One of the many reasons I came back home for a break was that my LaCie harddrive (the one with all my important footage on it) had died in Bangladesh just three months after being purchased. It was quite an ordeal getting that harddrive to Bangladesh in the first place. I had heard of a professor from the states who was flying into Bangladesh and was wiling to bring some equipment for me. I ordered this drive from Amazon.com and sent it to him and he brought it to Bangladesh for me. Three months later, I was flying back home with it because it died. Epic fail.
You’d think that I’d have that drive fixed or replaced by now. Although I was able to pick up a cheap replacement (a Western Digital MyBook) from Costco – I still haven’t been able to fix my LaCie harddrive. That’s because, even though I’m just a short subway ride from LaCie’s main office in Canada, they won’t just let me drop the unit off for warranty repair. And, as I just found out today, they won’t accept this harddrive for repair at all. The reason? Because even though I’m a Canadian and registered the product with my home address in Canada, since it was purchased outside of Canada, they won’t touch it.
I have a total of four LaCie harddrives and I’m glad to say that this is the only drive of mine that has ever failed. But, after this experience, I wouldn’t recommend LaCie to anyone. If anyone has any contacts or ability to help me with this issue with LaCie – please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Wow – what a difference a couple of months make. It feels like yesterday I was sweating bullets. There I was in Dhaka staring at a dead LaCie harddrive – three months old, full of important footage, and not turning on. I decided that, after over a year in the field, now was probably as good a time as any to take a much needed break. I returned home to find a renewal bill from my webhost that I couldn’t afford. As nice as they are, they were none to eager to sponsor something that wasn’t a tax-writeoff for them.
I’ve been very fortunate that there have been people that have swept in from nowhere and turned rotten situations into opportunities. The first was with the support of a company called Media Temple. If you’ve heard of these guys you know they are one of the biggest hosting companies out there. They host Adobe, ABC, Time, Starbucks, Toyota, Warner Brothers, and Sony. They generously offered to partially subsidize the hosting costs. Uncultured.com is now hosted with them and they foot part of the bill.
The switchover allowed me time to try some new things – like a new look for the site. For the past couple of weeks I’ve been spending time making a new logo, header images, and layout for this site. These past couple of weeks reminded me of why I absolutely love working on this project. Whether it’s going out in the field, helping hands on, editing footage, making YouTube videos, tweaking CSS, or making new logos – I love every aspect of this project.
I couldn’t have done this alone – I have to thank Patrick (the same Patrick whose donations were used to sponsor Jack in the Chittagong Hill-Tracts). Patrick was able to help me with some of the more complicated technical stuff a n00b like me couldn’t handle. I also gotta thank Morgan (FlawedArtist) who helped with some feedback on the header images I made (as well as with help trying to renew my Flickr Pro account). And, of course, my parents who (once again) dipped into their savings and helped me pickup a new harddrive at Costco so that I could get things rolling again.
The best is yet to come. And this new look is just in time for Blog Action Day too 
Two days after my LaCie died, I decided to try once again and try and get it to work. Imagine my surprise when the blue light on the front came to life. It was working again! Although, it was all too fleeting: the performance was flaky, the drive wouldn’t always mount, and – eventually – it died once again.
It’s really starting to look like I’m going to have to fly home to have this fixed. So what’s the plan?
Well, first off, I’m checking with the airline that I originally flew in with to see if I can use my old return ticket. It’s long expired but they haven’t completely ruled out the possibility of being able to renew the ticket (for some fee). If that works out, than I might have an inexpensive way to return home and get this fixed.
Afterwards, if I fly back, I’d like to come back in September. I was hoping to have at least one (important) video up on YouTube before I flew back. Given my lack of harddrive space I foolishly – but out of necessity – started using the LaCie again once it started working again. I was able to back-up some old data, but I lost some new stuff I was playing around with.
I used to be a LaCie guy – all my external harddrives used to be from them. But since then I’ve become a Western Digital fan. As you can see in this photo, the Western Digital external harddrive – on the same setup as the LaCie – seems to be doing just fine.
I plugged in my external harddrive (the harddrive which stores much of the raw footage accumulated during this project and all the episodes compiled for YouTube) and flipped the switch. Nothing happened. I check the cords, make sure everything is plugged in – nada.
The worst case scenario is now here: something has broken which is critical to the continuation of this project.
I’m a big believer in Murphy’s Law – so I was kind of expected something like this to happen. I’m kind of annoyed that it is this particular harddrive that failed – because I really went out of my way to try and get my hands on a LaCie harddrive here in Bangladesh. I ordered it from Amazon.com and sent it to a professor in the States who happened to be flying to Bangladesh.
It only lasted a month – whereas the Western Digital Harddrives I’ve been using for a good part of a year are chugging along just fine.
There aren’t many options available. This HD is a big investment and I’d like to have it repaired under warranty – and maybe have a way of retrieving the data that was on it. But the nearest location that will repair it under warranty is in Singapore. At the cost of flying to Singapore, I could just as easily fly home. I’d buy a replacement harddrive, but part of the reason I’ve gone to such lengths to get harddrives is because decent harddrive enclosures are hard to obtain in Bangladesh.
I’ll keep you guys posted. It is starting to look like I may need to fly back home – even if only temporary.
