Corrupted . . . Restored

After a full day of running various magical retrieval-of-lost-computer-files programs on Wednesday in an attempt to retrieve all of my data files that had been accidentally deleted by his colleague, the Ugandan court IT wizard informed me that he had some good news and some bad news.  Some sayings are apparently universal.

The good news was that he had been able to get back all of the files.  Excellent.  I would have hugged him then and there had the “bad news” not been lurking in the background.  What could the bad news possibly be?

“Almost all of the files are corrupted.”

“Almost?  Which files are not corrupted?”

“The pictures.”

“While a picture is worth a thousand words, I need a different thousand words – the ones I typed into my data files.”  Blank stare.  Apparently not all sayings are universal.

He then asked me if Pepperdine’s IT guys had any software that could uncorrupt data files.  Beats me.  I didn’t even know data files could be “corrupted.”  So I called the Pepperdine IT guy.  He told me that he had a high degree of confidence that if my hard drive could be sent to a specialist in the United States, the files could be uncorrupted.  Hmm, good to know, but not exactly practical.  We then decided that it was time for Plan B.

Plan B was to endeavor to remotely retrieve the files through the outside-vendor-online-backup-system Pepperdine utilizes to see what could be extracted and how quickly.  With the Ugandan IT guy at my elbow on Thursday morning, we connected with this backup system and started fiddling with it.  And yes, the notion of the blind leading the visually impaired does come to mind.

Turns out that this should have been Plan A.  Even I was able to navigate it, and the Ugandan IT guy thought it was sliced bread.

Within a couple hours, I was able to retrieve the relatively small number of files that I needed immediately and was able to gain a high degree of confidence that the vast majority of the others were accessible.  Since the backup system backs up files periodically, I think I may have lost a few days’ worth of work, at most.  And since I was traveling during most of that time, I lost nothing that couldn’t be quickly replicated.

I am a happy dude.

So, why didn’t I retrieve all of my files from the backup system on Thursday?  Because I am a cheapskate and an idiot, which is what got me into this trouble in the first place.  A little background about the Ugandan internet.

The internet in Uganda is both difficult to come by and slow.  Unlike in the United States, most Ugandans don’t have computers.  This is true for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that most Ugandans don’t have electricity.  Consequently, wired networks are in short supply, and wireless networks are in shorter supply.  But everyone has cell phones (often two or three of them on different networks because calls within networks are cheaper), so the cell phone networks are broad-based, pretty reliable, and relatively fast.  As a result, internet sticks (USB devices that connect to the internet through the phone networks) are rapidly growing in popularity (with those who have computers) and are much faster than any other internet connection available.  This brings me to my cheapskatism and idiocy.

Since we have both wired and wireless internet access at the apartment, and since the court has a wired connection at the office, I was seriously considering not getting an internet stick in order to save some money.  If I just would have sucked it up and got “on the stick” right when I got here, then I never would have asked to connect to the court’s tortoise-speed wired system in the first place, and, thus, never would have handed my laptop off to the grim reaper of data files.  The monthly plans for the sticks come in various increments, with the all-you-can eat variety costing about $120 per month.  When all of this nonsense started, I broke down and got a stick, but again revealed my utter lack of intelligence by balking at the $120 price, opting instead for a $65 per month plan for 10GB of data per month.  I am such an idiot.

Today, when I finally got the ability to download my files, I discovered that I had 25GB of files.  So, in order to download them, it would cost me 2 ½ months’ worth of internet data and prevent me from using the stick for accessing the internet for other things.  Oh, and also, downloading 25GB of data files would likely take about a week of constant downloading.  So that is why I only downloaded the files I needed immediately.

All in all, I am quite relieved even though I learned a valuable lesson in being penny wise and shilling foolish.  Thanks for the many prayers and e-mails I have received wishing me luck with this.  Tomorrow I am finally getting to meet with several very important people relating to my work this next six months.