Only Ashes

Experimental Designs

Papercraft Visionary
I fell off the grid a month or two ago and I have to say I've gone through some serious ordeals in my absence. Apartment fires tend to happen often enough that it affects you eventually when you least expect it.

So much lost and my most ambitious projects destroyed in a blaze that has set me back for years.

Archives of work in the making for 8 years destroyed.

Hundreds of hours worth of models and drawings...destroyed.

My workbench and collection of hobby knives and paint brushes...destroyed.

The only thing I had left to recover was my laptop. My desktop with all my photoshop, illustrator and precious works of art, destroyed.

Now that I'm back to square one I'm only left with ashes, a laptop and a few pencils and paper. So where do I go from here?
 

PemTech

New Member
You go on.....
That is all that one can do after life kicks you in the nethers.
The only other option is quitting, and that is unacceptable.
 
Z

Zathros

Oh I am so sorry, but Happy that you weren't there sleeping, when it happened. If the hard drives are intact, I wouldn't write them off so fast. You could slave them or use a USB 66 in 1 Card reader, like the one below from Vantec, to safely try and read them without risking any harm to your present computer. It's $24 dollars from Walmart online, and has a power supply for the hard drives. You're safe and sound, that's priority one and won!

V13-3326-main-hm.jpg
 

Experimental Designs

Papercraft Visionary
I was away at a friend's house playing a few games when it started. The culprit was a dryer fire that happened in the room right below mine. Alas I am not in the mood to go into details for obvious reasons.

My hard drives are toast and the one thumb drive I had on me had a few of my drawings on there. They're lost.

I had nothing of importance on my laptop since I used it mostly for gaming and web browsing at the time and I didn't realize it remembered my logon info for this forum when I went to see anything new happening.
 
Z

Zathros

My wife was just busting my a$$ about leaving the house with the dryer running. I have an electric one, it sits on concrete and the walls are rock, the ceiling is the floor rafters for the house, which are wood, so I guess it could catch on fire. I wouldn't go near an electrical fire though. Set the pets free and run!
 

zwave343

the human lazor
wow man, thats rough. i wish i could help, but im not american. honestly, as long as you have got friends, family and some hope, you can start again. i had some friends, there entire house and all their possesions where turned to slag. the fire was so hot, it melted the aluminium roof. they only had thier cattle, horses and dog, plus each other. they have a new house and they are doin fine.
 

Experimental Designs

Papercraft Visionary
wow man, thats rough. i wish i could help, but im not american. honestly, as long as you have got friends, family and some hope, you can start again. i had some friends, there entire house and all their possesions where turned to slag. the fire was so hot, it melted the aluminium roof. they only had thier cattle, horses and dog, plus each other. they have a new house and they are doin fine.

Friends and Family is the reason I'm not some head case going off the deep end not sleeping in my car. Also my faith helped coping with having all that work destroyed because I was about to go a little nuts.

On a much brighter note I have managed to pick up some odds and ends and some handme down brushes. With a little luck and some hard work I might be back in action.

Time will tell.
 
Z

Zathros

Faith is all the keeps me going these days. My wife and my son are, for me, are a reward and comfort, or I would much more of a head case than I am now. :)
 

Experimental Designs

Papercraft Visionary
Faith is all the keeps me going these days. My wife and my son are, for me, are a reward and comfort, or I would much more of a head case than I am now. :)

As the saying goes if life gives you lemon then you should make lemonade and if life gives you heartburn, put away the hot wings.

Ok I made that last bit up but seriously I think in the end what doesn't grind us down only makes us stronger in the end through human perserverence and divine (spiritual) generosity.
 

paper hollywood

Active Member
Your situation totally sucks eggs and you have my complete sympathy. Extreme situations always have a big effect on us, but we do have the ability to decide whether that effect will be to the negative or use it as a reason to make some positive changes in our lives. I suggest focusing the feelings you're having now on not just putting your life back together, aiming for some goals. I don't like living in apartments at all, myself.

The last time I moved out of an apartment complex, I told myself I wasn't going to ever live in one again. So far so good.

Wade
 

bonnettm

New Member
I am an IT expert. If the fire did not breech the computer case but the drive(s) just do not spin up they may be yet recoverable.

Borrow or buy a drive kit like the one mentioned above.

24 hours prior to getting the kit get pull your hard drive from your burnt desktop and put it in a plastic airtight bag.

Put the plastic bag with the hard drive in your freezer.

The metal in the drive that expanded in the fire will contract due to the cold.

Pull the drive out but leave the plastic bag covering the front part (where there are no connections) in a bowl of ice to help it stay cold longer.

When you apply the connections from the kit and turn the little power button on the kit on listen to hear if the platters on the hard drive spin up.

If they do, and they often do in cases like this you have somewhere from 10 minutes to an hour to get data off it via the USB connection to your laptop.

:cool: Good luck.
 
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