A Near Miss
I dodged a big old bullet Friday. I worked all morning, went upstairs, fixed lunch, laid everyone down for "quiet time," came back downstairs and my iMac had a gray screen and a big warning logo on it. Uh oh.
I restarted, per the warning's instructions and NOTHING HAPPENED and that is when my mild 6 hour panic attack began.
I called Apple tech support, but no luck. I have a bluetooth mouse and when the computer isn't working there isn't a signal for the mouse to find. Nothing telephone tech boy can do for me. He can however get me a little more worked up than I already am. While making me an appointment at the Apple store for a genius bar consult, telephone tech boy tells me I probably have some sort of fatal kernel error and will likely experience significant data loss.
Listen to me tech boy. There are three words I never want to hear again and they are: Significant. Data. Loss. Got it?
So I pack up my 24 inch computer, load it in the car and drive downtown, all the while muttering a quiet prayer about how I know that a computer is a pretty small thing and with all the horror in the world, it probably isn't particularly important, but if I could get a little help...just a little help here, I'd be so grateful.
Once I arrived at Apple, it had been over 5 hours since the crash. I had already cried about it and was feeling very resigned to the fact that I was going to lose everything. All my professional writing, all my personal writing, my taxes, my music and, worst of all, my nearly 5500 pictures. Yeah, I called my mom and cried over my lost pictures.
Before I go on, the in-store tech support at Apple is called the Genius Bar. I've always thought billing yourself as a Genius, working at a genius bar no less, was sort of like going on America's Next Top Model and talking about how intelligent you are. You are just begging the world to knock you down a peg.
I take my seat at the Genius bar and I meet my genius, Greg. Greg listens kindly to my tale of horror, he absorbs my pleas to save me and restore my data. He humors me as I tell him that while, yes, I do back things up, I'm not what you would call vigilant about it. When was the last time I backed anything up, he asks. I plead the 5th. I'm oddly hostile at this line of questioning. Don't judge me genius boy - just save me.
Genius Greg spends about 35 mins fooling around with things and making idle chit chat with me. All the while, I'm perched on a tall, black stool, clutching my purse tightly to my chest, reminding my body to breath in and out and reiterating the promise I'd made to myself not to cause a scene when I'm informed of my significant data loss. It was crowded in there, but I'm pretty sure that if I would have thrown myself onto the floor, renting my clothes and wailing, well people would have noticed.
All of the sudden, Genius Greg turns the computer around and says simply, "There you go." There I go what? I don't get it. I look through the foggy eyes of defeat at the smiling faces of my two darling daughters. Wait! that's my desktop pic, which means...that's my desktop, which means, wait for it...my computer is working!
"Oh. My. Gosh. Thank. You. So. Much." I was way-over enunciating my words and, I think, sort of squealing by this point, which is embarrassing, but what are you gonna do?
Genius Greg, who has truly earned his title, explains what happened, walks me through how to prevent it from happening again, shakes my hand and sends me on my way.
I load the computer back in the van and head back into the store to get an external hard drive. I've had a scare, I say to the salesman. I need a back up plan that I don't have to think about, but where I can't lose anything. My whole life is on this machine. Are you getting my drama? My whole life. So set me up.
Between my hysteria and his cute smile and clever sales pitch I almost spend $700 getting the perfect set up, when suddenly I say "Hold up, I think I might be having a bit of a knee jerk reaction here."
I settle on a much, much less expensive plan which includes an external hard drive and some new software. I have now cloned my hard drive and the software scans my machine once an hour, that's right once an hour, looking for updates and backing up any changes.
Phew. Peace of mind, thy name is external hard drive.
P.S. I know I got a miracle and I am oh so grateful for it.
I restarted, per the warning's instructions and NOTHING HAPPENED and that is when my mild 6 hour panic attack began.
I called Apple tech support, but no luck. I have a bluetooth mouse and when the computer isn't working there isn't a signal for the mouse to find. Nothing telephone tech boy can do for me. He can however get me a little more worked up than I already am. While making me an appointment at the Apple store for a genius bar consult, telephone tech boy tells me I probably have some sort of fatal kernel error and will likely experience significant data loss.
Listen to me tech boy. There are three words I never want to hear again and they are: Significant. Data. Loss. Got it?
So I pack up my 24 inch computer, load it in the car and drive downtown, all the while muttering a quiet prayer about how I know that a computer is a pretty small thing and with all the horror in the world, it probably isn't particularly important, but if I could get a little help...just a little help here, I'd be so grateful.
Once I arrived at Apple, it had been over 5 hours since the crash. I had already cried about it and was feeling very resigned to the fact that I was going to lose everything. All my professional writing, all my personal writing, my taxes, my music and, worst of all, my nearly 5500 pictures. Yeah, I called my mom and cried over my lost pictures.
Before I go on, the in-store tech support at Apple is called the Genius Bar. I've always thought billing yourself as a Genius, working at a genius bar no less, was sort of like going on America's Next Top Model and talking about how intelligent you are. You are just begging the world to knock you down a peg.
I take my seat at the Genius bar and I meet my genius, Greg. Greg listens kindly to my tale of horror, he absorbs my pleas to save me and restore my data. He humors me as I tell him that while, yes, I do back things up, I'm not what you would call vigilant about it. When was the last time I backed anything up, he asks. I plead the 5th. I'm oddly hostile at this line of questioning. Don't judge me genius boy - just save me.
Genius Greg spends about 35 mins fooling around with things and making idle chit chat with me. All the while, I'm perched on a tall, black stool, clutching my purse tightly to my chest, reminding my body to breath in and out and reiterating the promise I'd made to myself not to cause a scene when I'm informed of my significant data loss. It was crowded in there, but I'm pretty sure that if I would have thrown myself onto the floor, renting my clothes and wailing, well people would have noticed.
All of the sudden, Genius Greg turns the computer around and says simply, "There you go." There I go what? I don't get it. I look through the foggy eyes of defeat at the smiling faces of my two darling daughters. Wait! that's my desktop pic, which means...that's my desktop, which means, wait for it...my computer is working!
"Oh. My. Gosh. Thank. You. So. Much." I was way-over enunciating my words and, I think, sort of squealing by this point, which is embarrassing, but what are you gonna do?
Genius Greg, who has truly earned his title, explains what happened, walks me through how to prevent it from happening again, shakes my hand and sends me on my way.
I load the computer back in the van and head back into the store to get an external hard drive. I've had a scare, I say to the salesman. I need a back up plan that I don't have to think about, but where I can't lose anything. My whole life is on this machine. Are you getting my drama? My whole life. So set me up.
Between my hysteria and his cute smile and clever sales pitch I almost spend $700 getting the perfect set up, when suddenly I say "Hold up, I think I might be having a bit of a knee jerk reaction here."
I settle on a much, much less expensive plan which includes an external hard drive and some new software. I have now cloned my hard drive and the software scans my machine once an hour, that's right once an hour, looking for updates and backing up any changes.
Phew. Peace of mind, thy name is external hard drive.
P.S. I know I got a miracle and I am oh so grateful for it.
Comments
And Jason wants to know all the technical info.....you know, ask the "right" questions. What happened? Was it the kernal thing? What software did you get to help prevent it? What did they do to fix it? I should have put this in an e-mail.....I'll get right on that. Yay for miracles.