What Would You Take With You?

Let’s just say I had a rough night last night.

I was having some issues with my computer, and I was on the phone with Compaq describing the problem to them and this was their response:

“We know exactly what the problem is, please give us your credit card number so we can charge you $40 to walk you through how to insert one line of code into Windows” (WHY DIDN’T I GET A MAC)

Anyways, I said forget it, I restart my computer and am greeted with the message, “We’re sorry, a critical line of code is missing from Windows, please reload your operating system.”

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

I have 2 Recovery DVD’s for my computer, one wipes the hard drive and restores the computer to when it was purchased, wiping the hard drive and all that good stuff. The other fills in missing pieces in Windows.

I have critical data that I hadn’t backed up, so I chose the later.

So I’m sitting there and am told that it will take about an hour to complete the procedure. So I decide to leave it and go daven Maariv and do the Daf. This is a drastic change from when I’d do computer related stuff when I was younger. Then I’d do all sorts of things from pace the room, listen to music, but go the Beis and learn?

Needless to say I was very calm when I rebooted Windows and discovered that the entire “My Documents” folder had been erased!

I had all of my work stuff, school stuff, music, pictures, all of my audio projects. And it was just gone.

So I had take into account, now that it was gone, what would I have to do. Luckily work things were completed, but I do a newsletter and sometime I have to look back at old editions for certain things. The big thing was the 25 page energy audit I was doing for my Environmental Science class. I had been through page 15, and now it was gone. If figured that it would be about six hours worth of work to redo it.

But besides that I have to say I felt relieved. I was free of the burden of my very cluttered drive, and I could let it go. I realized that I could do without most of the files on there. They were only baggage.

So I was up late last night reinstalling programs that had been corrupted. (and I still managed to make it to 6:30 minyan this morning!)

So today I was tweaking, trying to see if there was someway to recover any of my lost files. I was tipped off by the fact that my 100gb hard drive only read 40gb free. All of the folders in the C drive didn’t add up. So I went to the internet trying to find a data recovery program. After numerous downloads and attempts I gave up, the files weren’t in any of the lost files.

Then I decided to just put “Lost My Documents” into Google. . . and my attempt sprung gold!

Instead of erasing my files, the permissions had been changed, all I had to do was sign in in Safe Mode, change the permission and I was good to go!

Well here I am, with my “lost” files back. And it got me thinking about what’s going on in California and Sderot right now. I came across and article asking “What would you take if you had 15 seconds to grab something and get out of the house? Lets say you didn’t have to worry about family members, what object would you consider irreplaceable and would have to come with you. The thing that you absolutely could not live without?

We’ve been discussing in out science class about one of the ways to curb the so-called Global Climate Change, is to like more economically and efficiently. Besides food, shelter, clothing, and religious materials, what is really important?

Just a thought.