1 + 1 + 1 = 11

One of the reasons I've been not posting new posts is because of a very frustrating computer issue that is hampering my ability to write posts. I don't have a lot of time to write up posts at home, so I do almost all of my writing and research at work. To be able to write posts at work and then bring them home to upload to the blog, I use a USB drive. I have never had any issue on my home computer, or my older work computer with the USB drive, nor on any computer I have ever used. Until now.

But about a year ago we got new computer towers and well, my work computer doesn't like USB's. And it's not a constant dislike. It's random and sporadic. And when it decides it no longer likes a USB, it's catastrophic on my end.

I can go weeks and months without any issue, and the USB will be perfectly fine. And for the record, I always use the option to safely eject my USB drives from my computer.

Until one day I insert my USB drive and the light goes on and the USB opens and I see my files, but then goes off and I get the "This drive has not been formatted, would you like to format the drive?" And there goes all the stuff on the drive. And when I get home I gotta scramble to try and find a program that will recover my data for free, but they are getting harder to find and the free ones now come with smaller and smaller file recovery size restrictions.

I had lost a good chunk of the Funny Horse Names data about three weeks ago because of this and I've been working on rebuilding it back.

Today, I am working on some text files and have been working fine with stuff on the USB for most of the morning when I go to save it and the save window freezes. When it unfreezes everything is gone and it says "This drive has not been formatted, would you like to format the drive?".

And it's all gone again.

I've tried several different USB's of different sizes and brands and this just keeps happening. And it's ONLY with my work computer.

And the additional frustrating thing is I can't even download anything or run any diagnostics on my work computer because EVERYTHING is blocked by our IT Department and I can't even so much as install a font without getting permission from them. I went to run a diagnostic today and everything was greyed out and said I didn't have administrator permission to perform that diagnostic. I definitely can't mention an issue with the USB because we don't use them at work at all so it'll be admitting I'm doing personal stuff at work.

X: Accepting

“So... do you want to set a date yet for the honeymoon, or...?”