Rest in Peace, My Love!

My 500 gig external hard disk died on me a few days back, just as I was about to load a movie I had backed up on it. I spent a little over 2 hours trying to figure out if I could revive it somehow, even if briefly to transfer all my saved files, or just the important ones. Along with my movie collection, I lost all my music and all my saved files from when I had formatted my laptop last.

Now, I’m usually quite unorganized, so I have no clue about what files I had on them. I felt a little saddened at this loss, because I had spent a lot of time tagging my music collection. I’d spend an hour or two every week as and when I could spare it to tag my collection, rate them and make play lists. Not to mention the more important files.

But what I didn’t expect was the reaction of people. The first people that found out about this “sudden loss” were my roommates and a few friends. Their tones were grave and almost condolent, with one sounding like I had lost a family member or close friend. I joked about the reaction wondering why it had evoked such a reaction.

However, a few minutes ago, another friend, responded in the same manner, in a chat conversation when I broke the news.

TDD: oh... my external hdd conked out
lost all my data
and the hdd
Anon1: yikes
TDD: yeah
Anon1: how many movies was it?
TDD: I think that’s why I didn’t reply the last time
over 350
Anon1: uh-oh
am sorry

Now this seemed far from a coincidence. Too many people had reacted that way. Sure I was sad that it had conked out. Sure I would have to re-sort and re-tag all my audio files. Sure I will have to rebuild my collection without a clue as to what it included. But, people, let’s be realistic, it is only a bit of electronic equipment. All the files that I lost, I can re-acquire! We are truly in an age where malfunction of electronic equipment is a heartfelt loss. The expression of sorrow was probably more genuine than if it were the actual loss of life. We are truly desensitized, truly fucked.