I am not in the habit of reposting such requests for help, however this one is genuine - and appreciate this is a long shot.
A friend of a trusted personal friend is a very ill cancer patient with only weeks left to live.
While in Unispital Basel (Klinikum 1, 4th floor gynecologist oncology) overnight for treatment on 1st Oct her laptop (DELL Inspiron 13 series 5000-5381) went missing. The laptop contains messages for her 3 year old twin children in case something should happen.
The missing laptop has been reported to hospital and police.
Other efforts to find it involve asking and sharing on FB and other social forums.
I assume she does not have backups of her data.
If anyone can help find this laptop, please PM.
I will keep this thread updated if I hear anything from my friend.
Hi Nick, sorry to hear this about your friend. Pretty shit thing to happen too considering her condition. I am not sure what I can do personally but I will try to pass on this info to anyone I know in Basel. Did she have any label, sticker, covering on her laptop? Something to ID it? Please keep us updated and I hope she finds it.
Since Basel is close to the border, I suggest you posting the message on Toytown Germany.
I hope someone really find it ... maybe it is worthwhile trying to find some empathic employee in those crappy shop selling used computers and phones? There are a lot of shops, but I am sure they more or less are connected
I assume the laptop is running Windows. I just tried the "find my device" on my own laptop. It placed it very accurately to an address that is 0.5km from where I am sitting. I assume that is the best accuracy possible without a GPS in the device.
Nice idea though. Though it might give a clue to rough location.
The missing laptop contains messages / letters / hopes for the future etc the owner had written for her young children to read after she has passed on - so not posted on FB or elsewhere. Given her current state it is unlikely she will have the time / ability to rewrite the same.
It's the content on the laptop she really wants as opposed to the laptop itself.
I am sure it is also a salutory lesson in having backups in many places - including cloud-based - as you never know when you will need old data.
What a despicable thing to do. To prey on someone whose mind is addled from her chemo treatments and the distress of the situation, I really hope they find out what harm they have caused and have the decency to at least simply drop the laptop off somewhere that it can be retreived and returned to the owner.
It would definitely be worth checking other PCs linked to her Windows account because if the appropriate toggle switch is on, My Documents, Pictures, Desktop etc.. are saved and synced to all computers on the account. Given that its a 4-5 year old model it should be running Windows 10 which has MS Onedrive baked in.
The broader issue is that any professional thief will likely format the HD and re-install the OS which will be the state it will be in on ricardo, Anibis, computer shop The best hope is for the thief to read the announcement and develop a conscience.
It is such a shame and a shitty thing for anyone to do to a cancer patient. I hope she at least has the strength to record some voice memos which can later be transcribed for her surviving children.
unfortunately it is teaching to many of us a good lesson, I am not trying to point the finger or make anyone feel bad, but the question is what if it is happening to you tomorrow?
I have backups but often I wonder what will happen to me (my data) if a major event was striking.
I wish you good luck, I hope you will be able to recover the data.
That is my thought too. I am not in direct contact with the woman - but I have shared this suggestion with my FB friend who shared the original announcement. Hopefully it gets resolved in time.