What are the fucking odds?

[ralerin]

I just got my new toy yesterday- a 2011 11" i7 Macbook Air. I love it, but it was going to be my work computer only.

Or so I thought.

I also have a 2009 13" white Macbook. That one was my primary computer. I upgraded it recently, stuck 6 gigs of RAM and a new, larger, 250gb drive in. It performed flawlessly, but has recently had some issues with the internet.

Just after lunch, while waiting for work to send me more topics to write articles on, I was listening to music when I shifted my knees. BAM. Music freezes, rainbow beachball of death and there was a sound that I have heard once before, when my ipod's hard drive also suffered a catastrophic failure. A low "bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz". No warning, just "derp".

My white macbook's drive had died. Insert much panicking here, because I had JUST finished writing the first draft of my novel and had added new music to the mac yesterday. No, I didn't transfer stuff off white macbook to new air because Air is for work. And no, I didn't save my story, because I am a fucking idiot. As a matter of fact, I'm still freaking out because if the drive is dead I am fucked ten ways to Sunday. My novel is still on that drive. God fucking damnit I hate myself right now.

I don't know whether to scream and panic because I may lose the results of 5 months of work or rejoice that I have a new mac.

*sigh*

Edit: OMG I saved my story. Yes. Yes. YESSS HALLELUJAH HOLY SHIT

[hinakiba777]

Quoth ralerin

Edit: OMG I saved my story. Yes. Yes. YESSS HALLELUJAH HOLY SHIT

HOORAY! That is one good thing! You still have your novel! I am very happy you didn't lose it.

It really sucks about your macbook though. Last time one of my computers died I thought I was lucky because many of my important things were save on my external. But when I got a new computer the external wasn't formatted to that OS, and to reformat the harddrive meant deleting all my files. I was so depressed.

So the novel is safe, but did you lose anything else important?

[ralerin]

Actually...no. The drive works perfectly now. I took it out of the computer, knocked it on the desk and it went "derp...oh, right I'm supposed to work now. Ok, right. So I'm just gonna...work. Ok? Sorry about giving you a heart attack..."

I am going to download Mountain Lion ASAP and stick it on both the Air and MB and sign up for the iTunes cloud service and also grabbing Pages and iPhoto '11. With my track record, the $45 initial fees and the $30 a year service for iTunes is an investment. I have crashed 3 ipods, at least 5 externals, semi crashed one main computer drive and a flash drive. Yes, I crashed a fricken flash drive which is supposed to be a mini SSD. Don't ask me how I did, I crashed it. And I am actually not hard on my electronics.

And I am very happy I didn't lose my novel either. I would have commited seppuku over having to rewrite all 50,000 words so far.

[MoonCat]

More proof that sometimes brute force works where delicate operations don't.

I remember a scene in a Dr Who episode where a computer wouldn't work and the doctor hit it with both fists. It immediately started up and he commented, "Earth technology."

[Draper Mel]

Quoth ralerin

The drive works perfectly now. I took it out of the computer, knocked it on the desk and it went "derp...oh, right I'm supposed to work now. Ok, right. So I'm just gonna...work. Ok? Sorry about giving you a heart attack..."

Brute force FTW! That's awesome!

[Bandit]

Machine Empathy.

It happens when one machine/computer/car finds out it's being replaced by the latest model. That's when it either starts working better than ever or craps the bed.

Sorry you got the latter.

B

[ralerin]

(I just woke up in a panic going "OSHITMYCOMPUTERJUSTDIEDAGAINAHHHHHHHH!" *flail, tear off bedsheets* I checked, nothing's wrong, am panicking for no reason)

It isn't being replaced; Air is for work, Air will always be for work, forever and ever, amen, I even tried explaining it to them. (Yes. Synesthesia makes me think my computers have actual personalities and feelings.) White Macbook must just like causing me stress.

[PepperElf]

If you can get the hdd out of the computer, now's a good time to consider getting a "drive dock" for it as well. You can use those to copy files over completely, or just specific files.

i can't guarantee this works with lion so well.. i mean Lion will read the HDDs alright, but I couldn't get it to boot externally to any of them. *sigh*

However back when I was on Leopard / Snow Leopard I use to use the docks & Carbon Copy Cloner to make a complete bootable copy of the hdd... as backups, or when I wanted to switch the drive out.


the only downside is, now i have a box full of old hdds too.

[AccountingDrone]

I use dropbox for my important shit, automatically duplicates my files on any computer I put dropbox on. Well, I also have an external hard drive for each of my laptops and my computers also automatically update their backups every day as well. My music is also duplicated on DVDs and my ebooks are on a couple SD chips because I will keep those with me in case I want to share some of the out of print ones with friends. You have no idea how many people I have turned onto Abraham Merritt!