What Was Lost Is Now Found

For those of you who have been following Petals for a while, you know in October, I accidentally dropped my “WD My Passport Ultra External Hard Drive”, and broke it. That hard drive represented all of my work from this past year. To say I was devastated, is putting it mildly. I had an estimated 14,000 photographs on that hard drive.

Two local computer experts looked at my hard drive and neither one could open it to retrieve my photographs. I called companies who retrieve material on hard drives and I was quoted prices ranging from $900.00 to $3,000.000. And that was without any guarantees either. One shock after another shock as I finally realized my precious photographs were gone. It took about two days for me to come out of this shock and to fly into action. I grabbed my camera (now this is in October mind you when most of our flowers have already died back) and I drove to a local nursery to ask if I could photograph the remaining flowers they had. Bless them, for they said yes. Hours and hours I spent shooting everything I could.

Then I turned to my gardens and my neighbor’s gardens, the park behind us, anything, everything, I could possibly think of, to regain some stock for this coming Winter. I found Treasure after Treasure and slowly my shelves were once again becoming full. No, I have no where near the number of photographs now that were on my hard drive, but this experience made me find Treasure where if I had had my pantry full, I would not have gone out to search for more images. Believe me what I found, is amazing. And so I am Blessed.

As everyone was focusing on this hard drive in attempting to open it (it would not even show on E drive), I thought of a solution and that was, why not try to retrieve my photographs right from the camera disks? I told my husband my idea, and even went so far that I remember a software program he had used in the past to retrieve photos that I accidentally erased. And yes, we did have that program, what do you know? That program is called Recuva.

Two days ago, we used Recuva to retrieve my photographs. I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is, Recuva did retrieve photographs that had been deleted on my disks, giving me back what I thought was lost. The bad news is, Recuva seemed to select only certain photographs, unable to attain most of those images that were on my hard drive from my camera disks. All my early Spring photographs are gone. All of my dozens of photo shoots I went on over the Spring and Summer, gone. Only because I was working on them, I had the folder of Glen Falls Trip Two on my computer hard drive, and those are the only photographs of water falls I have today. All others are gone.

Now that the consensus is in, I as usual have a choice. Do I bemoan the fact that most of my photographs are gone or do I rejoice that those that have been retrieved I now have? I choose number two! I rejoice that some of my flowers I have again, and I rejoice that instead of sinking into despair I flew into action to get as many flower pictures as I possibly could. The photograph with this post is one of the ones that was lost but now is found. Yes, I am Blessed!

With all this in mind, when you view photographs of water falls for example, know that those are the only ones that exist. Much of my early work of Spring here on Petals, those are the only photographs available. Please cherish these images as much as I do, and keep in Mind, that nothing is fail proof. I now am using flash drives for back up, and also, I am in the process of researching a more reliable hard drive external source as another means of backing up my work. I work hard with my camera to bring to you quality Beauty. Rejoice with me this day, and let us be Grateful together that some of my work that I truly considered lost, has been regained! OH for the JOY!

Photography/ “What Was Lost Is Now Found” 2014©AmyRose