I’ve recently decided that I want to undertake the monumental task of reading through the three years’ worth of chat logs I’ve acquired in roleplaying in AOL’s free-form gaming forum, trying to cull particularly funny or pithy in-character quotes for use on a webpage. I’ve happily gone through all of April 99 and half of May when I realise something… “Why don’t I have any logs from 2000?”
Frantic searching ensues. I find approximately ten logs from September 2000, and nothing else from that entire year. Frantic bawling immediately follows. Most of my best writing is done in the FFGF during RP, and I hate to lose anything, particularly since there’s some very pivotal stuff ensconced in those missing logs. I frantically called my boyfriend, who is currently in possession of my old computer, only to find that it doesn’t have the files either – the last time I reformatted and reinstalled everything, I must have somehow managed to either not back up anything from the year 2000, or the Zip disk that malfunctioned carried everything from that year (which I had figured to be impossible, as I had gotten everything I possibly could from it).
Tomorrow I’m going to go retrieve my old computer, download a hard-drive recovery/undelete program, and pray that I can get everything back. If not, I’m going to be moody and depressed for weeks. 
Comfort me! Commiserate with me! Reassure me if you’ve ever used an undelete program before! Above all, keep me from misery!!
