<p>okay so i was just finished with my cornell supplement and my essay for the common app... and then my laptop had an error with my hard drive and i took it in and it can't be recovered... so i've got to start my essays alllllll over again. kill me. so if i wrote the significant experience essay about my computer's crashing do you think they'd like it?? i'm soo ****ed right now!</p>
<p>Buy a mac.</p>
<p>^If the hard drive died then a mac would not make any difference. Anyways, it is always a good idea to back up important stuff like that by emailing it to yourself or putting it on the flash drive.</p>
<p>Same thing happened to me (last year). I just happened to have gone through my essays so many times that I was able to reproduce it from memory. If you really worked so hard, you’ll be fine.</p>
<p>“so if i wrote the significant experience essay about my computer’s crashing do you think they’d like it??”</p>
<p>LOL. can’t you remember the general gist of your essays?</p>
<p>What I usually do is when I’m done with an essay, I upload it to google docs.</p>
<p>you can just do it on google doc</p>
<p>Pretty much, the moral is clear… always backup… thanks for the reminder… going to set up DropBox on my computer, or something like that…</p>
<p>The Mac idea is definitely the right one, but backing up never hurts :)</p>
<p>Just wondering, what was the error on the hard drive? If it was physical damage, then you are really #$%^ed.
But if it’s something minor like you can’t boot and etc, all you need to do is just extract the data out somehow.</p>
<p>Oh well, that is what happens when you delay things til the end.</p>
<p>Boo Macs.</p>
<p>Try booting the computer from floppy or CD. The hard drive may be accessible but not bootable.</p>
<p>If you can boot into DOS or even Windows external to the C: drive, you may be able to copy files from the C: drive to removable media. Finding files at DOS command line level can be a b@$#^.</p>
<p>Don’t d&^* with it more than two hours before resuming your necessary work on another computer.</p>
<p>hahah good idea about writing about your computer, but i dont think they would buy it/have sympathy unfortunately. if only you could… hmm…</p>
<p>I managed to reproduce an essay after I logged out without saving on an app site, but your memory may not be as good as mine. All I can say is good luck in getting it back somehow, or write about the incident, like you said. It has the potential to be a good and quirky essay.</p>
<p>don’t you have a copy of it printed somehwere?</p>
<p>Thank you for this thread, it made me save all the essays I need for my remaining four applications to a USB drive :D</p>
<p>this is a good lesson…always have a hard copy…saving the file to USB is not enough…email and hard copies are best</p>
<p>i always email documents to myself when i’m finished.</p>
<p>Furthermore…did you even let anyone else read the essay, or any of the rough drafts?
If so, then you can probably get it off that person you asked to proofread.</p>
<p>geez that sucks, i’m sorry</p>
<p>^ yeah, if you let anyone read your essay or if sent your essay through email, then you could get your essay back easily.</p>