Computer Crisis

I feel comfortable with technology in most respects; if I don't know how to do something, I'm comfortable poking about until I figure it out. Lesson learned - This is NOT always a good idea.

Yesterday morning, I begin my usual routine when my cat awakens me at 5:23 a.m. I stumble to the kitchen, feed the cat, start the coffee and open my laptop. Okaaayy. . . Close the laptop, open again. Nada. Push 'hibernate' button. Nope. Oh sh*&!

So, still in my jammies, teeth not brushed, I sit down at the desk and begin trying different tricks - unplugging and replugging, holding down certain keys, you name it. Finally, it reboots. Aaahh, okay, I can breathe now.

Go fix a cup of coffee while it revs up, turn on the lights, start making the bed . . . but wait, that doesn't look right. It's the start-up screen from when I first got the laptop. I register all over again, hoping and praying, but alas, when it finally comes up, NOTHING. All of my settings, documents, programs - they're ALL GONE!

I look at the clock -- it's 6:00 a.m. -- I don't think my tech guy would appreciate a call at this hour and I obviously can't email him. So I start to try other things, like PC Recovery. Supposedly this allows you to return to an earlier date on your computer and recapture everything from that time. I tried it; no luck.

At this point, I start making calls and the first thing I hear is "Don't do anything! Move away from the computer!"

To make a long story a little bit shorter, I had already made it harder to recover the data. After hours of sweating it out, a data recovery specialist came to the house and was able to recover MOST of my hard drive.

I share this not as a plea for sympathy, but as a lesson learned and a warning to others - When it comes to technology, if you don't know what caused the problem in the beginning, DON'T attempt to repair it yourself. I was lucky. (Sidenote: Backup your hard drive religiously!)