[catastrophic]

My old Vista computer expired the other week. I got a new computer and brought the Vista hard drives to a computer shop to try to salvage the data.

I've had a computer completely die on me before, and I've had data salvaged. I'd hoped this would be a routine procedure.

Apparently only one of the hard drives could be read for data. At the cost of about $112. The other hard drive would require a deeper analysis to get anything from it... at the cost of about $912.

Fuck it, I said. Of that hard drive, there was probably only about 10% on there that would be really valuable to me. Maybe if that 10% managed to survive, I'd be in the clear.

I go to the shop last night. Pick up my old hard drives and a new external hd with the salvaged data. Total cost, about $250.

Get home and plug in the new hard drive to investigate the salvaged data... and it looks remarkable! At first glance, it looks like almost everything I need has been rescued. Huge sigh of relief. Raise the "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner for the Reuters photographers.

On further inspection, however... not all the folders have been rescued. And the contents of those folders are not what they should be.

I try to open files and I'm greeted with data-junk.

Almost... entirely... useless.

Well, at least I have a better appreciation for what exactly I've lost. A bunch of old documents. Some things I can retrieve because I've sent them as attachments in old emails. Other things... are probably simply lost.

Okay. We pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off. The royal "we".

I've still got those old hard drives. Can't afford it right now but I can take them to another shop down the line and see if they can salvage more. Some of those old files are more sentimental than practical. There's a chance they can be brought back.

For now, I've just got to shake this one off and keep moving.