a public service announcement

Let today's post be a less-than-gentle reminder of how important it is to back up your computer hard drive, on a regular basis. While they rarely fail, when they do, you have no idea of the magnitude of the loss.

Our hard drive failed on Mike's computer, the ginormous computer where we have all of our photos, ACES commercials, advertising info, etc. Fortunately, our accounting system is elsewhere.

Mike brought it to a data recovery system here. They do data recovery for companies all over the world. Realizing it would cost a small fortune, we decided it was worth it. All of those memories, needing to be saved.

Well, we found out yesterday that it is beyond hope, not a single fragment can be recovered. They make it look so easy on TV programs...

While Mike had backed up all of our photos a few years ago, he has been so consumed with other things latley that backing up files kind of fell to the bottom of the priority list.

So if I sent you any pictures in the last few years, please let me know. Luckily I have posted a few things on my blog, here and there, they are safe. And I have printed out random pictures now and again, but there are, literally, thousands and thousands of images that are forever lost. Mike and I are both picture people, and it was not uncommon to come back from a simple weekend in Duluth with several hundred images.

Yes, we have already determined how we are regularly going to back up files in the future, and may I remind all of you how important it is.

For now, I am off to mourn all that has been lost, and feel a little sad today.