To err is human...

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

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...To really foul things up requires a computer.

I thought I was going to be all big-girl and all and transfer my files over all by myself. I'm not too shabby at working a computer. I know what things are, and I use my regular programs just fine. I shouldn't need my hubby to do this for me.

Ha. Haha. Funny me. I knew just enough to get myself messed up.

The salesman at the Apple store told us about Migration Assistant. It can move my programs over for me. Bad idea. Because I knew less than I thought I knew, I tried it instead of doing the safe and slow way by copy/paste from old to new over the home network. I know how to do that, but I thought I was going to be clever and use the speedy way. Speed is not good when you don't know exactly what you are doing or what to expect when it happens. Speed just makes bad things happen faster.

MA doesn't copy then paste, so that you can go back if you mess up. It cuts and pastes. If you delete anything to try again because it didn't do what you expected, too bad for you. You now have no copies of those files.

So, bye bye iTunes library. I have a bunch of empty folders. Even though iTunes has no obligation to restore my purchases--it's in the terms and conditions--I still wrote them to explain what happened and beg them to do so anyway. Even if I can't get everything back, getting a significant portion of it will go a long way to helping me out. The free podcasts are easy enough to redownload, but even with taking out the songs I loaded via CD, I had a lot of music on there, not to mention the couple movies and several show episodes I'd purchased via iTunes. That's a lot of money. I'm hoping whoever reads my plea will take pity on me. My most recent purchase was just a few days ago, too. Pout.

In using MA to transfer my music over, I also let it move my documents and photos over. They suffered the same fate. However, those aren't completely gone since I did copy ALL of those onto my flashdrive. I am quivering at how close I came to destroying a few years of work, not to mention lots of cute pictures that may not be on any other device. Scary! Since I avoided that fate, I am merely sniping at myself for idiocy rather than being in a severe depressive fugue right now.

Backup, backup, backup. You've heard it before. It's no joke. I don't backup as often as I should, but I am so grateful I did yesterday.

But other than proving how fast a computer can help a human wipe out tons of data, I do love my new one. I just finished loaded my documents via my flashdrive, so I will try to do a little work this afternoon before my son gets home. It'll be easier to write now that my battery lasts more than a couple minutes and my power cord isn't half broken. (I can sit where and how I want again.) My screen image isn't affected by the angle of the screen to my eyes. And the MagSafe cord connection is so cool.

3 comments:

Emily White said...

Jaleh, oh no!!! :(

I really hope they let you replace your lost music and videos. That is just awful! And honestly, it sounds like something I'd do.

By the way, I got the gift card in the mail the other day! I actually forgot all about it and when I saw your name on the envelope, I was like, "Yay! Jaleh mailed me! I feel so special!" And then I saw the gift card and I was happy because that means books! :)

Jai Joshi said...

My word, thank god you didn't lose your writing! Music can be downloaded again but your writing once lost is gone forever. I feel weak with relief for you.

Jai

Jaleh D said...

@Emily Yay! I'm glad you got your card. And books are so much fun to buy.

And as of this evening, I have a substantial portion of my library back. It's not been sorted out into my playlists yet, but that will probably take a few days. Some of it was restored, while some things were repurchased. I'm gonna have to buy another gift card for the rest that I'm going to pick up. Some things are no longer available in the version I like, if at all. I may have to hunt for the CDs that have the ones I prefer.

@Jai I know! Such a close thing. *shudder*

I'm going to have to backup my music library, too, soon, but now that I have a functioning optical drive again, so I can do that. But yes, the library can be rebuilt; my writing would have been heartbreaking to lose. Though I did have older drafts of some files saved on a couple different flashdrives. I am still grateful that I did a massive save before even buying the new puter.

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