Drive to distraction

It was 13 September (and the date should have given me a clue) that I tried to reboot the computer after a split-second power cut, which always manages to shut mine down if no one else's. There was a humming sound of the starting up process, then a strange grinding noise from inside the tower and a message on the screen, the gist of which was: “Oops, sorry, can't get myself to work, there seems to be some malfunction, try again”. Well, you try again, don't you? And again and again and again, until you realise that there is something seriously wrong.

Phoned our normal computer repair guy, who had most unfairly taken himself back to the UK for a short contract. He said confusing things about getting a new hard drive and making the original a slave drive, as it was probably system folders that were at fault As that procedure involved fundamental skills that I didn't think I had (I said confusing before because, although I know how to build websites, I know very little about what goes on under the bonnet of a computer. Or a car, for that matter.), I took the machine to the (French) computer shop and left it with them, explaining the symptoms and asking them to do what had been suggested.

Yesterday I went to pick it up. They hadn't phoned to say it was ready, possibly because they weren't sure how to tell me the problem, but I was in town and went in to check. The good news is that it's now a lot faster than it was. The bad news is that it's a lot faster than it was because there's nothing on it. Because, lo and behold, they told me the original hard drive was dead. Defunct and inaccessible. Along with all the contents: the email addresses, the passwords for various sites, the raw code for all the websites I've done, the photos for same, the family photos, the documents and letters and stories and poetry I'd written over the past four or five years. Gone. Had I backed things up? No. Backing up is only something you do with a trailer when you go to the tip, isn't it?

So I came away with a new hard drive in an old tower and a seemingly useless piece of circuitry and metal, being the old drive, and since yesterday evening I have been starting all over again as if I'd just got a computer for the first time, bit by bit by bit filling up the 250GB of empty space I've got with certain types of software I thought I had on the old drive. Some of the website stuff I've managed to download again using an FTP program (ie the software one uses to send what's on one's computer into the www – the process can work in reverse as well, which is useful), the email addresses will come back slowly – I probably had too many of them in the first place.

All is possibly not lost, however (in both senses of the word); I spoke to our regular chap and as a result of his talking me through it I now know what the insides of a computer look like. I've peered under the bonnet and got my hands dirty, figuratively speaking, wiring in the old drive as a slave, or secondary, drive (and boy, is there not a lot of space to manoeuvre inside a tower). The fact that a check on that drive's properties shows me that there is nothing on there is not daunting, no, not at all. I've searched Google for the relevant error message I got when I tried to open it and even as I type the new drive is in the process of trying to reconfigure the old. Whether that will work is another thing, but it's got to be worth trying.

Lesson learnt, though: Back up, back up, back up. How you do it is a matter for you, but for the moment I've gone for an online service: http://www.sosonlinebackup.com/ - at least that will keep me less than overstressed as it's automated and I don't have to remember.