Undeserved Mercies
Last night, my wife’s PowerBook hard drive suddenly crashed and could not be remounted You can read all the details on her blog here. Although she backs up diligently, she had completed one paper and done substantial work on another since her last backup…and both are due in the next week, our final week of the semester.
Long story shortened, we took it to the Apple Store today. They were truly wonderful and went above and beyond, but could not recover the drive. However, in all the hours of attempts, the hard drive appeared just once. Karyn tried dragging her entire document folder (thousands of files) to her iPod. Only a few random files got over to the iPod before the drive crashed again, probably never to be seen again.
When we got home, we discovered that out of all the thousands of files left behind, two of the few that got through unscathed…were her two papers.
We don’t deserve anything good, so every mercy must be shouted from the housetops…or at least from the blog pages.
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May 1st, 2005 at 6:58 pm
Have you recently installed OS X Version 10 3.9 or so? Seems like a lot of trouble is brewing for Powerbooks, battery and performance issues from this and 3.7 and 3.8. I have a G4, 1-Gig MHz w/ 1 Gig SDRAM. Since installing 3.9 I’m having a lot of strange behavior that I’ve never had before. OSX Support Discussion has many folks saying similar stuff. No doubt it was a mercy to get your paper.
May 1st, 2005 at 8:04 pm
As a matter of fact, yes, I was running OS X 10.3.9. I was unaware of the problems that you have seen on the Support Discussion. Hmmmm. I have been having performance problems for a while, but I hardly think that a switch in OS version would cause physical damage to the hard disk. Maybe that was just a coincidence. In any case, I am now trying to debate the switch to Tiger.
I am just so very thankful for retrieving those two papers… right now I am trying to reinstall all the programs I need to do my work (school and job) on my “temporary” computer … then I’ll have to do it all over again when I get my hard disk replaced on my “real” computer.
May 1st, 2005 at 8:12 pm
Yeah, it’s rather unlikely that a SW upgrade would hammer your HD. Those things just like to let go at the worst of times.
May 1st, 2005 at 8:21 pm
Like the guy at the Apple Store explained to us, “It’s got little parts in there, see, and they move, and they wear out.”
Kind of like the world I think.
May 1st, 2005 at 8:27 pm
Was the Apple Store guy a technician? If so…heck, I’m going to start calling myself a nuclear physicist.
May 1st, 2005 at 8:33 pm
Bloody software people, always wanting to blame us hardware types!
May 1st, 2005 at 8:45 pm
While I’m not happy with the fact that my Powerbook as been rendered useless twice in the last 2 months, I am always *extremely* pleased with the service I get when I show up at the genius bar.
Good people that really do want to help you.
I’m so glad you were able to get the stuff you needed! God is good.
May 1st, 2005 at 8:52 pm
Steve…their Apple people, OK? So they all know their stuff really, really well, but they talk like surfer dudes on crystal meth
May 1st, 2005 at 9:04 pm
Whew! I read Karyn’s post earlier today and got this awful sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach (probably because I know what this time of the semester is like). Glad to hear you were able to recover the papers…
God is good!
May 1st, 2005 at 10:05 pm
I’m so grateful that I got the papers I needed off the disk, but I want to make it abundantly clear that I believe God would be good no matter what happened with my computer. I don’t mean that to sound trite! I know that when things go good we tend to attribute that to God (and well we should!), but that’s not the only time he is good. He is good through everything.
May 1st, 2005 at 10:09 pm
Oh, and Lara, I totally agree with you about the Genius Bar folks. They are top notch.
May 1st, 2005 at 10:11 pm
Ok, ok, so the spikey-haired guy who drooled on us while showing us the Tiger op system wasn’t a “genius.” But I’ll bet his mother thinks he is
May 1st, 2005 at 10:59 pm
I knew you meant it that way, Karyn. Like a youth praise rally …
“God is good … ALL THE TIME. All the time? GOD IS GOOD.”
Besides … you’re on the record about the Goodness of God anyway!
GFM <– mind like a steel sieve!
May 1st, 2005 at 11:02 pm
Oh please, Geof, not the dreaded youth praise rally!
May 1st, 2005 at 11:06 pm
Hee hee hee. I know, I’m so wrong for that!
May 1st, 2005 at 11:16 pm
Did you buy Tiger?
I’m not sold yet….
May 2nd, 2005 at 6:59 am
Tiger is on the computer we’re using to boot Karyn’s right now. She hasn’t decided if she’s going to buy it for herself.
May 2nd, 2005 at 7:54 am
The Apple guys spent a good amount of time showing me Tiger on the computers in the store (while I was waiting). Some very nice features. I only hesitate because some of the folks who use Accordance had to do some wrangling with fonts…it eventually worked, but I just don’t have the time right now. The best feature is the one called Spotlight (I think)… it searches the text of everything on your computer (and fast!). I can search a PDF file and give you a list of every time a word occurs. This is huge for some of the digital documents we have. I could take a PDF of Calvin’s Institutes and find all occurences of a particular phrase. Sure other programs do this (like Accordance), but only for modules or books you have purchased. This will work for any PDF you download onto your computer. And it looked to be fast. Fast is always nice. I may not be a speed demon on four wheels, but I will take any speed I can get for my computer work.
May 2nd, 2005 at 8:08 am
She’s slower than me on a bicycle as well, but she has more bumps and bruises from wrecks…go figure!
May 2nd, 2005 at 9:50 am
Hmmm…. I thought the little widgets were cool, too….
I think I’ll eventually upgrade, but I’ll wait a couple more pay periods. Buying the external hard drive yesterday to do more regular back-ups set me back a few.
May 2nd, 2005 at 2:23 pm
Hey, I’m only slower on the downhills! I pass you on the uphills every time! I just get nervous with the out-of-control feeling from just letting it fly full open downhill.