*wailing.....* (Read 723 times)

Oh, no! My worst nightmare...you're living it! Oh, Andrea, that is utterly tragic. That reminds me I should really backup all of my iTunes onto DVD or something... k

That is my biggest (computer releated) nightmare. I hope you manage to recover all your stuff. If you're the kind that enjoys company, here's something that dwarfs your pain: The Associated Press Tucson, Arizona | Published: 03.21.2007 JUNEAU, Alaska — Perhaps you know that sinking feeling when a single keystroke accidentally destroys hours of work. Now imagine wiping out a disk drive containing information for an account worth $38 billion. That's what happened to a computer technician reformatting a disk drive at the Alaska Department of Revenue. While doing routine maintenance work, the technician accidentally deleted applicant information for an oil-funded account — one of Alaska residents' biggest perks — and mistakenly reformatted the backup drive, as well. There was still hope, until the department discovered its third line of defense, backup tapes, were unreadable. "Nobody panicked, but we instantly went into planning for the worst-case scenario," said Permanent Fund Dividend Division Director Amy Skow. The July computer foul-up, which wiped out dividend distribution information for the fund, would end up costing the department more than $200,000. Over the next few days, as the department, the division and consultants from Microsoft Corp. and Dell Inc. labored to retrieve the data, it became obvious the worst-case scenario was at hand. Nine months worth of applicant information for the yearly payout from the Alaska Permanent Fund was gone: some 800,000 electronic images that had been painstakingly scanned into the system months earlier, the 2006 paper applications that people had either mailed or filed over the counter, and supporting documentation such as birth certificates and proof of residence. And the only backup was the paperwork itself — stored in more than 300 cardboard boxes. "We had to bring that paper back to the scanning room, and send it through again, and quality control it, and then you have to have a way to link that paper to that person's file," Skow said. Half a dozen seasonal workers came back to assist the regular division staff, and about 70 people working overtime and weekends re-entered all the lost data by the end of August.

thanks guys! hubby has been laughing at my pain all weekend long...of all the things in the world to get worked up over, this is where I choose to shed my tears! What can i say though- music is a huge love of mine. It's the soundtrack for my ever shifting moods...it's an audio scrapbook- nearly every song is tagged with a memory.../cheesy thanks for the recovery links Jeff! one of them seemed a little steep in price, but the 2nd one I will have to check out some more- i think it was only $20 or so. That's not too bad. One slight bright side is that since 99.9% of this stuff was never paid for, at least it's not like watching $2000+ go down the tubes. Now i'm just paranoid that the feds are gonna come beating down my door! The thing that aggravates me to no end....I could understand how this would have happened, if it had been a case of not actually having the files on the ipod...if i'd deleted everything before uploading to "blackie", that would totally make sense as to why it's all gone. But i made sure, before hitting Delete, and again before recycling the trash can, that all the songs were on the ipod. So if it was there, why would the ipod suddenly become empty during my "cleaning jag"? grr. some folks just aren't cut out for technology.

I'd still recommend getting an external hard drive if you're that cramped for space. Money spent on backup storage is money well spent.

Yeah, plus they are dirt cheap nowadays!