So sorry, Griffin-ji.  I had a catastrophic hard drive failure on my laptop that I used quite extensively not only for day-to-day stuff, but also for weather spotting, etc.  I bought a new hard drive, but I can't find my old Windows 7 CD to reload the OS.  All that's gone, but it's a pittance compared to what you've lost.  I hope there's a way you can get them back.  Maybe we can get up a GoFundMe or something like that for you? 

Day 2 of reassembling the Iron Idiot.
Got the ad blockers on and functioning. Taken care of most of the stupid ads. (I *hate* ads).
On thinking about the lost data (please pardon the Wail of Despair/Scream of Outrage): most of the Artwork Project can be reloaded from discs. Anything missing I'll just have to live without. Not like the Project was going anywhere financially in any case. All the artwork from the assorted Shejidani sites is gone, unless somebody dragged it over from one of the other permutations (bye-bye mechiti). Google Photos had  the pics of the Niece's wedding--including the shots of my dad dancing with her. That set was very important to me, so finding them there is a relief. No recovering all the quilt pics I had. The entire folder of Oddities can be re-collected as I rediscover the items that went into the original. Tedious but not vital stuff.

As for starting a GoFundMe, thank you for the thought but I will decline. That's just too much money (starts at $500 just to get it into the service shop. If it proves truly messy, it can run up to $2000 or more per sk8er nandi's experience over her photos).

Last edited by Griffinmoon (3/08/2021 10:13 pm)

a backup service is very helpful in times like this.

I'll be getting a book external hard drive for the Idiot, when the thing decides it's going to stay functional.

In installing my drawing tablet stuff, I plugged in the portable thumb drive that I use to transport files between me and my Printer Man, just to see what was on it--And The Entire Website Artwork Project plus is one it!!! *Major Happy Dancing Going On Here*
And I'm not moving it till I get that external drive. Not going through this again.

Roci nadi:
The service geeks told me they tried a number of ways to recover files from that old drive: toast, from their pov. If anything could be salvaged, it'd take the manufacuter's service to do it. That's not an expence I can afford--ever. Based on their obsevations: nothing to be recovered intact.

Last edited by Griffinmoon (3/08/2021 10:14 pm)

Quilts: Victorian Crazy quilts (eridani nadi or ready nadi has one, Kipy nadi has one), my niece's wedding quilt and a few others were in those files. I'd taken pictures of them and had my Printer Man park them on his computers. Then when *his* hard drive that had all my stuff got rained on and he recovered as much as he could, I made sure I got all of those files onto my thumb drive--and promptly forgot all about them. I was feeling bummed about one of the Victorian ones because I'd gone all out on some of the embroidery on it  (lots of Japanese images).

Last edited by Griffinmoon (3/08/2021 10:15 pm)