Bad news for me

Whew, it's been a tough night. I'm one of those people that when it comes to my computer and problems, I can't rest until I make a good deal of progress. I must say, I've come a long ways since I got home. I've managed to recover a good 70% of what has been lost and I have ways to restore most of the other stuff. I did suffer as far as I know, one major software catastrophe, but I'll find a way to get it back. I hope. I might just have to pay for it. It was the only one that I can tell that wasn't backed up properly. The rest, I managed to have access to or ways back into the game. Restored internet and basically have a brand new computer again because all those files that were on my local C hard drive are now gone and replaced with default files. Which is nothing. Good thing I had most everything saved to an external hard drive. I didn't realize the limitations of it's back up system and that is why I suffered one casualty that I know of. Fortunately I learned a valuable lesson and I will be much more faithful user of Windows backup system. This is where I made my gravest mistake. It would have been totally devastating had I not put all my files on my 500Gig External Hard Drive. I managed to save all my photos and many other things I needed. Just like I said, didn't realize it's backup didn't backup programs until I read the readme file when I really needed it. (I'm a dunce!). Anyway, I've recovered enough that I think I can break the worst news to my wife and be okay. When she went to bed, I had nothing. I'm pretty beat now after being at school all day and working on this all night since I got home. As my PC Teacher says all the time and I'm ready to preach it now too.....

Backup, Backup, Backup!!!

Wow! What a 24 hrs I've had! Last night I nearly lost everything. I had restored by being overzealous to a point where I was back to day #1 on my computer. And then realizing that I chose the wrong path for recovery and could not undo it. There was a point around midnight last night where I was literally hating life and realizing everything I lost.

I was in heavy brainstorming mode all night after spending 8 hrs at school. Brain is really tired now. But last night, I was doing some heavy thinking on how I was going to get out of this jam?

Luckily I had most of what was valuable to me on an external Hard Drive. As I dug further, I realized just what was my major loses. I had discovered I had lost 3 major software programs.

1 was Photoshop. A very expensive program to say the least and 1 not only do I need for school but 1 I would be heartbroken if I lost.

I have a homemade disc with Photoshop on it, not the actual commercial software. There is a certain way it needs to be installed, which involves going into explore and making a few things happen before you can install. It's been about 3 years since Ive done this. But I was able to get Photoshop installed.

2 was my Norton Anti-Virus software. I have been paying for it the last few years. So I knew I could just go back to the site and redownload it. I wasn't worried about it. But I just discovered I could get it for free through my schools website. So being my system was now clean, I removed anything that resembled Anti-Virus software and installed the schools version of Norton. Which is just as good as what I had. Now I get it for free! So, I will be making a trip to Norton and turning off "Automatic Resubscribe" very soon.

The 3rd and most likely not to get back was Microsoft Office 2007. This was another school deal. But this was one where you got the entire package for $59.95 at ultimatesteal.com. The one catch is you have to have a .edu (education system) email address. Any of you can use it if you have one yourself. Check it out! I had purchased this back in June and I loved it! I had been using 2003 and I thought the upgrade which included programs I didn't have was excellent. Well, the price is for 1 download. I attempted the old email I had for it. But when I attempted to use it, it said "Sorry, you can only download for 30 days". After discussing with my wife, we decided we needed it and we would just go ahead and pay for it. So I went back to it and tried to pay and everytime I tried, it would say "No items in cart". It wouldn't let me buy it!

So I found the customer service number and called. And I told them I had purchased before and I realize it was no longer any good, but it won't let me repurchase it. I was fully admitting I was going to repurchase it. And the guy goes "Do you have your order #?" I said yeah and gave it to him. He looks it up, confirms my name and then says he can extend my redownload time to October 12th!!!! Damn he made my day!!!

So now I have all my major software packages back and installed.

This has almost turned into a blessing in disguise. My computer although Ive kept with it for the most part, had a lot of things I didn't need and in some ways was a mess. The things that were important for me where on my external hard drive.

Now my computer is back to fresh day #1 minimum file.

My important files are on my external hard drive

I have new backups including all of the files necessary to quickly restore costly programs safely on my hard drive.

And I have just finished a fresh restore point backup on my desktop computer.

And I no longer have to pay for Anti-Virus software subscriptions!

So all in all, the whole thing turned out to be a cleaning of my system. Yes a lot of work getting running again. But nonetheless, a complete overhaul of my system the way I originally wanted when I bought my external hard drive about a year ago. I have everything exactly the way I need it now!

So, as frustrating as the experience was. This has worked out for the best!