How old is your USB stick? - Urgent read

I have had a stressful few days. Those who follow me on facebook will know this story, and here is my update, but for those who don't (please do) and read on.

Thursday night I was working as per usual, & I received an order for my flower & butterfly personalised cushion, and I couldn't open it. The error message was saying that it was moved to another location? My heart skipped a beat and I tried not to panic. I rebooted my system and the same message again when I tried to open it. Again I tried not to panic, shut the computer down & went to bed, hoping it was nothing.

Friday...Mum was here as I planned a research and drawing day, I had some new ideas I wanted to get down on paper. Anyway I thought I would print a couple of orders off, went to my 'personalised', folder and the whole thing was gone. I went absolutely cold, and felt this pain in my chest. Sounds dramatic but true.

After I had calmed down and worked through a process of elimination hoping it was nothing, it was time to call for help. When I bought my computer I also bought Harvey Norman's QK 24/7 PC Help Registration. Basically help anytime of day, just what I need, for just in case moments like this one. To make this long story shorter, the techs did a deep recovery session as they were to stumped as to how a whole folder was missing. I will admit I was very frustrated when they kept asking me, was I sure I hadn't deleted it. Ummm NO!!

An hour later they called me back & the folder was found, however not all of the files could be recovered. They said they could do a deeper recovery but I had to wait until the next day as we had been on and off the phone already for 3hrs. So Saturday night after 8pm I was on the phone to them again. They managed to recover a couple more, so all in all I got 10 back out of 12.

I asked what the problem was and they said my USB stick. Apparently USB sticks only have a reliable shelf life of 18mths. They have trouble being rewritten constantly, so if you are saving over and over on the same file it can become a little weak and unreliable. I had no idea about this, and have learnt a great lesson. One being have a decent back up, and second renew my USB sticks regularly. Please use my hideous experience as a lesson for yourself.

If you're wondering why I use these instead of saving on the computer, it's because my design files are HUGE, sometimes 6 meg, and when you have as many as I have, it's slows my computer down, that why I use and external drive.

If you ever need help with your PC here is the number (Australia only) 1300 133 373.

There is a membership of $195 but it was money well spent.