So a few weeks ago a few friends of mine (who i USUALLY only hear from when they have PC problems anymore... :x ) kept calling me up bugging me to fix thier PC. They even offered me $ to fix it. These guys are all into making music on their computer, etc, and they do it on the side for a few extra bucks, with aspirations of world domination.
So anyway, after calling me for like 3 weeks, I finally broke down and told them I could try to fix their PC, putting thier PC problems in front of MY PC projects. And I told them not to worry about paying me anything.
So The computer belongs to this kid...let's call him "Bob". Bob wasn't home when I called, but his roomate "Tim" was. I asked Tim what was wrong w/ the PC and he told me that it wouldn't boot Windows. So I asked...
"Ok, so what am I doing here...trying to fix the install? Or can I just format the drive and reinstall Windows clean?".
Tim: "Yeah, whatever you gotta do."
Me: "Ok, well if I'm gonna reinstall and everything, then bring your PC over here since i have all my stuff here, etc".
He told me that he'd be over shortly. In the meantime, I visited a neighbor for a few minutes. He (Tim) was leaving in his car when I was walking back from my neighbors, and when I got home, the PC was in my bedroom.
So I wiped it and reinstalled WinXP for him.
I saw Bob that day at the mall, and I told him that it was running fine, that I just formatted and reinstalled Windows with no problems. He freaked when he found out I formatted it. He told me that ALL of his music work for the past 2+ years was on that PC...
Me: Well, burned yourself some backups along the way, right?
Him: No.
Me: You mean to tell me that you worked on these songs constantly for over TWO years and you don't have a SINGLE backup of ANY of it?
Him: No.
I proceeded to tell him that his boy Tim was ok with me formatting the PC, so I was just doing as requested. It was never once mentioned to me that I could not format the drive, and JUST as a precaution, i DID ask Tim if it was OK to format it. He called Tim to confirm that, but he was still pissed as hell (understandably so).
So later that night, Tim came bye to pick up Bob's PC. He said that he was gonna take it to a data recovery place and see if they could recover any of it. He also brought over thier other roomate's PC, who had copies of maybe 1/3rd of their work on it (yay!), but that PC didn't have a video card. So I GAVE them one of my old video cards, got it all running, and burned all the data that HE had on CD (just in case anything happened to his PC).
I told Tim to keep me posted on what happened with the data recovery, and wished him luck. I called them once or twice after that to see what happened, but never heard back from any of them.
Fast forward to today. I went to lunch with a friend. She told me that she heard that I "messed up Bob's PC", etc etc. So of course, I told her the story. Then she told me that they were all pissed about ME "messing up" Bob's PC, and that they were saying stuff like "Man, I want to go punch him in the face, etc". Empty threats, because she asked if they were serious (not like I'm threatened by these guys anyway), and they told her "no", but they felt like doing it, etc. The worst part is that, I'm not supposed to know that they said all this crap, so I can't bring it up. But I just want to break everything down here and see what you guys honestly think....
1-Yeah, that sucks that they lost all of their work (except the 1/3rd of the stuff recovered on the roomate's PC), and I feel for them. BUT, really, it's their own dumb fault. Who the HELL works on things for over TWO YEARS, and doesn't take FIVE MINUTES to back it up on a CD sometime? Between the THREE Of them, no one did it. Not once, EVER. I know backing up can be a pain sometimes, but really...they had about 2GB worth of data TOPS, and if they burned THREE CD's in over 2 years, they wouldn't have had this problem. Don't worry about backing up windows, or your programs, or whatever...but anything that you actually WORKED ON, especially for OVER 2 years, should be backed up CONSTANTLY.
2-I understand that they might be sore about it all, but don't blame ME for YOUR screw ups. I was told that I can format it, I did as I was told. If they need to point fingers, they should be at Tim or Bob.
3-If Bob was THAT stressed about his drive not getting formatted, Tim should have known about it, and I should have known about it. It's Bob's own dumb mistake that we didn't know.
4-After all the time I spent on Bob's machine, and his roomate's machine, and the fact that I did it all for free and GAVE THEM a video card, I didn't even get a "thank you". I realize I formatted thier drive and caused them greif, but that's only because they told me I could. Thier fault, not mine.
5-Bob shouldn't have sent Tim over to do his "dirty work" and drop off his PC. If Bob wanted it done a certain way (ie, not formatted, and data backed up first, etc), he should have brought it to me HIMSELF...or at least talked to me HIMSELF. But obviously it wasn't that important to him.
So boys and Sally, the morale of the story is: Backup your important data. If you don't have a backup and it actually survives on your HD for more than 2 years, consider yourself lucky...and backup ASAP. Don't worry about your programs, just worry about the files that you've spent countless hours on.
Also, don't blame people for things when they're your own fault. In my story, I see this as mostly Bob's fault, he should just be a man and accept it.
So anyway, after calling me for like 3 weeks, I finally broke down and told them I could try to fix their PC, putting thier PC problems in front of MY PC projects. And I told them not to worry about paying me anything.
So The computer belongs to this kid...let's call him "Bob". Bob wasn't home when I called, but his roomate "Tim" was. I asked Tim what was wrong w/ the PC and he told me that it wouldn't boot Windows. So I asked...
"Ok, so what am I doing here...trying to fix the install? Or can I just format the drive and reinstall Windows clean?".
Tim: "Yeah, whatever you gotta do."
Me: "Ok, well if I'm gonna reinstall and everything, then bring your PC over here since i have all my stuff here, etc".
He told me that he'd be over shortly. In the meantime, I visited a neighbor for a few minutes. He (Tim) was leaving in his car when I was walking back from my neighbors, and when I got home, the PC was in my bedroom.
So I wiped it and reinstalled WinXP for him.
I saw Bob that day at the mall, and I told him that it was running fine, that I just formatted and reinstalled Windows with no problems. He freaked when he found out I formatted it. He told me that ALL of his music work for the past 2+ years was on that PC...
Me: Well, burned yourself some backups along the way, right?
Him: No.
Me: You mean to tell me that you worked on these songs constantly for over TWO years and you don't have a SINGLE backup of ANY of it?
Him: No.
I proceeded to tell him that his boy Tim was ok with me formatting the PC, so I was just doing as requested. It was never once mentioned to me that I could not format the drive, and JUST as a precaution, i DID ask Tim if it was OK to format it. He called Tim to confirm that, but he was still pissed as hell (understandably so).
So later that night, Tim came bye to pick up Bob's PC. He said that he was gonna take it to a data recovery place and see if they could recover any of it. He also brought over thier other roomate's PC, who had copies of maybe 1/3rd of their work on it (yay!), but that PC didn't have a video card. So I GAVE them one of my old video cards, got it all running, and burned all the data that HE had on CD (just in case anything happened to his PC).
I told Tim to keep me posted on what happened with the data recovery, and wished him luck. I called them once or twice after that to see what happened, but never heard back from any of them.
Fast forward to today. I went to lunch with a friend. She told me that she heard that I "messed up Bob's PC", etc etc. So of course, I told her the story. Then she told me that they were all pissed about ME "messing up" Bob's PC, and that they were saying stuff like "Man, I want to go punch him in the face, etc". Empty threats, because she asked if they were serious (not like I'm threatened by these guys anyway), and they told her "no", but they felt like doing it, etc. The worst part is that, I'm not supposed to know that they said all this crap, so I can't bring it up. But I just want to break everything down here and see what you guys honestly think....
1-Yeah, that sucks that they lost all of their work (except the 1/3rd of the stuff recovered on the roomate's PC), and I feel for them. BUT, really, it's their own dumb fault. Who the HELL works on things for over TWO YEARS, and doesn't take FIVE MINUTES to back it up on a CD sometime? Between the THREE Of them, no one did it. Not once, EVER. I know backing up can be a pain sometimes, but really...they had about 2GB worth of data TOPS, and if they burned THREE CD's in over 2 years, they wouldn't have had this problem. Don't worry about backing up windows, or your programs, or whatever...but anything that you actually WORKED ON, especially for OVER 2 years, should be backed up CONSTANTLY.
2-I understand that they might be sore about it all, but don't blame ME for YOUR screw ups. I was told that I can format it, I did as I was told. If they need to point fingers, they should be at Tim or Bob.
3-If Bob was THAT stressed about his drive not getting formatted, Tim should have known about it, and I should have known about it. It's Bob's own dumb mistake that we didn't know.
4-After all the time I spent on Bob's machine, and his roomate's machine, and the fact that I did it all for free and GAVE THEM a video card, I didn't even get a "thank you". I realize I formatted thier drive and caused them greif, but that's only because they told me I could. Thier fault, not mine.
5-Bob shouldn't have sent Tim over to do his "dirty work" and drop off his PC. If Bob wanted it done a certain way (ie, not formatted, and data backed up first, etc), he should have brought it to me HIMSELF...or at least talked to me HIMSELF. But obviously it wasn't that important to him.
So boys and Sally, the morale of the story is: Backup your important data. If you don't have a backup and it actually survives on your HD for more than 2 years, consider yourself lucky...and backup ASAP. Don't worry about your programs, just worry about the files that you've spent countless hours on.
Also, don't blame people for things when they're your own fault. In my story, I see this as mostly Bob's fault, he should just be a man and accept it.
.
