The Day Today

The night before I left for Australia I took some photos for a local band and then downloaded them to my parents computer (I was staying there because I was getting a lift to the airport) in order to maximise space on my memory cards for the trip. When I got back I intended to grab these photos before returning to my flat in London, however I returned to find the folder I had downloaded them to was empty.

It’s not clear what happened, but somehow (I think an over-zealous parent with a delete key) these files had vanished. Now I wasn’t being paid to take these photos but I was asked to take them based on some I’d taken of the band at a different gig, and I hardly wanted to say to the guys that I couldn’t show them the photos because my mum had deleted them!

After an initial panic and checking of the external backup drive (a backup had been done since the files were deleted but not whilst they were on the machine) I thought about attempting to recover them from the hard drive. It was at this point that I remembered the Recycle Bin, and that not everyone shift-deletes (as I tend to) or empties the bin frequently (also something I do)… Voila! The photos were there and I was able to restore them and prove the date/time they were deleted. I now have them on my USB key waiting to be put onto my machine at home. Sometimes we overlook the simple solutions.

All these photos are rapidly filling up my hard drive, so today I ordered a 500GB drive to replace my two 160GB drives currently in a mirrored array. Once I get the new drive working I’ll order another one and restore the mirror. The extra 340GB should keep my going for a while!