gone, gone
Last Sunday morning, I woke up to hear a sound coming from upstairs- a gas leak! Not again! I investigated and found not a gas leak, but my precious iMac frantically fanning itself and trying to boot up. I tried to wake it; it would not wake. I shut it off, waited, and gently turned it on again, and the hissing/fanning noise started again. It sang the start-up Mac song, giving me a glimmer of hope, but to my horror, a flashing question mark of doom appeared on the otherwise happy blue screen.
I restarted in the Mac equivalent of safety mode. Nothing. I ran a hardware diagnostic on it, and the Mac basically said, "What hardware?" Shit. It can't find its own hard drive.
I made an appointment with the Genius Bar at the Apple Store, which was this afternoon. I rushed my sick, comatose Mac through the mall (it's a heavy sonofabitch) and through the throng at the Apple Store, to a Genius named Darrin who was hot and very nice. Surely this healer of Macs could save my baby.
"You're still under warranty," he said. "We'll replace the hard drive for free."
"That's great, but what about the old hard drive? It sorta has all my shit on it. And by shit, I mean my life."
He then told me, very gently, that it doesn't look good, and I should start coming to terms with the idea of never seeing my shit again.
I stared at him. "Do you have any idea how much music I stole during college?" I said. "All my music that's not really mine- gone!"
He smiled. "You can always steal it again. But that's not Apple's official policy."
I declined the replacement hard drive, since they would take the original one away and I hadn't quite given up hope. I took iMac home and did everything in my considerable power to salvage my shit. But iMac was still comatose, and I finally pulled the plug at 7:42 PM.
All my pictures from the last five years, my 40 GB worth of music, all my ripped videos. All my financial records and data. My musical arrangements, my Sims, the Oz Sims! All gone!
Some of these things can be pieced back together- my videos can be ripped again, my financial records can be recovered from the internet, and my photos are on my iPod. My sister has a humongous music library that probably has everything I had, and more. The task is overwhelming, but I will rebuild.
This is the lesson: BACK UP YOUR SHIT! ALL OF IT!
I restarted in the Mac equivalent of safety mode. Nothing. I ran a hardware diagnostic on it, and the Mac basically said, "What hardware?" Shit. It can't find its own hard drive.
I made an appointment with the Genius Bar at the Apple Store, which was this afternoon. I rushed my sick, comatose Mac through the mall (it's a heavy sonofabitch) and through the throng at the Apple Store, to a Genius named Darrin who was hot and very nice. Surely this healer of Macs could save my baby.
"You're still under warranty," he said. "We'll replace the hard drive for free."
"That's great, but what about the old hard drive? It sorta has all my shit on it. And by shit, I mean my life."
He then told me, very gently, that it doesn't look good, and I should start coming to terms with the idea of never seeing my shit again.
I stared at him. "Do you have any idea how much music I stole during college?" I said. "All my music that's not really mine- gone!"
He smiled. "You can always steal it again. But that's not Apple's official policy."
I declined the replacement hard drive, since they would take the original one away and I hadn't quite given up hope. I took iMac home and did everything in my considerable power to salvage my shit. But iMac was still comatose, and I finally pulled the plug at 7:42 PM.
All my pictures from the last five years, my 40 GB worth of music, all my ripped videos. All my financial records and data. My musical arrangements, my Sims, the Oz Sims! All gone!
Some of these things can be pieced back together- my videos can be ripped again, my financial records can be recovered from the internet, and my photos are on my iPod. My sister has a humongous music library that probably has everything I had, and more. The task is overwhelming, but I will rebuild.
This is the lesson: BACK UP YOUR SHIT! ALL OF IT!