Computer backup

Do you know what might be worse than losing a whole bunch of stuff in a computer crash?

When you discover you lost a whole bunch of stuff, not because your computer crashed but because you backed it up incorrectly. Because you weren't smart enough/didn't take the time to understand how exactly your automatic backup system works. And since you figured you had all those files on the external hard drive, why keep them on the laptop?

Because, it turns out, they'll be overwritten/deleted. And when it's the only copy you have, you'll lose everything.

That's a good reason and would have a been a good thing to know. I mean, it makes perfect sense in hindsight.

But grad school was only 6 years of my life/professional career. I don't need all the stuff anymore anyway, right?*

I was in shock for probably a full 30 minutes. I wanted to cry and I wanted to go home. But I had a meeting with my boss in 3 hours, so I couldn't. I managed not to cry. (So far.) I played the "if only" game for a long time. I wrote desperate emails to various people. Nothing can be done.**

I did go meet with my boss, and when he asked how I was doing I said, "Good." Then I paused and said. "No, actually, I'm not. I just lost almost everything off my computer from grad school." He then tried to make suggestions to help, and when that didn't work (I'd thought of/tried all of them), he commiserated with some legitimately stressful things that have been going on in his life.

But he agreed that my situation won in awfulness.

The lesson: Back up your stuff. Multiple times, and in multiple places. And don't assume anything.

Especially when you're depending on your own intelligence.



* Some good news: most dissertation data was on another computer and it's safe. And a backup of my actual dissertation was somewhere else too. Everything else from my machine from grad school is gone. Oh, and by the way. This was my grad school work computer. My laptop from that time is fine, and will be backed up tonight. Correctly.
** And yes, I tried looking into recovery. No, it's not possible. It's been too long and there have been too many additional backups to the external drive since then.