Corruption

At the end of the school year I was required to turn in my school laptop in order for it to be updated with Windows 8 along with various other programs. Turning in the computers at the end of each year is a common thing, but there is always the threat of having the computer’s memory wiped clean. The first two years I was lucky. While there were occurrences of random files being erased from my computer, I never had the problem of the whole thing being wiped. However, this past year I was warned that the new updates would be clearing all of the computers and starting them from scratch. This time it was for real and I had about two weeks to figure out how to transfer all of my files, documents, but most importantly my pictures to “elsewhere” before I turned in the computer.

Lucky for me, we have an amazing family friend who is a total geek and I went to him asking for aid in my quest to keep my files alive. I recognized that there probably wasn’t a USB drive in the world big enough to contain all of my precious pictures so he went a step further and procured for me an external hard-drive in which I could safely store the past three years of my high school career. I downloaded everything from the computer onto the drive, confidently turned in my computer, and left the hard-drive in my dresser for the whole of the summer.

A few weeks before the start of school I received my computer back just as promised- wiped clean of all my information in order to download Windows 8. But I was not worried, for I knew that my little hard-drive was tucked safely away and was waiting to be reinstalled on my computer. I plugged in my little humming hard-drive and to my horror, found all of my stored photos were corrupted. Something along the way of downloading had gone wrong and only a choice few (and I mean about one out of every fifty photos) had survived intact. Although some of the photos looked cool in their varied state, I need the original photographs back. Everything I had done to prevent my photos from being lost was for nothing.

But there was hope! I told my geek friend about what had happened and he took it upon himself to somehow retrieve my photos and re-download everything onto a new, sound external drive. Everything was restored and there was peace in the valley once again. My fear of losing it all was quickly overcome by the gratitude I have for our dear family friend.