Demise Of A USB Stick

The USB memory stick I’d been using for my entire trip around the world since November 2007, mysteriously erased itself.  It happened at an internet shop in the Oviedo Mall.

I was running software off of it as usual, however the behavior was slow so I closed the programs and yanked it out.

I have always been too impatient to take the time to eject it properly, yet after hundreds of computers in 20 countries on 5 continents, I’d never had a problem.

Unfortunately, once you have a problem, it can be a big one.  My USB was password protected because I used Mozilla Firefox and had the browser remember all my non-bank account username and passwords.

Martin and I tried to locate and restore the data using free, online software, however it couldn’t be done.

I had to bite the bullet and reformat, starting over with all my internet bookmarks and logins.  The memory available is now half what it use to be though, at 1gb instead of 2gb.

Thankfully, the documents I saved on the USB which are of most importance to me now, like teaching advertisements, TEFL resume, and recent writing assignment I submitted to a website, were all previously forwarded as e-mails from my Gmail account.

The lesson in all this?  Back-up your USB sticks regularly!