My Dana died today.
I last hotsynced on August 26th.
However, all I really lost was half a chapter (easily rewritten, well, kind of) and the start of Chapter 20, which I have been writing for two damned weeks. So that's not bad.
And my Dana was resurrected today, as well. I think it was the rechargable battery. After all, it's two years old, and I use it quite frequently. (Yet another reason not to like rechargable batteries!)
Here's the tale, for those of you wondering:
I sat down to eat lunch, turned on my Dana, and opened AlphaWord. I had just deleted a word or two from the previous sentence of Chapter 20 when I got a Fatal Error.
Now, I've gotten these before. Three times, in fact, since I got the Dana in September 03. So I figured, ok, I'll just reset it and lose my changes. No big deal. Only when I reset it, nothing happened. I hit every key I could think of, did a hard reset and everything, and nothing happened.
I panicked. Even now, Dana's aren't cheap. (Well, they still cost $379, which is what I paid for mine, so at least they haven't gone up in price.) And I really didn't want to buy another one.
So I called AlphaSmart's technical support, who told me to try a hard reset, and then when that didn't work, to unscrew the back of the battery case and remove the battery. He did warn me that I'd lose everything, but one chapter and a paragraph isn't all that much, really. If the story had been going well, I would have lost much, much more.
And here's where I ran into a wall. No one in the office had a small Phillips screwdriver. I had a flat head one, but not a Phillips. (Why is it called Phillips, anyway?) So I went next door, to Sherwin Williams, thinking one of the paint guys might have one, but they didn't. Stopped at the vet's office, just in case they had one, but they didn't. Finally went to Tuesday Morning, and the wonderful manager there had one! (Which really does mean you can find anything at Tuesday Morning, doesn't it?)
So I unscrewed it at the checkout counter that wasn't being used, took out the battery, unhooked the battery, waited a bit, then plugged it back in. The "Palm Powered" logo came on, but then it started to flash on and off. Not good.
I took it back to the office without screwing the screw back in, and found my stash of AA batteries in my purse. When I switched out the rechargable battery with the regular ones and reset it, it worked. I lost everything, but it worked.
(Further conversation with the same tech guy said that it probably was the battery malfunctioning. They only last 500-1000 charges, and I do use my Dana all the time.)
When I came home, I hotsynced, and everything was transferred back on. I did lose a cut chapter as well as what I had written to keep, but at least everything is working now.
But the next time I think to myself that I should hotsync (like I did last night and didn't do it) I'm going to make sure I do it. I would have liked not to have to rewrite what I lost.
(So if you're reading this and thinking the same thing, do it!)
The End.
I last hotsynced on August 26th.
However, all I really lost was half a chapter (easily rewritten, well, kind of) and the start of Chapter 20, which I have been writing for two damned weeks. So that's not bad.
And my Dana was resurrected today, as well. I think it was the rechargable battery. After all, it's two years old, and I use it quite frequently. (Yet another reason not to like rechargable batteries!)
Here's the tale, for those of you wondering:
I sat down to eat lunch, turned on my Dana, and opened AlphaWord. I had just deleted a word or two from the previous sentence of Chapter 20 when I got a Fatal Error.
Now, I've gotten these before. Three times, in fact, since I got the Dana in September 03. So I figured, ok, I'll just reset it and lose my changes. No big deal. Only when I reset it, nothing happened. I hit every key I could think of, did a hard reset and everything, and nothing happened.
I panicked. Even now, Dana's aren't cheap. (Well, they still cost $379, which is what I paid for mine, so at least they haven't gone up in price.) And I really didn't want to buy another one.
So I called AlphaSmart's technical support, who told me to try a hard reset, and then when that didn't work, to unscrew the back of the battery case and remove the battery. He did warn me that I'd lose everything, but one chapter and a paragraph isn't all that much, really. If the story had been going well, I would have lost much, much more.
And here's where I ran into a wall. No one in the office had a small Phillips screwdriver. I had a flat head one, but not a Phillips. (Why is it called Phillips, anyway?) So I went next door, to Sherwin Williams, thinking one of the paint guys might have one, but they didn't. Stopped at the vet's office, just in case they had one, but they didn't. Finally went to Tuesday Morning, and the wonderful manager there had one! (Which really does mean you can find anything at Tuesday Morning, doesn't it?)
So I unscrewed it at the checkout counter that wasn't being used, took out the battery, unhooked the battery, waited a bit, then plugged it back in. The "Palm Powered" logo came on, but then it started to flash on and off. Not good.
I took it back to the office without screwing the screw back in, and found my stash of AA batteries in my purse. When I switched out the rechargable battery with the regular ones and reset it, it worked. I lost everything, but it worked.
(Further conversation with the same tech guy said that it probably was the battery malfunctioning. They only last 500-1000 charges, and I do use my Dana all the time.)
When I came home, I hotsynced, and everything was transferred back on. I did lose a cut chapter as well as what I had written to keep, but at least everything is working now.
But the next time I think to myself that I should hotsync (like I did last night and didn't do it) I'm going to make sure I do it. I would have liked not to have to rewrite what I lost.
(So if you're reading this and thinking the same thing, do it!)
The End.
Comments