Disaster, Accidental Hard Drive Cleaning or Stuff, Stuff, Stuff

A few days ago I had a disk partition accident. Then I compounded it with my stupidity. Not good.

I am trying to be positive about it. Learning lessons. Moral victories that kind of crap. huh.

The first lesson is when doing something potentially completely destructive read the menu carefully and don’t assume anything.

The most obvious lesson is an obvious one that a lot of people ignore. Backup. I kept most of the non-program files on a second hard drive used to store media and irreplaceable files. Most. OK, that is not a back up solution. But it usually is the drive with the OS(s) that gets screwed up. The idea was that would really minimize that change of losing important data in between occasional backups. I would keep really important stuff on both drives and on removable storage, etc. Well, the saving important files to the storage drive and backing up occasionally fell by the wayside. I did not lose everything. But I lost some. Luckily I had my really important stuff in about ten different places including online storage. Yeah, I know I am not very smart. So, please let this be yet another cautionary. Let this one be the one you pay attention to.

I actually have scheduled a back up reminder. Lets face it not something most people are going to think about a lot. It is not fun. No one ever said I can’t wait to back up my data yippie! Besides neglect the other thing that kept me from regular backups up was disorganization. It not really practical to to back everything up with the gigs & gigs of data we collect now. So when your important data is scattered across multiple drives and in zillions of mislabeled folders and mixed with crap it makes it hard if not impossible to do a good job backing up.

You gotta have a real plan I guess not just a vague intent like I had. There is a million possibilities nowadays so there is no excuses. My plan is basically segregating all the data I create like project files, recordings, written word, etc. Then back that up on a schedule. As long as I pay attention to where I save things and stay organized it should not be that hard.

OK now I have to get a little philosophical. You don’t really realize the amount of crap that you can accumulate virtual or otherwise until you have to replace it. Especially if you have to go through annoying copy protections and have to find install disk you have seen since 2 seconds after you installed a program. Rerip music, etc. Despite all the advances now days in clock speed, bus speeds, memory and bandwidth installing software and data from DVD’s and CD is still slow as hell. You start to ask yourself if you need all of it while you watch the endless procession of progress bars.

The philosophical bit is you realize how little of it you actually really need. Not surprising really considering the culture here most people end up so much we don’t really need. Stuff that does not improve our lives at all and most likely hinder our happiness. Remembering that this here World Wide Web is just that World Wide I don’t know how it is in the rest of the world but in the good ole U.S. of A there is a strong almost religious tendency toward acquiring more and more stuff. Big neon signs, glossy print, screaming radio ads and moving pictures urge over consumption and acquisition overtly. Then there is the strong current drag us down stream with out us knowing it that some call culture. George Carlin describe this phenomenon well in this video. But it really is worse had he puts it. Maybe it is this way in the rest of the Western World and Westernized Far East but I do not really know what life is like other than the bullshit I have seen on TV. But I know how it is here. It is even the supposed answer to your current financially problems. Were are supposed to spend our way out of being broke. Go figure. And People buy into this idea. We are so entrenched in acquiring more and more stuff. I tried to stay organized. And keep my hard drives clean. I would try and get rid of the stuff I never used. But i probably was doing a very good job of that either. My computer was bloated with crap. Crap that hogged resources and diverted my attentions. Nothing good ever came of it.

My Desktop a microcosm of the this materialistic world…you bet. OK, I am not going to bullshit you and say I am glad this happened. I am not it is pain in the ass and I lost a few things I wish I didn’t . But maybe understanding a little better that I should possess only what I need and take very good care of those things is worth something. I should schedule a reminder for that also.