TallCool69 Posted June 12, 2008 Share Posted June 12, 2008 I got a new laptop about three weeks ago. I bought it because it came with Vista and XP, and I'm so used to XP that my plan was to use that. However, it came with Vista pre-installed, and I just had to much going on to "downgrade" (yeah, right!). I started using it anyway, emptied some camera-cards to it, installed Photoshop CS2 and finished two LO's for the May Swap on it. Prepared it for our week at the Sweden Rock Festival and all things looked good. Worked all last week at the Sweden Rock Festival. Almost no sleep, lack of food, dehydration, sun-stroke, sun-burn etc. etc. But that's another story... Came home late Monday night. Went in to the office Tuesday morning to begin sending out statements and wire money to all the bands we sold t-shirts for. Took out my new laptop to start it up and to transfer all the necessary files to my work PC. White letters on a black screen told me to press F11 to reformat the harddrive!!! So, I might be blond, but even I know that an action like that would cause me to loose ALL info on that drive... 48 hours later, I've cried buckets, I've yelled at HP support, I managed to find a tech that (for a considerable amount of money) said he would do his best to salvage any info from my harddrive and almost killed my husband when he said something along the way of "What have you done?"... All the computer-"nerds" I talked to about this said "Why did you use Vista?" I'm extremely good at backing up files, but COME ON!!! This laptop wasn't even 4 weeks old! Now I've gotten all my necessary files for Sweden Rock back. So at least the managements of bands like Judas Priest, Whitesnake and Def Leppard won't come after me with a blowtorch... But I've managed to loose some of my own, my sister's and my mother's photos... Not to mention my two LO's for Karen in the May Swap, that I was horribly late posting due to work... Well, not lost exactly - but they're only between 4 and 35 kB "big"... Fortunately, I have the almost finished versions of Karen's LO's on my PC at home - I just have to add some titlework and journaling. And I didn't erase all the memory cards after tranferring them to the laptop. And I do have one of those Image Rescue-programs that has saved me once before... So, I'm not entirely fried... But right now I'm installing XP on my laptop!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CRS Posted June 12, 2008 Share Posted June 12, 2008 Oh, Thess, how horrible! Yikes, I can't imagine. I have Vista and never had anything like this happen, but I've heard people say how much they dislike Vista. I'm so glad you didn't delete the memory cards and those bands won't come after you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PBarnes Posted June 12, 2008 Share Posted June 12, 2008 Thess, I'm so sorry to hear what a horrible time you've had. It sounds like maybe you got a bad hard drive rather than it being Vista's fault. But then, I'm no computer tech. I've used Vista for a year and a half and like Carla, I really haven't had any problems. It's terrible to have lost those photos but I'm glad the business stuff was saved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SodScrap Posted June 12, 2008 Share Posted June 12, 2008 HOW miserable!! I hope get it all straight before the SG convention!! I have vista on 3 computers...no issues whatsoever-go figure (2 dells and a gateway) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
April Showers Posted June 12, 2008 Share Posted June 12, 2008 Oh yikes Thess! It didn't take a catastrophe to get me to put XP on my laptop. I'm married to one of those "computer nerds" You'll love how much faster your machine runs with Vista. You may need different drivers for XP, dh did all the work on ours, but there was even a certain order to do it all. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichaelsMomJo Posted June 12, 2008 Share Posted June 12, 2008 Oh, Thess, I'm so sorry that happened! I'm glad you were able to get at least some of your files back. I hope that the problem was truly within Vista and NOT your hard drive. I hope all is OK after your XP installation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shelbi Posted June 12, 2008 Share Posted June 12, 2008 Yuck.... Sorry to hear you have had go through all this. Michelle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HisThao Posted June 12, 2008 Share Posted June 12, 2008 I'm so sorry for the computer problems, Thess. They never come at a convenient time. I hope you're able to find some kind of solution to repair or retrieve some of the lost files. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justpattyanne Posted June 12, 2008 Share Posted June 12, 2008 I want a new laptop SO BAD ... however Vista scares me to death. I've heard TOO MANY of these terrible stories! Perhaps April can sub-let her DH's massive computer skills out to us! tee hee! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shelbi Posted June 12, 2008 Share Posted June 12, 2008 Perhaps April can sub-let her DH's massive computer skills out to us! tee hee! Maybe she could bring him to utah and he could work on all our laptops. LOL. I am just alittle jealous. My husband doesn't know alot about computers but he can install brakes in my car. Michelle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
debilou Posted June 12, 2008 Share Posted June 12, 2008 I got a laptop with vista installed, and I listened to some very BAD neighbor advise on how to transfer all my files over... Hey my fault. I should have know better. I am in the process of starting from scratch and having to reload every darn thing again - and yes, lost some files. Not too many, but some. Thanks to Angie and SG (she's so special!!) I got some of those files back, and I still had a bunch left on my camera, and on my old xp desktop. But, I am sticking with Vista, because the problem was not VISTA - it was the way I transferred my files. Nothing to do with vista. And, actually I learned a lot about vista during this process Vista is just the operating system. PSE and CS work basically the same. The learning curve is not that hard. My mistake was two fold, I listened to bad advice. And, ... I forgot to look for those pretty dots that carbonite puts on your files when it backs them up or flags for back up - and your folders change - learned that the hard way. But, they are being backed up now. So, made some mistakes - let's call that Vista learning experience one How not to start using a brand new Vista laptop - and hey everyone who uses carbonite - change you file folders designations when you move to Vista. Ok, this is the second try, and hey, my machine is running much better, I understand it much better. And, won't make those mistakes ever again. And, hey at some point, every one is going to have to learn vista, so why delay it!!! Just do it! I think I heard that some place... That's my motto... And, now, yes, lost some files, can recover some more, will have to rebuild some, some are lost... oh well, learned a ton... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaryJo Posted June 12, 2008 Share Posted June 12, 2008 I am so sorry to hear what you've gone through ! I hope you are able to get everything back but it does sound like you got the important stuff right now ! Whew... I just got a new laptop with Vista installed and so far its been great. I did have to learn how to use it, but it really wasn't too bad. I heard the horror stories too and prayed like crazy it wouldn't affect me ! Hopefully you will be able to got those precious photos back too !! I'm cheering for you, Thess ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveUK Posted June 12, 2008 Share Posted June 12, 2008 Wow Thess! What a ride! All my years in the IT industry prior to becoming a photogrpaher taught me to back backup backup - but even that drill has failed me from time to time! I'm glad you were able to recover most of the work/files. I have toyed with Vista but cut my teeth on 98, 2000, ME and Xp. Vista is very much an unknown for me - so if it ain't broke! I wonder, you said it was quite hot at the festival, you don't think that could have fried the hard drive? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TallCool69 Posted June 17, 2008 Author Share Posted June 17, 2008 I wonder, you said it was quite hot at the festival, you don't think that could have fried the hard drive? Firts of all - Thank You everybody who took the time to let me vent, read this, and write replies! Well, it was hot at the festival, but not that hot! I'm in Sweden! LOL! Just kidding! There was a constant breeze that week, and it was only when you were standing in actual sunlight that it became really hot. My laptop was inside a tent, in the shade, with a constant breeze running through and an extra fan blowing towards it constantly - just in case. The harddrive is not damaged at all!!! The techs that recovered my files said the HD is 100% OK and I do not need a new one. When I started my laptop that morning, it wanted to auto-install some updates to Vista. I figured - Why Not? - since I was going to my hair stylist anyway... When I got back, my laptop was totally frozen! Whatever I tried to press - nothing helped. So I let it sit. After a couple of hours, the screen changed to black with white text that said I needed to reformat... Never, ever happened to me with XP! The company I took my harddrive to, said that they've had several cases like mine, and all of them with Vista... So, now I'm almost done re-installing all my necessary programs and applications - And I've "downgraded" to XP!!! Microsoft needs to come up with something extremely reliable for me to switch from XP again... Oh, and that software I have at home to recover erased photos off memory cards - It worked!!! I got all my photos back!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kazbar73 Posted June 17, 2008 Share Posted June 17, 2008 Im so happy for you Thess that you were able to get all your photos back. If you don't mind me asking what was the program that you used to do this as I accidently erase some photos the other day that I thought I had downloaded but had not. Again glad you have your photos back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tina M Posted June 17, 2008 Share Posted June 17, 2008 Thess, I'm so glad to hear that you've been able to get all your things recovered. I have xp and we got a free upgrade to vista, which is sitting in my cedar chest! DH said too many people have so many issues with it and there are far too many programs that just won't work at all with it. I'm an XP for a longggggg time to come Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TallCool69 Posted June 17, 2008 Author Share Posted June 17, 2008 Im so happy for you Thess that you were able to get all your photos back. If you don't mind me asking what was the program that you used to do this as I accidently erase some photos the other day that I thought I had downloaded but had not. Again glad you have your photos back. Hi Karen! I actually have two different softwares for this. One is an "Image Rescue Program" from Lexar, that I bought years ago in a photo store. It has saved me a couple of times in the past! I guess it will still be available, just in a newer version! The other one is from Sandisk, the company that makes all kinds of memory cards. I got this disc when I bought a Sandisk SDHD card a couple of weeks ago. It came with a reader and this software. I installed it and tried it - and it worked like a charm! I think I've read somewhere about free software for this. Do a google-search on "Image Rescue Software" or Programme! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhotoshopScrapper Posted June 25, 2008 Share Posted June 25, 2008 Wow what a story! Thess I'm sooo glad you were able to recover everything. I bought a laptop about a year ago. The reason I jumped on it? Because I had been watching and most of the companies were starting to sell ONLY with Vista. Like others, I had heard way too many horror stories about Vista. Enough that I was reminded about the entire ME fiasco (a few may remember that awful operating system that Microsoft put out for a very short time). My take on it was "I want XP". Didn't want to deal with the Vista horror stories and didn't want to replace a bunch of software that would be considered Vista incompatible. I figure, if MS can't 'fix' all these 'features', they'll probably can Vista and come out with the next installment of XP .... most likely BEFORE they stop supporting XP. I'm sooo glad you were able to recover everything and not have those Metal bands chasing you . Denise Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goofyemt96 Posted June 25, 2008 Share Posted June 25, 2008 So glad you were able to get yoru stuff off the computer Thess...You need a break but i see its never ending...Hopefully you get a much needed break soon enough!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tnd622 Posted June 26, 2008 Share Posted June 26, 2008 Yikes!! that's not good. It makes me very uncomfortable with vista on my new laptop now!! LOL glad to hear that you were able to get everything back that you needed!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MelJohnson Posted June 26, 2008 Share Posted June 26, 2008 I'm glad you were able to get back all of your photos, Thess. Vista sure does seem to be a nightmare for a lot of people. I'm a former Microsoft employee but I still haven't upgraded to it myself. I'm with Dave: "if it (XP) ain't broke..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
April Showers Posted June 26, 2008 Share Posted June 26, 2008 So happy to hear you recovered all your photos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(lynn) Posted July 1, 2008 Share Posted July 1, 2008 Oh my gosh, I know how you feel. I recently had my first crash, and recovered most of my things with Carbonite and Angie. So I kept XP, updated to Internet Explorer 7, and Office 2007. Now I'm having trouble opening zipped files with either WinZip or Extract Now. They both worked for one day, now can't find my unzipped files. I try one at a time and can't find it anywhere. I think I should give this up for a while and clear my mind. Two of my kids want me to switch to Mac and I don't even know if SG is compatible. Lynn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canyon Momma Posted July 2, 2008 Share Posted July 2, 2008 All I can say is Vista, Booo Hissss! You have my sympathy. I think the stress aged me by years! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaine Posted July 2, 2008 Share Posted July 2, 2008 I've been listening to years of folks having issues with Vista. I kept waiting for the issues to calm down and they haven't. My DH and I have each gotten a laptop this year and both of them have XP. I don't know what I'm going to do when we need to replace them. I'm the computer whiz in the family and it will be my decision and headache. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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