My desktop partially failed a weekend ago. The machine was configured with two hard drives, one for the OS and the other with all my files. The setup was in hopes that if the OS failed, I would still be able to recover my files.

No such luck, the OS hard drive is still working and the file hard drive is squeaking and squawking. Unfortunately, I hadn’t gotten around to backing up all my digital photos (five years worth). The bright side is that I’ve been able to recover most documents without much trouble, just have to be very patient. I just have to make the decision if I want to take the time to continue shifting through tons of photo files and moving them when possible.

Lesson Learned: back up asap, don’t wait!