BACK UP!!!!

Just a few weeks before Aaron's birthday I started working on his 3 year video. Things started as normal, I began shuffling through several folders trying to find good photos that I haven't used anywhere else. Highlighting all the special times of the year. Soon I find myself engrossed in the project, and I can't stop until it is finished. After a couple days, and hours worth of work poured into the video, it seemed to be complete. I pressed play on the preview, and that was the last mistake in a series that would lead to utter destruction of thousands of pictures.

Aaron heard one of his favorite songs blasting from the computer speakers so he ran as fast as he could to look at the screen. I had been working on it from Brian's Laptop, so instead of moving it to the desk where my hard drive was, I had strung it on the ground over to the table where it sat. This left a loose cord dangling like a zipline from the table to the floor where the hard drive sat. Aaron paid no attention and jammed right through the cord.

"BAM"

and that was all I heard before I watched the video come to a complete hault, and a clicking noice started coming from the drive. I crumbled to the ground beside the hard drive and became panicked. I turned it off and on, even gave it a couple knocks and blows (like you do with old nintendo games), but nothing worked. The clicking still continued.

Literally all the video and photos of my family were on that drive. Over 30,000 photos and 40 gigs of video were stored there in neat folders. I started to cry. I didnt' think about anything but that I had to get this drive fixed now. After stopping by my local computer "fixer" store, they informed me that the drive needed to be repaired so it would have to be sent to a company with a clean room.

The company they recommended said their prices started at $700! I began to cry again. I decided to call around and do my own research before sending out my drive. I found out there are two companies in town that do this sort of thing. The one I sent it to called me the next day and told me it would be $1250 to restore. And no guarantees. So I began to think:

I had just burned video up until Christmas of 2010.
I checked my video camera and it had video back until March 2010.

First discovery: I only lost 3 months of video completely.

I found my old hard drive that had broken a couple years ago.
I paid $60 to get the photos off of it, and it had up until April 2009.

Second discovery: 20,000 photos recovered, including ones of the boys birth.

I went on Shutterfly and was able to get photos from 2009 and 2010 that I used in my photo books.

Third discovery: 1,000 pictures from 2009-2010

Facebook and my blog have hundreds of more of my favorite missing pictures.

In conclusion: $1250 might be a little steep to pay when I have all this in backups thanks to modern technology!

After discussing it with the sales person, he informed me that a promotion was going on and they could do the same job for $625. If they had offered that to me first I might have said yes, but after analyzing the situation I decided I would hold off for now. I have the drive still, so I might do it someday, but that someday is not today!

Now I am going to burn a copy of everything and have Brian keep it at his work...just incase. I think I should start on that project soon! Like yesterday. I don't want to go through this again, that's for sure!