... Contemplated flinging yourself off a bridge because your hard-drive fried and deleted several weeks worth of work on comics?
There was a snow-storm a couple days ago, and now my desktop won't even turn on (I've got a laptop now, but I've lost basically everything, including some rather pricey software.) It's at the shop where they're trying to recover the files, but my comic is now frozen because I'm missing all my pages. And what's worse? I may not graduate now, since this comic is the centerpiece of my senior project.
Has something like this ever happened to you? How did you manage not to throttle everyone around you when they asked how your comic was going?
Couple months ago had my harddrive blow up and I lost pretty much everything that had to do with my comic. Was bummed for a bit but I eventually chugged on.
Lost everything on my computer about a year back, including a few comic pages that had yet to go up. But damn, graduation wasn't riding on it
Uh... good luck.
Yes, actually, I have. Back in 2003, I went to visit my parents for a couple of weeks. I'd turned off my computer, but it never fully booted down, and stayed frozen for the entirety of those two weeks. When I got back I couldn't get it back on. I still have the hard drive floating around somewhere. I should try to recover stuff from it, like the old Flash and Photoshop programs I had on there.
"Just because we're amateurs, doesn't mean our comics have to be amateurish." -McDuffies
I live in fear of such things. I've had enough close calls to back up regularly. At worst, I'd lose about a month's work.
You sure it's the HD, Lei? Good news is that you can nearly always get the data off. I recovered everything from a crashed hard drive with some software called GetDataBack.
But make sure they know how important the data is. They might just replace the HD or format it or something.
Geez...that's horrible. I don't know quite what it feels like...but I did knock my computer off a desk last fall. I cracked the monitor clear across, then panicked and fled to the repair shop before trying to retrieve my un-backed-up files (comic and dissertation). I did manage to get the files back the next day at the shop--fortunately, though half the monitor had been obliterated by the crack, the working half included the start menu--but the twenty-four hours of wondering if I were going to have to do a lot of work over again was bad enough.
I wish to offer my sincerest condolences. I know that that means very little coming from a faceless guy on a forum, but I do sympathize and empathize with you. I do hope that you can get all of your work back without any errors. At all. None. (Hopefully.)
<a href="http://subconscious.comicgenesis.com"><img src="http://www.maj.com/gallery/NomadicPhoen ... /large.png" alt="Click Here to go to Subconscious!" border="0"></a> If you ever need help website / tech-wise...don't hesitate to ask! =)
I don't think very highly of any of my comic pages, so if I have a jpg on the Comic Genesis servers, that's enough for me. Also, if I finish a page, I immediately upload to my website so I will never be caught missing an update because I just kept them on my computer. The only problem is if Comic Genesis deletes them....
You have my sympathies. It's terrible when that happens.
I once lost a few weeks worth of work on a computer program when my laptop died. These days, I back my programming work up daily.
I haven't been as diligent about backing up my comics. I should do that, though, especially now that I've gone 100% digital. Remember- always keep backups, because every computer's going to do something screwy someday.
Are there any other copies of the work you can salvage, such as from the website? That could maybe help with your graduation at least.
Oh man. I had something like that happen: my computer's simply refused to turn on one day. I freaked out incredibly. Took ages to get a new computer and all my files back and then replace all the programs and stuff.
You so have my sympathies. Good luck, man.
"Yeah, that's the bridge pier (expletive). I thought it was the center. Oh (expletive)." ~ From the transcript of the recording device on board the ship which struck the San Franciso Bay Bridge last year, causing a 50,000 gallon oil spill.
I've lost so much data over the years its not even funny. I feel for ya. I've resorted to buying two external harddrives to back things up, and I'm still paranoid about those.
The external harddrive I bought to back up my stuff after my harddrive crashed the other year and I lost some but not all of my info, is currently not connecting to my computer. I am told the info is probably salvagable, but . . . dammit.
It would have been wise to go your route, Starline.
.. Contemplated flinging yourself off a bridge because your hard-drive fried and deleted several weeks worth of work on comics?
Oh god, several times.
Once my computer flipped out over a windows update and wouldn't even enter safe mode, because windows had somehow lost the majority of its own registry as well as corrupted all 50+ of my system restore points. I had to spend a grudging two days of repairing the registry hive by hive.
Other times, Photoshop just decides that the 5 hours I just spent on a page were dumb and were worth corrupting the file over.
And then the time I lost all the archives of my old comic.
Also, as a note, for people who have crashed their computers and have the know-how of fixing it, I suggest the Ultimate Boot CD.
It's invaluable to the average joe and IT guys alike.
Great for diagnosis and salvaging files from a doomed computer.
Kirb wrote:Other times, Photoshop just decides that the 5 hours I just spent on a page were dumb and were worth corrupting the file over.
Ow. <.< I use a really old, incompatible writing program for my stories, and I have the same issue with it- though I already know my computer and the program are incompatible, so it's more my fault.
My computer likes deleting my stories...not so much my web comics or other drawings, thank goodness. And opening up random files when I try and work. When I was colouring in a picture and trying to figure out how to get some colours to blend, it opened up a tutorial on how to use Photoshop. *shakes head* Possessed.
This sort of happened to me. My whole life was on my computer (vacation pictures, stories, schoolwork, etc) and it totally died just about a year ago. I had to get a new computer.
Always back up your work. Get an external hard drive and copy everything you do into it once a week or more if you do a lot. I had backed up all my comics onto an external hard drive when my computer crash, thank god.
Also, if you can afford it and it's really important to you, check out Drive Savers (drivesavers.com) They got everything off my old computer for me so I have proof of my college existence again, but it wasn't cheap. If anyone can save your stuff, they can - they do professional extraction and can even get data off computers that have been in fires sometimes. But like I said - not cheap.
There is almost no doubt that you can recover most of your data - there are companies here that can recover an 80gb drive, put everything you request on DVDs, and have it back to you in 48 hours for about $200.
Your data is recoverable.
But wow, it does suck. I regularly make CDs of my entire data directory and store them in archive exactly because of my fear of losing everything. I keep my critical files backed up on my pc, thumb drive, network, and two work computers.
Crossfire: "Thank you! That explains it very nicely, and in a language that someone other than a physicist can understand..."
Denial is not falsification. You can't avoid a fact just because you don't like it.
"Data" is not the plural of "anecdote"
Kirb wrote:Other times, Photoshop just decides that the 5 hours I just spent on a page were dumb and were worth corrupting the file over.
Oh MAN have I been there. Often. VERY ERY OFTEN. Often enough to make me want to stab something. I have now gotten to the point where I keep tripple copies of all my pages, and whenever I save, I save in three different spots on my harddrive, to make sure that if one corrupts, I still have the other two. It's annoying and SLOW, since I work in A3 at 300 dpi (minimum). My harddrive has corrupted... once. I think. That was a loooong time ago and I'm still not sure how it happened.
Aside from that my pc and laptop are good friends and back eachother up. I probably should get an external though.
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I've lost lots over the years at work and at home. My laptop might be dying right now so everything is backed up to an external drive soon to be burned to CD or DVD once the hardware settles down. Always back up to multiple archives.
