So it's official, my external hard drive is officially fried, and the contents have been completely corrupted according to the folks at Waterloo Networks.

I bought an external hard drive in January, and while I was attempting to backup my files this week, I accidentially tripped the A/C power cable, which caused the enclosure to fall to the ground. To make matters worse, the hard drive fell as it was spinning away.

Anyway, I was pretty positive that the hard drive was a goner, but I still had hope that at least some of the data could be recovered, especially as there was no horrible screeching sound when I re-ran the drive. While most of the work had been backed up, I did lose the work I did last term, and a couple dozen gigs of multimedia files. The bright side of it is that I still have hard copies of last term's files, so I'll take a day to just run it though a document scanner.

Of course, my multimedia files are gone for good. Luckily, no precious pictures were on there.

So a few words of advice:

• Do not drop hard drives


• Do not drop hard drives when it's still running


• Establish a routine to backup your files

By the way, I like the Waterloo Networks' philosophy, and I recommend giving them a shot if you have any computer technical issues. They charge a flat fee of $55, so the price is small and predictible. Plus, there is no bitchy impatient tech people, only the best and positive people who are really willing to help. They said that if they aren't able to recover any data, I won't be charged. So what do I have to lose? Awesome.

Now that my hard drive is deemed useless, I think I might put it in the freezer.

My hot face is on the UW library homepage! Look how slitty my eyes are! Anyway, I think this is my 30 seconds of fame, which I guess is pretty pathetic. I volunteered again to be a face of UW, so hopefully you will see more of me soon. Haha.

There is also a Youtube video, where you can view me and Lindsay, another fellow ES-er, being corny. It's near the end of the clip.

Anyway, "Why do you love the library?" is the UW Library's latest consultation initiative, conveniently in light of the Valentines Day festivities. This intiative arose due to the vast changes in recent years, especially the wide presence of digital resources, to the role of library organizations. It hopes to strengthen the relationship between students and library facilities and resources.

Details of the contest can be found here.