miraculous reprieve!
Apr. 4th, 2014 07:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingI got to Best Buy, explained the problem, and asked for a refund.
...which, luckily, it turns out I will not need, since the way they do data transfers is to first move data from the old computer to their own machines, and then copy it to the new machine or external drive. And they save their copy for thirty days. I was then afraid that they hadn't copied the data off my old computer at all, but fortunately they had -- they just didn't then finish the process and put it on my external hard drive. The Geek Squad manager apologized and began the transfer process immediately.
Best Buy's transfer process takes a LOT longer than normal USB transfers, apparently because they are sacrificing speed for accuracy. So I then spent an hour getting some other mall errands out of the way (I replaced enough old bras that I shouldn't need to bother with lingerie shopping for another two years, yay! I bought five boxes of Thin Mints from a Girl Scout who had set up a table near Target, yay! I finally found proper replacements for the silver hoop earrings my asshole burglar stole five years ago, yay!), ate a belated lunch, and went back to check. The transfer was only about half finished, so I caught the last #13 bus of the day home and will pick up my drive tomorrow when I do my weekly grocery run.
I sincerely hope somebody gets chewed out over this, but I am very glad that I will not, after all, be losing two and a half years of work -- which would translate to 300,000+ words of fiction (much of it unfinished, unposted, and thus unreconstructable) and probably another 50,000+ words of background world-building, outlines, analysis posts, etc.
...
I installed Avast's free antivirus program last night. It came with an option to install Dropbox, which I accepted. I think web backups would be a wise and useful safeguard, going forward.
...which, luckily, it turns out I will not need, since the way they do data transfers is to first move data from the old computer to their own machines, and then copy it to the new machine or external drive. And they save their copy for thirty days. I was then afraid that they hadn't copied the data off my old computer at all, but fortunately they had -- they just didn't then finish the process and put it on my external hard drive. The Geek Squad manager apologized and began the transfer process immediately.
Best Buy's transfer process takes a LOT longer than normal USB transfers, apparently because they are sacrificing speed for accuracy. So I then spent an hour getting some other mall errands out of the way (I replaced enough old bras that I shouldn't need to bother with lingerie shopping for another two years, yay! I bought five boxes of Thin Mints from a Girl Scout who had set up a table near Target, yay! I finally found proper replacements for the silver hoop earrings my asshole burglar stole five years ago, yay!), ate a belated lunch, and went back to check. The transfer was only about half finished, so I caught the last #13 bus of the day home and will pick up my drive tomorrow when I do my weekly grocery run.
I sincerely hope somebody gets chewed out over this, but I am very glad that I will not, after all, be losing two and a half years of work -- which would translate to 300,000+ words of fiction (much of it unfinished, unposted, and thus unreconstructable) and probably another 50,000+ words of background world-building, outlines, analysis posts, etc.
...
I installed Avast's free antivirus program last night. It came with an option to install Dropbox, which I accepted. I think web backups would be a wise and useful safeguard, going forward.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-04-05 02:05 am (UTC)Hearing of experiences like these help to remind me that I should back up all my important data more often than I have. Do you also keep your files on an external drive? I keep two large (a 320GB and a 750GB) USB drives on hand but I really need to back up on a regular basis other than once a month.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-04-05 05:40 am (UTC)I bought the external hard drive specifically to make backups of my files more regularly... and then never got around to doing so. *headdesk* I will try to be better about that from now on, for many reasons. (It will probably be less difficult to remember now, since the USB ports on my new laptop are more readily accessible than the ports on my old desktop. Convenience is a marvelous smoother of ways.)