Hello, everyone — sorry for the late entry, but I have had an action packed, frustrated weekend.  I learned quite a bit over the past three days.

On Friday, I had a minor panic that reminded me that I need to backup all my important files (writing, music, cat pictures).  I have a wireless drive that I put all my stuff on because I had problems with previous hard drives.  I thought I was being clever in storing it offline.  Yeah — fast forward a couple of years and I discover Spotify, so I think that I’ll just post all my music files (all 113 Gb) up there.  So I go to my Z: drive which houses all my music and writing and start loading the files.  No problem.  As I look through the loaded files, I see some things that aren’t really for public consumption.  So I discontinue the upload, going about my merry way.  Speed forward past a few days and I want to get into the Z: Drive so I can print something for my writer’s group.  I double click on the ‘computer’…

No Z: drive.  No Y: Drive (has my photography files and Art Bell .mp3s).  No X: Drive (some .gif files and my computer files backup).  Nothing.  I don’t panic because I’ve had this happen before.  I lean over my desk and power cycle the drive — turn it off and turn it back on thirty seconds later.  85% of the time, this solves it.

God rolls an 87 on the percentile dice.

I still don’t panic.  I turn off and turn on the router.  Nothing.  I restart the PC.  More Nothing.  I unplug the computer and plug it back in going through a hard reboot.  I have a plate of nothing, with a side of nothing and a tall, cool glass of dammit, nothing.  OK, I start to panic a little.  I’m not concerned (greatly) about the music.  I still have all my CDs, so I can just re-rip stuff, re-download from places where I purchased them.  I am way more concerned about the file labeled ‘Writing’.  Everything — rough drafts, final copies, notes, playlists — was in that file.  I have very limited sorts of back-ups for that.  Notes on several blank books, what I can remember, but other than that — if I can’t get to the Z: drive and that writer’s files…I’m done.  The only things that I can call back are the finished and formatted versions of my books because I stored them online.

Monday through Thursday, this wouldn’t have been a big problem.  I would have just gone on with the rest of my day and tried to fix it at night.  However, it was Friday — I needed to still print copies of my first novel selection and get gas for the car and possibly get some lunch.  My computer had a different agenda for me.  It was mostly cursing, begging — the whole five stages of death done in about 3 hours.  I kept clicking on the disk manager, the file manager and every other manager I could get feverish access to by mouse.  I am panicking right now just because I’m going to be late for work if I don’t leave right now.

Miracle of miracles, I clicked on the right thing and got a prompt for my hard drive on the wireless network.  Huzzah!  I can get to it through that!

Or I could if I remembered the name and password I gave that it.  I think I just let it have the default password which I don’t remember.  Before all of this (and I think Spotify has something to do with this, it was working fine before I uploaded the files) I never needed to log in, it showed up in my computer as the labeled drives.  Password?  I have no idea.  I uninstall and reinstall the drivers for the dashboard.  Still asking for a password.  Did I use the default password?  I don’t know.  I click on the dashboard — maybe there is something that I can do.

Create New User?  I click on that little tucked away button on the dash board.  What’s the worst that can happen now?

User Name?  I type in my first name (which I never use).

User Password?  I type in my usual password.

Grant new user admin rights (view and change files)?  Hell, yes!

I go back to the main dashboard and login under my new name.  I don’t see the X:, Y: or Z: drive, but I do see the folders marked “Writing”, “Music” and “Daughter of the Mountain” (The sequel to this book).  I just had installed a new hard drive that I was going to use as more storage.  A bunch of clicks later, I was moving files from the recently liberated Z: drive to the J: drive.  I open up my writing program and try to get to the project.  The relief that I felt was almost tear-inducing.  I copy and paste the first 2,000 words to a word document file for printing.  I can breathe again.  I can get the file printed and copies.

I can also be ten minutes late to work from all this.  That’s OK — I’m good for now.

That was the beginning of the weekend for me.  Next time — I become social!  Drinks!  Dinner!  Panic Attacks!

Tune in!

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy