the box of drives across the room, with a portable 80 gig drive I named Brigid sticking out of the top, under LaCies labeled Minerva, Sappho and Artemis (all my drives are named after goddesses). I snatch it up and drop in the Disk Warrior CD. I run the rebuild on Brigid and there it is, fixed, mounted and ready to rock.

I dropped to my knees and thanked the goddesses of data!!!! And the manufacturers of Disk Warrior.

I load another drive in – Disk Warrior takes care of it. Another – boom – done. Another – ah yes – I definitely want to celebrate tonight. Another – technology is so hot when it works. Another – ooops – not loading. Not fixable. Data Rescue II sees some of the data and I can snag it. Oh yah…I’m feeling REALLY GOOD about my projects and my data.

So the moral of the story is sometimes data takes a nap, but if you find the right tool, you can wake it up again. Also, patience…not something I’m particularly good at…but damn, if it doesn’t always work out for the best!

Peace and Smiles!
Melissa