what's goin' on, Ruuuudy

I was in the process of backing up my laptop's audio files to my PC when the hard drive started clanging. I recognized this sound because a similar thing happened to my iMac four years ago. Only this time, I didn't have the benefit of it being intermittent and allowing me to pull off some data before it completely died; instead, it clanged constantly and I had to just shut off the laptop. I let it sit for a while and turned it back on, and it was still clanging, so I shut it off immediately. It was dead.

Was there anything important on that hard drive? Well of course there was. Is it a matter of life and death? Meh, let's cross our fingers that the answer is no. It's hard to recall what all I had on there, and I may not know until a year from now, when I need to make the 2008 version of projects X, Y, and Z. I know there were some iTunes tracks I had downloaded recently, plus some piano stuff I'd recorded, Pump Boys pictures, not to mention my super-secret-encrypted journal.

I've sent the disk to DriveSavers to see if anything can be recovered and how much it will cost, at which point I can weigh my options. I'm guessing it won't be worth it though. In the meantime, I bought a larger, faster hard drive, which is slated to arrive tomorrow. This will be my first fresh install since 2004. It's kinda weird that, from September '03 when I bought the laptop to December '04, I probably reformatted and started fresh at least 3 times for various reasons, yet haven't had to for 3 years since then. I guess I was due.

Once I get the new drive in and set up, I'm doing nightly backups to my external hard drive from now on. Unfortunately, such things often aren't that simple, and it will probably mean a half hour less sleep each night as I'm screwing around with the backup software, but considering the number and variety of projects I do (graphic design, web design, audio, super-secret-encrypted journal), it'll be worth it.

In other news, I leave for Vegas in two days!