RIP my hard drive

But please not until the computer guys finish rescuing my data...

Apparently I bought that flash drive in the nick of time. When I think about what the results would have been even three months ago, I'd need a biochip on my vagus nerve. I might still, anyway.

It's not like my beta reader hadn't kept copies of all the novel-related stuff I've been sending her for the last two years, but that doesn't include all the bits and pieces and research and conversations with characters and critiques from other folks and... Not to mention the only one of my novels she hasn't read... Which is all, except about the last 15 pages I wrote on Charley's story which I hadn't backed up yet and which is reconstructable (certainly a helluva lot more reconstructable than the whole 600+ pages would have been) on that blessed flash drive. Along with all my photos except for the Yellowstone ones -- but M has those on the laptop she took on the trip so those are replaceable.

Anyway, my computer wouldn't boot on Thursday (actually it shut itself off in the middle of an email (I wasn't online at the time, just composing) and kept trying to reboot and getting halfway and starting over) so I took it to the computer guys, for whom it booted just fine. So I brought it home, and it suddenly started asking me for a floppy disk to boot from, so I took it back to the computer guys, and, well, to make a long story short, I've now had my very first hard drive crash, in thirteen years of owning a home computer.

There is still a possibility that the the stuff on the drive will be rescuable (the drive is "in the freezer for the weekend" -- a process I'm told might help, but which sounds rather odd, even after having had the explanation for why it can work given me), but if it doesn't, at least the novels are safe.

Did I mention that I am in love with my flash drive?

I am going to miss all the email stuff I'd saved, though [sigh]. And a few other things. Well, a lot of other things. Like all my EQ5 quilt designs, and some programs my brother-in-law gave me (which I hope he'll give me again), and some other stuff. I need to learn how to back up EQ5 files and Outlook Express. I wish I'd asked someone earlier...

But, hey, I have my novels. And my photos. And at least I can stay on top of things at the library computers (which is where I am now).

And if positive sympathetic mojo counts for anything, the drive will come up long enough on Monday for them to ghost everything onto the new one.

Pretty please?

I have sugar and a cherry...