Nothing to See Here...

[deejdigsdis]

Wow Sherry. As I was reading your latest, it just seemed like a really bad dream that was getting worse and worse. I am so sorry that happened. It sounds like one big headache. Ugh. I can't imagine the stress you must be feeling now. How is your client handling it? Keep us posted.

ETA: I had no idea Photobucket was having such trouble. I just tried to get into my account. I got to the log-in page, but couldn't get any further. A message popped up about site maintenance, and issues with a small percentage of users -- or something like that. It said it would be fixed by April 12th at 11pm. So much for that deadline.

 

[bumbershoot]

Oh Sherry, I can't even imagine....

Well, in a way I can: you know how much I can talk in my planning/trip journals, and even in normal posts. Well, I had wedding planning journals, then new-baby journals. I kept having to make new ones b/c I'd max out on pages so quickly. I had a falling out with a cyber-turned-IRL friend, and couldn't go back to those message boards for a few years. When I did...they had changed formats once and were in the middle of changing again...most of my journals were LOST...and as I was trying to copy/paste the one from Eamon's first year or so, it was lost, too. I wrote SO much stuff in those that I never paper-journaled, and I barely even remember his first year for various reasons...those journals were my brain's external hard drive so to speak...

So I guess I can kinda imagine. I'm so so sorry. I hope that more is found...

 

[Sherry E]

Liza -

Well, to be honest, I have not been checking Photobucket a lot since the PC crashed, because this PC is so unstable that anything that uses up a lot of memory like Photobucket would be likely to crash it again, if not overwrite data on my PC.

In fact, as you may recall, it was right after my streak of copying IMG codes for holiday photos to post in the Christmas thread and then beginning the process of copying IMG codes for photos to post in the Halloween thread that this disaster happened.

So I was a little leery of going back onto Photobucket...and then I noticed their postings on Facebook...and I noticed that all of my recent photos are not showing here on the DIS! So then I noticed that I couldn't access my account because they are working on it.

It seems like only some of their customers have this problem, but reading their Facebook posts lead me to believe that a LOT of their customers are having this problem. Most of the people complaining think that it shouldn't be taking 48 hours and counting for the "data to be verified" on Photobucket. These people seem to believe that one of the servers must have crashed and that our data was lost. Photobucket keeps saying that our data is safe, but we'll see.

Sherry I am so sorry! I know this won't help you now but ever since we had the fire and lost our PC in 2000 we have been backing up everything and keeping it 2 places. For example every pic from our DL trip is on photobucket, on a CD in my file and on a CD at my mothers home... same with Documents and the HD videos we shoot, copies on CD or DVD both here and at my Mother's house every time we work on them. We thought about subscribing to a back-up service but some of our work stuff is sensitive and I would hate for someone's private memories or financial info to be accesible to a company whose employees might do something like posting on-line or fraud with this info.. Thus we continue to back-up ourselves and when we got our new computers it was time consuming to re-add these files from CDs but not nearly as bad as what you are currently going through as at least the CD roms are labled properly!

Sherri -

Thank you, my Rankin Bass-lovin' friend!

It was never an issue of my not wanting to back up. That's not the problem. I always wanted to. There were problems, though.

This PC is, first of all, 11 years old. It doesn't have the capability to burn CD's...so that rules out the 'saving to a CD' option.

Then, because it is such and old machine, whenever I would try to save things to a thumb/flash drive using a USB hub or port, there were compatibility issues and often times I got error messages because the info would not save to the thumb/flash. So that pretty much ruled out that, for the most part.

I had a few spare floppy disks, which I used when I was trying to clear off some lessimportant stuff from this PC to free up some memory a while back. But to save ALL of the stuff I had on the PC and back it up on floppy disks - which are not even sold in some places anymore - would require hundreds of disks, literally. The space on floppys is very limited, which is why no one uses them anymore.

If I had gotten something like an external hard drive, it may not have been compatible with the USB port or hub in this old machine.

So I kept telling myself, "Hopefully this machine will hold out long enough for me to get some money and time to back all of these files up."

The other option was backing up online - a place like Carbonite. com or a similar place. I had thought about using them for a couple of years.

As I was telling Liza on the phone the other day, I could tell - just by the way this PC was acting lately - that it would not last another year, or even last until the end of this year. I knew that I had to start looking into Carbonite.come - ASAP! I was just recently thinking about Carbonite - like a few weeks ago.

Trouble with Carbonite was/is, quite simply, money. I don't usually have any 'extra' money to spend beyond the basic bills, IF I even have that much. And then the dental issue came up, which is a big pain, and I spent a wad of dough on going to see that dentist, who really did nothing to help me!

Now I wish - since my tooth was not helped anyway - that I had saved that money and spent some of it on using Carbonite for a yearly membership. But, too late now.

So, after my friend restores all the folders of CHK files one by one and I go through them to see if I can find any of my super meaningful or super important files, then I have to somehow get a new PC because this one just ain't gonna cut it!

As for other sources of 'back-up,' as I explained to Liza above, I have a whole bunch of things stored on Photobucket (and one of my accounts is inaccessible right now), on Facebook, on MySpace, in e-mails sent and received, on a few photo CD's, etc. But they are scattered and spread around all over the place. And there are all kinds of documents and photos that have not been retrieved yet - and may never be. Some things I saved to my PC and nowhere else. And some of the photos I won't be able to get back.

For example, there were some photos that friends sent me in Yahoo Instant Messages (via Yahoo Messenger), and, while the text of the messages is there in the archives, the photos or videos or audio files that were included the messages do NOT get saved.

I'm so sorry Sherry, that really sucks & I feel your pain!

The program we used found them all (also with different names) but it was in the original folders we made. So recovery & figuring out what was in them was pretty easy.

It still might be worth running the free scan just to see if it shows them in their original folders. Might save you a lot of time!

Laurie - Thank you, Laurie!

I think it worked on your PC because it must have been a different type of crash. Computer crashes are caused by dfferent things and some are more severe than others. Some of the crashes wipe everything out, and some of them copy data repeatedly (and you get 100 copies of one document!) Sometimes you can't get any information back at all, and sometimes you can get everything back. Sometimes you can only get to the most recently viewed or used files, and not the older ones. And in some case, you get a mix of old files and new files (like I did). And then sometimes you can get things back, but they are askew or in bits and pieces. I am in that stage where I lost a bunch of stuff entirely, got bits and pieces of other things and then got some things back totally intact.

I may try that program you used anyway - actually I think my friends in New York may have used it on my PC the other day - but I'm pretty sure that nothing is where it was and all the folder names are gone. It was a pretty major crash. Once the documents become "CHK" files like mine are, you have to have an actual specific program that restores those (it's called Uncheck or Unchk, I believe), and then you are lucky to get anything out of that!

 

[Sherry E]

Wow Sherry. As I was reading your latest, it just seemed like a really bad dream that was getting worse and worse. I am so sorry that happened. It sounds like one big headache. Ugh. I can't imagine the stress you must be feeling now. How is your client handling it? Keep us posted.

ETA: I had no idea Photobucket was having such trouble. I just tried to get into my account. I got to the log-in page, but couldn't get any further. A message popped up about site maintenance, and issues with a small percentage of users -- or something like that. It said it would be fixed by April 12th at 11pm. So much for that deadline.

Deej - Thank you! A really bad dream is about the size of it! It's so absurd and ridiculous, I almost have to laugh! I can't quite get to that laughing stage yet, of course, but I almost have to laugh!

My client has been giving his work to someone else. While that's bad for me, money-wise, I'm very glad for him that he found a back-up typing source because I would be even more stressed if I knew I was the only one he could possibly find to do his work.

I partially blame my client for this crash, of course. Even though I had a whole heck of a lot o' photos saved on this PC, I was also saving 4 years of his work, some of which are lengthy legal documents. He was not paying me for storage - only for the actual work done. He DID tell me to let him know when I needed money (either for repair or towards a new PC/system), but the thing is, if I take him up on that and get an all-new set-up, he won't pay me any money for the work I do for him until what he gave me is 'paid back.' So it would be a while before I would make any money.

Okay, so you're one of the ones who was affected by Photobucket too. You also have a Pro account, correct? Maybe your account and my account were on the same server that is having trouble. There are a lot of ticked off people on the Photobucket Facebook page. You should check it out if you haven't. Apparently Photobucket has been giving inaccurate time estimates for the last 2 days, and the data is never restored by when they say it is.

Oh Sherry, I can't even imagine....

Well, in a way I can: you know how much I can talk in my planning/trip journals, and even in normal posts. Well, I had wedding planning journals, then new-baby journals. I kept having to make new ones b/c I'd max out on pages so quickly. I had a falling out with a cyber-turned-IRL friend, and couldn't go back to those message boards for a few years. When I did...they had changed formats once and were in the middle of changing again...most of my journals were LOST...and as I was trying to copy/paste the one from Eamon's first year or so, it was lost, too. I wrote SO much stuff in those that I never paper-journaled, and I barely even remember his first year for various reasons...those journals were my brain's external hard drive so to speak...

So I guess I can kinda imagine. I'm so so sorry. I hope that more is found...

Molly - Thank you. I remember you talking about the journals on another site. I didn't realize that most of them were lost. Oh dear...what a horrible, sickening feeling. That stuff that you put in your journals - though I did not see it - was probably very personal, detailed stuff that any mom or wife would be devasated to lose in your situation.

I have lost some personal stuff in the aftermath of this crash - and it definitely hits me where it hurts because some of it I will not get back - BUT if I were a wife or mom and lost what you lost, I think I would be sick to my stomach and crying for days.

 

[funatdisney]

Liza -

Well, to be honest, I have not been checking Photobucket a lot since the PC crashed, because this PC is so unstable that anything that uses up a lot of memory like Photobucket would be likely to crash it again, if not overwrite data on my PC.

In fact, as you may recall, it was right after my streak of copying IMG codes for holiday photos to post in the Christmas thread and then beginning the process of copying IMG codes for photos to post in the Halloween thread that this disaster happened.

So I was a little leery of going back onto Photobucket...and then I noticed their postings on Facebook...and I noticed that all of my recent photos are not showing here on the DIS! So then I noticed that I couldn't access my account because they are working on it.

It seems like only some of their customers have this problem, but reading their Facebook posts lead me to believe that a LOT of their customers are having this problem. Most of the people complaining think that it shouldn't be taking 48 hours and counting for the "data to be verified" on Photobucket. These people seem to believe that one of the servers must have crashed and that our data was lost. Photobucket keeps saying that our data is safe, but we'll see.

I think there may be a connection here - the Photobucket problem and your computer crash. If one of their servers crashed, that means they are probably doing what you are doing right now with your files. Whew, that would be an undertaking and it would take a long time for them to fix it. Can you imagine the ginormous files they would have to go through?!?

 

[Sherry E]

I think there may be a connection here - the Photobucket problem and your computer crash. If one of their servers crashed, that means they are probably doing what you are doing right now with your files. Whew, that would be an undertaking and it would take a long time for them to fix it. Can you imagine the ginormous files they would have to go through?!?

Yeah, I would imagine that it would take forever and ever to fix the problem and restore everyone's data to where it was (with links intact, by the way) given the sheer number of customers they have at Photobucket. They have not officially said it is a server issue. Instead they said they had some trouble with the "infrastructure," and because of the amount of data and number of files involved, it is taking longer than anticipated.

So the fact that only some of the Photobucket customers were affected leads me to believe that it (the problem?) happened on one of their servers and not the others. But still, there must be tons of customers whose endless data was on that one server, so it could easily take forever.

I think the people on the Photobucket Facebook page are panicking more than I am about that. I am not in a Photobucket panic - yet. I've been so wrapped up in my own PC nightmare that I haven't been paying attention to Photobucket, as well as because of the fact that I just didn't want to go on Photobucket and risk crashing my own PC again yet.

So I am trusting that they will restore everything over there. And hopefully the links will be the same...otherwise, can you imagine how empty my TR and the various holiday threads will look on the pages where I posted photos if the links have changed? Yikes! Can you imagine having to go back and recopy all of the IMG codes ecause they've changed? I don't even want to imagine it.

 

[kaoden39]

Oh Sherry!

I am so sorry to hear about your problems. I hope that your friend can find the work files.

 

[deejdigsdis]

Our Trip Report photos are back! Whatever the trouble was...it was fixed more quickly than I expected.

 

[tksbaskets]

Better days ahead Sherry!

 

[TheColtonsMom]

Sherri -

Thank you, my Rankin Bass-lovin' friend!

It was never an issue of my not wanting to back up. That's not the problem. I always wanted to. There were problems, though.

This PC is, first of all, 11 years old. It doesn't have the capability to burn CD's...so that rules out the 'saving to a CD' option.

Then, because it is such and old machine, whenever I would try to save things to a thumb/flash drive using a USB hub or port, there were compatibility issues and often times I got error messages because the info would not save to the thumb/flash. So that pretty much ruled out that, for the most part.

I had a few spare floppy disks, which I used when I was trying to clear off some lessimportant stuff from this PC to free up some memory a while back. But to save ALL of the stuff I had on the PC and back it up on floppy disks - which are not even sold in some places anymore - would require hundreds of disks, literally. The space on floppys is very limited, which is why no one uses them anymore.

If I had gotten something like an external hard drive, it may not have been compatible with the USB port or hub in this old machine.

So I kept telling myself, "Hopefully this machine will hold out long enough for me to get some money and time to back all of these files up."

The other option was backing up online - a place like Carbonite. com or a similar place. I had thought about using them for a couple of years.

As I was telling Liza on the phone the other day, I could tell - just by the way this PC was acting lately - that it would not last another year, or even last until the end of this year. I knew that I had to start looking into Carbonite.come - ASAP! I was just recently thinking about Carbonite - like a few weeks ago.

Trouble with Carbonite was/is, quite simply, money. I don't usually have any 'extra' money to spend beyond the basic bills, IF I even have that much. And then the dental issue came up, which is a big pain, and I spent a wad of dough on going to see that dentist, who really did nothing to help me!

Now I wish - since my tooth was not helped anyway - that I had saved that money and spent some of it on using Carbonite for a yearly membership. But, too late now.

So, after my friend restores all the folders of CHK files one by one and I go through them to see if I can find any of my super meaningful or super important files, then I have to somehow get a new PC because this one just ain't gonna cut it!

As for other sources of 'back-up,' as I explained to Liza above, I have a whole bunch of things stored on Photobucket (and one of my accounts is inaccessible right now), on Facebook, on MySpace, in e-mails sent and received, on a few photo CD's, etc. But they are scattered and spread around all over the place. And there are all kinds of documents and photos that have not been retrieved yet - and may never be. Some things I saved to my PC and nowhere else. And some of the photos I won't be able to get back.

For example, there were some photos that friends sent me in Yahoo Instant Messages (via Yahoo Messenger), and, while the text of the messages is there in the archives, the photos or videos or audio files that were included the messages do NOT get saved.

Just so you know I was certainly not chastising you for the fact you had not backed up in the past...you really don't need that now and I totally understand the old PC..The one I bought after our fire in 2000 was STILL my computer until we bought the new ones last summer and it is now Colton's but he doesn't go online just plays games on it...I was making a point of how we do it NOW since we couldn't afford or justify the expense of something like carbonite (I know this is an issue for you too) for when you get that seemingly inevitable NEW computer. Hmmm Maybe Liza's husband should give you a deal on one of his retired 2 year old ones LOL it would still be an upgrade!

I mentioned this elsewhere but even before you crashed there is a commercial currently airing on TV that always makes me think of you. I don't even remember who it is for but a couple comes home to find burglars have been there and have stolen everything BUT their computer and they look at each other and say "maybe it's time for a new computer" It has always since it started airing reminded me of you and your aging friend...and makes me smile.

Here's to you and your sick computer, and all you and your aging friend have done for all of us here on the DIS! I think it is time for a candlelight vigil for the poor thing as the two of you work together to recover what it can...

Speaking of Rankin-Bass... today was the day I packed up all my friends (well one set of rudolph & friends stayed out) until next Thanksgiving when they will all go back on Display to cheer me through another winter! I hate packing day for my claymation friends.

 

[funatdisney]

Maybe Liza's husband should give you a deal on one of his retired 2 year old ones LOL it would still be an upgrade

I laughed because our two year computers would be an upgrade. We have thought about that, but unfortunately, DH's computer are like beatened old work horses (not that I really know what work horses are like - ours never work much). The 2 year old computers are usually converted into routers. In fact, the next computer DH will change out is 7 years old! We would take out the 7 year computer and replaced with the two year computer. The new one would become the programming computer.

After helping Sherry, he bought a new hard drive for back up purposes. He has sensitive information and has to that in mind. The new hard drive automatically started to copy all of his documents and work. He didn't have to tell it to do it. He was quite impressed.

 

[azdisneylover]

Yikes, Sherrie,
When are you going to catch a big break. What good friends to help you out with figuring out the computer problem. I think it is time for some Disney magic. Fairies, I sure hope you are listening.
It wouldn't hurt to wish on a few stars, Sherry. (If you are going to wish, wish big). Any thoughts on the type of computer you are going to look for? PC or MAC, desk or laptop, and so on, and so on.
Sherry, if we can help, please, let us know. We need you to keep posting!

 

[bumbershoot]

I have lost some personal stuff in the aftermath of this crash - and it definitely hits me where it hurts because some of it I will not get back - BUT if I were a wife or mom and lost what you lost, I think I would be sick to my stomach and crying for days.

I can't really let the emotional side of my brain think about it. I have to segment it so I can know it happened and even type about it, but have to keep my heart locked away while doing so. Otherwise...


Personal stuff is personal stuff, it hurts to lose any of it! So I think the pain is the same...and you have the added stress of the work stuff.


Do your friends think this was caused by a virus? I was telling Robert the basics (I feel so badly for you that I had to talk to him about it) and he thought "virus" immediately, especially since it renamed things.

 

[Sherry E]

Thanks, everyone (Sherri, Deej, Linda, TK, Liza, Marie, Michele, Laurie, etc.), for the support and well wishes. I do appreciate it!

Molly - You asked what my friends in New York thought caused the whole crash. It could be a virus, although no viruses are showing up so far. Maybe I picked up a virus doing something or other, though I am usually pretty careful about which links I click on and what not. But you never know - maybe one document stored on my PC got corrupted somehow. Or something else got corrupted and set the wheels in motion for a crash. You just never know.

More than likely, it's just old age. This is not a 2-year-old computer. Most people seem to get rid of or switch their PC's at the 5-year point or under, because at that point it is usually doing something or other than drives them nuts!

This is an 11-year-old computer. And even though my friend fixed it up and breathed new life into it when she gave it to me in 2007 - which kind of extended its overall life by a couple of years - it is still old.

So while my friend intially thought that my "profile had been corrupted," she seems to be leaning more towards it being a sector issue - rather, some segment of the hard drive somewhere is messed up. She said it has already lasted much longer than she thought it would when she gave it to me.

Chances are, the combination of 4 years of one client's work, assorted other clients' work, my personal documents, 3 kinds of photo software (HP, Kodak and Canon) and many, many, many photos stored on this PC, as well as doing all kinds of surveys to make money, which uses up virtual memory, AND the operating system (Windows XP, SP 2) failing in general, led to an overworked hard drive on an 11-year-old computer, and it just got tweaked and gave out eventually.





So....where am I now in this agonizing process? Well, remember I told you all that when the silly PC saved all my files as these mysterious CHK documents and renamed them all, it also broke them up into different groups, and we have to restore the groups one by one to recover the files, and it will take forever? Each group has TONS of files - some of which are junk files and some of which are the files I need.

Okay, so there appear to be at least 145 groups. They are all called things like "FOUND .145" and "FOUND .144" and "FOUND .143," and so on. My friend Heather decided to start with Found .145 and restore that group first because it was the most recent one.

So I already went through Found .145 the other day, and separated the CHK files from their restored newer versions (CHK files wll be deleted; restored versions will be kept). Then I went through the restored files one by one to either rename or delete them. Found .145 had a couple of thousand files in it so it was very time consuming.

The other day, Heather recovered/restored the Found .144 folder to my PC.....which took 29 hours to complete!!!!! Yes, that thing was loading on my PC for 29 hours! It has over 10,000 restored files in it, along with CHK files.

Before Found .144 was done recovering, my PC started giving me all these messages about having low hard drive space - which I have never before seen, even though my PC is as slow as molasses and I assumed there was very little hard drive space left. And if part of the hard drive is bad, I will have even less space to work with.

What this meant was that I had to start deleting stuff to make room on the hard drive before Found .144 was finished loading the 10,000 files!! What could I delete? All of my files were missing!

Finally, Found .144 was done loading, and I began the process of sorting the CHK files (which I don't need) from their restored, new versions. Again, there are over 10,000 regular files and then the CHK/bad versions of many of them.

I haven't even gotten into the actual viewing of the documents yet to be able to rename them or delete them. Viewing/Deleting/Renaming is Step 2. I only got so far into the Sorting/Separating process (Step 1), and my PC kept locking up. I have allllllllll of these files to separate from the CHK files, and I can't get through it because I have to do a lot of cutting, copying and pasting files to and from directories, and all of that stuff is slowing the PC down.

And if I EVER get through the Sorting and Separating, then I have to go through them all and rename them or delete the junk (like the 50 copies of one document or the copies of web pages I visited, etc). I don't have to rename them ALL right away, but I have to at least go through them to delete junk. There is no avoiding that because I need the hard drive space.

Again, keep in mind that whatever I am rescuing in this process is not being backed up yet for the reasons I mentioned to Sherri above. Can't save to a CD or floppy; flash/thumb drives act screwy on this machine; compatibility issues with USB hub; external hard drive might have the same issue as the thumb/flash drives/hub, etc.

Getting through Found .144 will be a Herculean feat. If I ever get to the end of that nightmare, then Heather can start the process of restoring Found .143, Found .142 and Found .141 to my PC, and I have to just keep plugging away until we get to the last Found folder of files.

Does that all make sense?

As I said before, I totally see why people send their PC's off to repair places to do this stuff and pay big bucks - no one has the time or energy to deal with all of this madness., and they can't afford to not work and make money in the meantime Look at all the time it is taking me to get through ONLY TWO of the 145 Found folders that contain my restored documents.

But sometimes you might leave a PC with a place and not get it back for 2 weeks, and then you rack up a huge bill in the process while the technicians salvage and restore your files. So, while this is all taking an extreme amount of time, it is also sparing me from having to pay big bucks at a repair place....and this way, when it's done, I can at least just worry about the money for a new PC and not have to worry about paying a repair place on top of it!

If I can even get back SOME of the important files and photos (particularly, the ones that can't be replaced) in the next couple of Found batches, then I might stop there and not bother with the rest of them. I don't need to have everything back if I can just get my most important stuff. Right now, however, there are particular things I want to try to get to...and I have not uncovered those yet.


When all of this mess is done, I will surely need a big trip to Disneyland. That's for sure! I don't know if I will be able to take a big trip, but I will need one!




ETA:

 

[Karenann*]

What mess. The effort to reorganize and rename is overwhelming. I crashed 2 summers ago and spent days(weeks?) just reorganizing my photos. At some point I just kind of left some all amuck knowing they were there when I got back to it.

Sending you loads of pixie dust!

 

[tdashgirl]

When all of this mess is done, I will surely need a big trip to Disneyland. That's for sure! I don't know if I will be able to take a big trip, but I will need one!

 

[kaoden39]

Sherry,

This would overwhelm me terribly. Heck it already has and it's not even my computer. You poor thing. Hugs and good thoughts to you.

 

[bumbershoot]

Can you ask your friends if a Zip drive would help with anything? We have an iomega zip drive that is good all the way down to Windows 93, and we aren't really using it. Robert thinks it might work with your computer, maybe, but of course you and your friends know best. He says "it's a USB 1.1 protocol" "which means it's backwards compatible to the very first USB connectors".

We'd be happy to send it to you if you and your friends think it would help, and we have eight 100MB discs as well. That doesn't give you all that much memory, but it's something. Robert says they are rewritable, and if they are, he'll get our stuff off of them and reformat them, and send those as well.

Let me know if the zip drive will help!

 

[mvf-m11c]

I'm sorry to hear about your cpu problems Sherry. That why when I put my stuff on my Hard Drive, I use my external drive backup to save all of my photos and videos just in case something happens to my computer. Hope you recover most of your files and I think that a trip to DL will ease the pain away.

 

[funatdisney]

I'm still with you and sending some pixie dust your way. I hope you can use the zip drive that bumbershoot offered.