Dear Listers and Jo: Jo: I am so sorry to read about the loss of your beloved Acorn. I have just gone through a similar process when the motherboard on my PC computer suddenly died and somehow corrupted the hard drive so that its letter cannot be recognized. So the files could not be recovered. All was not lost as I had my data backed up on a commercial service called Carbonite which I highly recommend; I have no financial interest in Carbonite other than as a satisfied customer. It is $55 per year in the US and will back up in the background any amount of data, but not programs, to servers on the Internet. Google it and see if you like it. I bought a new computer, accessed Carbonite and downloaded my 17 GB of stored files and data. It took several hours but it worked. There was one glitch in the restoration though. My Family Tree Maker files were not saved! It was my fault as they were in the C: folder and not in the Documents folder as I thought they were and I had backed up only the Documents and Settings folder. Luckily I had all my FTM data up to July 21 on a memory stick but I still lost all that I had entered since then; thank goodness for paper copies! The Carbonite people were outstanding in helping me restore my files (17 GB) and said that when I was ready to give them a call and they would guide me to make sure that everything I wanted backed was in fact backed up. My problem now is that like Jo my new computer uses a different operating system, System 7, and I do not like it as much as my trusty XP. Also I had to change to FTM 2010 from Version 10. I must say I like Version 10 a whole lot better. It is a pity that Version 10 will not install on System 7; I know you can set up a virtual XP under System 7 and then run Version 10 but that is a hassle to maintain. Anyhow, I know somewhat what you are going though Jo and wish you all the best in getting used to another PC. It will come. Everybody: please look at an off site storage service for your precious data. David (Beecham) PA-USA, where it is a nice fall day.

On Mon, 18 Oct 2010 16:35:21 +0100, <DavidPenn@aol.com> wrote: > Jo: I am so sorry to read about the loss of your beloved Acorn. I have > just gone through a similarprocess when the motherboard on my PC > computer suddenly died and somehow corrupted the hard drive sothat its > letter cannot be recognized. So the files could not be recovered. > All was not lost as I had my data backed up on a commercial service > called Carbonite which I highly recommend; David, I'm glad to hear that your recent experience wasn't a total disaster and that your data was backed up. > Luckily I had all my FTM data up to July 21 on a memory stick but I > still lost all that I had entered since then; thank goodness for paper > copies! That must have been a relief to have the memory stick and the paper copies. My FTM data is on this PC so wasn't affected by my Acorn disaster, but now I'm motivated to make sure it's backed up. > Anyhow, I know somewhat what you are going though Jo and wish you all > the best in getting used toanother PC. It will come. I think you are right, David. This morning I didn't think that I would be able to cope with sending and receiving e-mails on a PC, but I have persevered today with some list e-mails and although the process is quite different from what I have been doing for the past 12 years, I am making some headway. Whether I can keep it up or not remains to be seen. Josephine -- www.ianandjo.dsl.pipex.com