I hate giving bad news, so I’ll try to keep this brief:
Last Monday, I was going to look through and organize some old works to show the new users who recently arrived and had been asking about them.
However, those files were stored on an external hard drive, and apparently it failed. I spent around three days trying to access the data. Believe me when I say I tried everything; from buying a brandnew highquality USB cable to disassembling the drive and connecting it directly to my PC through SATA but nothing worked...
I used both ChatGPT’s advanced assistance for precise instructions and guidance from someone I know who actually is an expert, although he could only help remotely. Both of them agreed that the drive probably needs some kind of Linux-based recovery process. Now, I need to clarify that I’m not a programmer at all, I can barely install a printer... And these steps required a bit more specialized knowledge, and honestly, I’m not willing to take it to a technician who would OBVIOUSLY snoop through and steal my files. It wasn’t just work-related stuff in there either, there was also personal information, passwords, family photos, and many other things...
So for now, I’ll be watching YouTube tutorials and trying to learn how to do the recovery process myself whenever I have the time, because at the moment I’m extremely busy.
Honestly, I was feeling pretty down about what happened. I mean, I can still keep drawing moving forward, and losing my old artwork itself doesn’t hurt me that much... What really hurts are the family photos and videos. I also had a lot of backups from tablets and phones belonging to several family members... and I feel completely responsible for not taking better care of all of that...
Anyway... that’s what happened. I hope I’ll be able to fix the problem someday.
For now, I’m still working, and at least I can end this with some good news: I’ve already finished the planning stage for an animation that’s almost 3 minutes long. I’ve also planned several standalone loops, which I think will be really useful for becoming more recognized and hopefully attracting more people to Patreon, since lately I’ve been feeling like things have become a bit stagnant there...
Anyway, sending a big hug to all of you. Love you guys, bye.