A Lesson Learned

I know a lot about computers. I've been intrigued by them ever since I was fairly young. I've been using them for the majority of my life. So, why is it that I fail to remember the simplest rule of computer ownership - ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR DATA.

It's not that I don't know this rule. I definitely understand the computers can be fickle and years and years of documents and work can be lost in the blink of an eye. I think I'm optimistic. I want to believe that in spite of it all, the technology has improved so much that there's no need for redundant data. Or maybe I'm just lazy and never really have the desire to create backups unless doing so seems inevitable.

Whatever the case may be, I have once again suffered from my negligence. I maintain all of our data files (documents, music, and most importantly pictures) on a secondary hard drive. The other day, this hard drive became inaccessible. After several reboots, it appeared to be completely dead. We're going to try to take the drive to a data recovery center, but my hope is fading about as quickly as the drive did.

Ironically enough, I was just thinking the other day that 6 months would be a supreme time to back up all the photographs I have of Brick, but of course, I never actually made the backup. That's the way it goes, I suppose. At least I still have BrickPic and the prints I've made for my mom. Maybe next time, I'll actually trust my instinct to create a backup - but let's be honest ... probably not.