So last night, I went to bed very satisfied at having finished the rough drafts for several articles I was working on and having a math test all stored away on my computer for upload to school next week. I went to bed and was awakened in the middle of the night by a thundercrack that sounded like it was RIGHT outside the window. It takes something really spectacular to wake me up, as I am a dead sound sleeper. But after the initial WTF was over, I rolled over and went back to sleep.

Then I was up early this morning to go to the county convention (I'm in Texas, and I was a delegate to my local Dem convention) when my husband started saying he couldn't get an internet connection on his computer. We tried fooling with it for a little while but I had to get out of the house to do my political duty stuff. When I got back and we thoroughly investigated the situation, we discovered that the cable modem and network router were destroyed;

and the worst:

My laptop is severely scxrewed. It will turn on but it won't do anything else. The internet connection, l the USB ports are all shorted out, it even fried my wireless mouse and keyboard which now don't work at all on any computer! The good news is, with time and some dedicated hacking, I can probably manage to pull the info off the hard drive eventually, but that will take time and equipment I don't have.

And of course, the most serious problem is that I'm going to need a new computer, pretty much immediately, and a new computer isn't exactly in the budget right now. ARghghg.

I had it on a surge protector, which didn't protect it. My husband's computer was not fried and it was plugged straight into the wall. And now I'm typing on my work laptop which I'm now going to have to schlepp around and violate my company policy of not using work resources for personal means. Yes, I said that in public. :(

Thank you for listening to me whine.

That stinks that you lost your computer! Glad that you and your family were safe and it was just the computer!

I'm sorry-- that's awful.

Geez - bad situation! Really sorry about that. Retrieving data is the most important. Maybe you could consider an external backup drive?

Lightning fried my desk top a couple of years ago. I feel your pain.
This bites big.

I'm so sorry that you're having to go thru all of this. I too feel your pain.

A similar thing happened to me about five years ago. Lightning struck a huge tulip tree that's situated about 20 feet from the side of my house. The bolt traveled down to the roots which were touching my phone line. My three phone outlets were literally smoldering afterwards, stinkin' to high heaven, and everything on my computer was zapped, including 3 years of work I had put into designing crochet patterns. It was awful.

Anyway, I hope you are able to retrieve what you've lost without too much more pain and hassle. Mother Nature can really be a b*tch sometimes. :-/

Thank you all for your expressions of sympathy. I knew you guys would understand. I do have an external hard drive for backups that luckily was not fried (so I didn't lose all my music, graphic art, etc.) but since it was plugged into the same surge protector as my computer, it could just as easily have been zapped. Miraculously, it wasn't.

Now the process of salvaging begins... the real problem with using my work computer as my home computer is that there are a bunch of academic and graphics programs which I can't put on it..

Oh well, could be worse. I'm very glad that my outlets are not smoldering, amjack! What a nightmare that must have been!

Ha! Yes, it was pretty scary. :-/

I have had this same thing happen to me twice! Do you carry Homeowner's insurance? My policy bought me a new computer after mine was wiped out.

Well, that's pretty poopy. Sorry to hear of your troubles--I think every computer geek lives in fear of this sort of thing. Thank God I'm married to my tech support. ;-)

I have renter's insurance, and I never even thought about that! Wow... maybe they would pay for a new computer. That would ROCK, since this one is almost 8 years old and really was due for replacing anyway. Man, if that works out, I'm gonna KISS you Chardkay!



My husband is married to his tech support :) That's one of the minor good things about this... I'm not freaking out because I have faith I can at least get all the important stuff out of there and onto something else. If I couldn't do this myself, I'd be in bad shape right now.

I have had it happen twice and my homeowner's paid for it both times. You will probably be asked about 'depreciation' and a bill of sale or approximate cost, but what the heck, it's worth a try. The second time I had a computer co. evaluate it and state that it had been knocked out by the storm, then the insurance co. said 'go pick out a new one' and send us the bill. Kewl beans, huh?

I'm sorry to hear about the computer, Heather! Wishing you all the best for maximum data recovery and insurance reimbursement.

Sorry to hear this happened, heather. That's so odd about the surge protector. Scratching head. I sure hope you will be able to recover all your important data.

Heather, sorry to hear about your computer getting fried. For those who haven't heard this you can prevent it from happening. When a heavy storm is anticipated, turn off your computer, disconnect the modem and router and unplug your computer and/or laptop.

Thank you, thank you, everyone!

Morticia: I usually do unplug it but the storm was sudden and I was asleep. It was one of those freak things...

Chardkay: It probably isn't worth much by now, my seven-eight year old computer. But hey, if they'll pay anything toward a new one, that's better than nothing.

I am so sorry to hear about this. Ten or so years ago, I lost 3 years of work to a crashed hard drive.

http://www.mydocsonline provides subscription backup, very inexpensively. I relied on that (after my debacle) to keep my files safe, necessary for me because I used my computer for business. I heartily recommend it.

Chardkay, would you be willing to tell us who your insurer is? DH and I are looking for a new one.

Heather, sorry about the toasting. Thanks for the heads up to take preventative measures myself.

This very thing has happened to me with two different computers now, too, so I can sympathize with you, Heather.
Best of luck retrieving all your data and getting a new computer.

Yes, it is State Farm Insurance and I have had them for years.

Oh, that's awful! So sorry for your trouble Heather, and I hope all is put to rights soon.

Magdalene, Twitchly, Rosebud & Besotted: Thank you for your condolences. You know this might actually be therapeutic. Once I have all my data off the drive I can actually hurl this thing over the balcony like I've longed to do for so many years now!

Thanks -- that's who we're thinking of going with. I hear a lot of good things about them.