The external hard drive

Our ancient PC has been getting slower recently. I gave it some extra RAM a few years ago, which helped. Then a couple of years ago I had another look inside to see if I could add some more, broke it, and had to get help from a repairer.  He got it back on its feet but said the prognosis was poor - that the best thing was not to waste any more money on it - to put the poor old thing down and buy a new one.

But it still works for emails, letters, modest photo editing - which is about all we need it for.

So I decided I needed to get some stuff off the nearly full C drive to see if this helped. C has been uploading her pictures to this ever since she had a digital SLR for Christmas in 2010 and it was nearly full.

I told her my plan to put them + my videos and recent pictures onto an external hard drive. "That's fine as long as I don't lose any" was her response. Well an external hard drive is just as safe as an internal one, surely?

I duly bought a WD "My Passport" drive from PC World and copied the pictures and videos, as planned. Confirmed that everything was good by doing some photo uploading and editing on my laptop and then deleted the redundant files off the PC.

A week later I decided to back-up some software I'd installed on my laptop to the My Passport when disaster struck! Suddenly I could not access the new hard drive at all! And the wretched thing had not been knocked, dropped, stamped on, cooked in a microwave, left out in the rain, MRI scanned or subjected to any other life-changing trauma.

I plugged it into the PC, which suggested I 'format the new hard drive' or words to that effect!!!

It was like a hole had opened up in the ground. I didn't care too much about my videos ...but ALL C's photos! Gone! The twins! Costa Rica! Iceland! Kenya and Tanzania!

The fact that I was a dead man was nothing in comparison to the enormity of letting her down.

Trying to act normal I didn't say anything but took the offending drive to PC World the next day. It seems I had 2 options:

1. ask for a refund or replacement ...and surrender the hard drive plus any data that might or might not be left on it
2. pay for a rescue ("they'll get at least some of it back ...but will break the drive open in the process") plus a new hard drive for any recovered data to be transferred to

It was no contest, obviously. But it was a tense few weeks - over Christmas - waiting to hear the outcome.

Eventually the call came from the third-party rescue company, wanting the password. And the next day the news I wanted to hear: the files were all there!

It seems the offending hard drive thought it was meant to be an Apple device. (Don't ask. Maybe it's like those people who have a head injury and wake up speaking perfect French. Except without the head injury.)

So I am now some £140 poorer, but wiser, and have the files on 2 external hard drives, kept in different rooms. I'm tempted to send one to the salt mines or a bank vault for safe storage but this may be a little over the top.

The irony is ...I don't think C has looked at these photos since she uploaded them.

Postscript, 8 Jan 2015. The 'My Passport' hard drive has failed again and is unreadable. I conclude that it is a pile of shit. DO NOT BUY THIS ITEM