This is the story of the Great Hard Drive Crash.  The year was 2011.  

Alma, CO.  Elevation: about 11k feet.  I discover my hard drive not working. A quick Google search confirms my (somewhat far fetched) theory that sometime hard drives have a hard time working at high elevations… I was hopeful.

Glenwood, CO.  My friend’s Hubby, Josh, is an IT guy and said that there was nothing he could do.  :(  I called WD, the makers of my now non-working hard drive, and they pointed me to the Geek Squad.  I made an appointment.

Golden, CO.  Best Buy’s Geek Squad has my hard drive for 3 days.   I sit waiting for the phone to ring with good news. (Sadly those were the first 3 days with Lindsey in her home! Poor Lindsey had “suffered” with me in Vegas, and now I presented her with the mopiest version of myself ever. Good thing she is a wonderful and understanding friend!) 

Arvada, CO.  After 3 days of painful waiting I finally got the call…and the news was horrible. They were unable to do anything. I would need help on a higher level. Several calls later I chose Ximatic and gave them my hard drive. Renaldo, the man actually doing the work, asked me to let him know which folders are most important if he can only save one or 2. It was so hard for me to decide. One folder had our entire wedding footage and photos. Another had memories and pictures of times with family that I will never have again. I was on the verge of tears almost the whole time. Renaldo then explained that it would take 2-3 days to figure out the cause(s) and then some time for ordering parts, then more time to do the work. They were hopeful that they would be able to get most of my pictures back, though they wouldn’t make any promises. “Fine!” I said and requested that they not call me until they had news one way or another. “Only call when you could say ‘pictures’ or ‘no pictures'”. Obviously I was praying for the first!

Denver, CO.  About a week later I was sitting eating a really delicious breakfast with Huno and Linds (if ever in Denver go to Snooze!) when suddenly I got a call from a CO number I didn’t have stored. “It must be them!” I said as I scurried out of the loud restaurant. Dana, the gentleman whom I first spoke to from Ximatic, started to explain what happened and started to talk about the costs, then began saying that they honored my wishes not to contact me till they had news… yada yada… I couldn’t take it anymore!  “Dana! Dana! I’m sorry to interupt you, but YOU’RE KILLING ME! Do you have the pictures or not?” He chuckled and then said “YES! We have most of your pictures. “About 90 something per cent” he said. Yahoo!!! I was so happy!!! We went that day to get my hard drive and I have not been apart from it since. Life is good again.

So what happened to my hard drive?  Well, that is a good question, but the answer is pretty complicated.  I’m going to assume you know about external hard drives.  For starters, my motor stopped spinning.  When it stopped spinning the head bounced on the plate (not good!).  One of the bounces had so much friction that it stuck to the plate.  Renaldo had to remove the head, clean the plate and replace the motor.  BLAH!!

You may be asking yourself how I found myself in this situation? You are probably thinking: How?  How can a really bright, charming and obviously intelligent woman such as Bree not have her life’s pictures backed up? Well, that is an excellent question. I will further tarnish your image of me when I let you know that I have been though this before (with a business, not my personal info). Still, I know better!! The honest answer is that I just hadn’t done it yet. It was actually on my phones “to do” list for when we got to Denver. “Go to Costco, get hd and backup pics!”. I just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.  Lame, I know!  Now, I will make sure that backing up is something I do about once a week! You have my word!

Happily signing off,

The Princess of Pictures! xo

ps. If you are a wonderful family member or friend and you don’t see yourself in my collage you can call, text or email me and yell at me.  But please know that I only took pictures that were on my saved hard drive (not including Tally Ho) so from 2002-2010.