Great News on the Writing Front

As I was sitting at the Mac last night, trying to work on my writing but feeling daunted by the amount of rebuilding (that seemed to keep growing the more I converted my old backup files), I had no idea I'd be getting a related phone call today.

If you want to make the phone ring, start washing dishes.

Actually, I was down to my last pan and mixing bowl when the phone rang. It was my computer person, whom I'd planned to check in with after dishes anyway.

He apologized for not getting back to me sooner, because the follow-up e-mail I'd sent him about a week ago had gotten snagged on his spam filter. He had great news: a friend of his who has a "clean lab" did him a favor (after hearing my sob story) and was able to recover my old (dead) hard drive!

Granted, I still have to pony up some money, but because of their generosity it won't be at the professional clean lab price. I am super excited.

Now, we just have to make sure the computer person's wife can wait a few days to have their new baby--just until he can get the DVD over to me!

Comments

Lizzie said…
Awesome news! What a relief. For me, I mean. I'm waiting impatiently for that first novel...
Kate P said…
Hmmm, I like the idea of having an advance readership. . .

:)
Lindsay said…
LUCKY YOU. I still have my old hard drive that needs to be recovered, and I'll probably still have it a year or two from now, because I will not possess the money to have it professionally done anytime soon. Oh well. I don't actually know what is on it, though, so that's good, and I haven't gotten started on any novels yet anyway, so that is also good. I figure that what I can't remember can't hurt me. I'll get it eventually.
Kate P said…
Oh, yeah, I truly did luck out. Hang on to yours! And don't be like I was--back up your work. :)
Mr. Bingley said…
Great news!

Now have you bought an external hard drive and started religiously backing up your new machine? They're very cheap, you know...
nightfly said…
Touchdown! And see if you can find a good external drive at Office Depot. All the ones around here are going out of business and they're selling a lot of great stuff at a steep discount. Of course they're out of the popular stuff - the printer ink was probably snapped up within seconds - but you should be able to find some of the normally-pricey electronic stuff for cheap. They even sell digital cameras and etc.

We got metal shelves for the basement (40% off) and I'm hoping the 240 gig external HD I slobbered over last week is still there tomorrow.
Kate P said…
Bingley--for now, I'm backing up to the external floppy drive that until now had been my writing's only (if sadly outdated) salvation. I've spent more time converting those old back-ups than doing any writing at this point. I wasn't sure I could get an external hard drive for an old Mac like this, but you of all people would know that. Any recommendations?

'Fly--NO WAY! Office Depot is closing? I'll have to check the one not far from the bookstore to see if that's the case around here, too.
Mr. Bingley said…
Kate, when I buy my mac parts I tend to get them from here. The prices are decent for the most part and they know macs; this isn't the issue it used to be, but when you use older machines like I do it's a consideration.

Send me an email with some of the details on your machine, but from what you've mentioned I'm sure it has a couple of usb 1.1 ports and I hope it has a couple of firewire 400 ports. You'd want to get a firewire 400 drive, as it is much much faster than the original usb.

I would certainly look at whatever office depot had on sale or costco, etc., because as long as the box says "firewire 400 interface" it will work fine on your imac and you can probably find something cheaper than the OWC stuff I linked to above; usb will also work, but since I'm pretty sure you only have the older usb ports it will be very slow to back up all your data.

Like I said let me know the details on your machine and we'll come up with a plan.

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