Lost and found

February has been a really good month for me, and I thought today might be the day to try to recover some lost data. See, my laptop was stolen last month, which wouldn't have been so bad if I had been better about backing up my data-- but I haven't been.

I have an external hard drive, and I used to use it to back up my stuff. But last summer, I transferred all the backups back to my laptop so my brothers could use it to transfer files. I always meant to do another backup, but I didn't. And although I started moving my old backups back to the external hard drive, I never finished. Long story short, I lost a lot: all my dissertation work, all my BYU teaching stuff, years of photos, letters, journals, personal records, fiction writing, etc.

It's sucky, but I'm dealing. I mean, I wish I hadn't lost it, and I pray every day that a miracle would happen and I would get my laptop back. Actually, I pray that I will get my bag back, because it also had my scriptures in it, which I have had since my mission. Also a scarf and hat that my mom knitted for me for Christmas. January was a real loser month for me. But it's okay. I've rebooted my dissertation with a new topic, and it's rising like a phoenix from the ashes. Awesome!

So anyway, today I downloaded four or five free data recovery programs and went through the external hard drive with a fine-toothed comb. It was a lot of work, and it didn't go quickly, but I got some of my stuff back and that felt great. Mostly it was old pictures, but but I also got some dissertation notes and some records. So it's not like the stuff itself was super-awesome, but it just felt so sweet to get something back after all that loss.

--S.P. DAVIDSON