LOST: A MOTHER'S PRECIOUS PHOTOS.

Byline: Rebecca Taylor The Register-Guard

Terri Brazell missed much of her toddler son's first year while undergoing aggressive treatment for bone cancer.

On Friday, she lost an additional six months of memories when her digital camera fell out of the stroller she was pushing at the Relay for Life event at Lane Community College.

The camera's memory card held hundreds of photos from the most recent six months of the 2-year-old's life.

"I've already missed so much," Brazell said Monday. "Pictures usually aren't that big of a deal, but this is my son."

As personal technology devices gain popularity with Americans - think

iPhones, iPods, cell phones, Blackberries, digital cameras and laptops - stories of devastating data loss have become more common.

According to Computer Power User Magazine, a recent survey conducted by Harris Interactive and sponsored by storage company Maxtor found that nearly a third of computer users described their content as "priceless." However, only about 50 percent of users backed up their data.

Like many people, Brazell, of Eugene, hadn't backed up the images stored on her camera's memory card. Computer trouble and the concerns of daily life kept her from doing so.

Brazell was 24 and pregnant when she was diagnosed with Ewing's Sarcoma two years ago, a bone cancer that typically strikes children and young adults, most often in the bones of the pelvis, arms or legs.

After her son's birth, she underwent chemotherapy and a femur transplant. The surgery left her disabled, but on Friday she was one of hundreds of cancer survivors who helped kick off the Relay for Life, a 24-hour relay that raises money for the American Cancer Society.

Brazell believes that the Olympus FE-170 digital camera fell out of the stroller inside the track about 7:45 p.m. She contacted event organizers and filed a report with Eugene police. Now she is offering a reward. "I can go buy a new camera," she said - but the photos cannot be replaced.

A search of the "lost and found" on www.craigslist.com revealed dozens of such postings.

One writer lost a camera between Lincoln City and Gold Beach on Saturday.

"I don't care about the camera as much as getting the (memory) card," the writer pleads - a common sentiment among people hoping to be reunited with their images.

Andy Schubert, a customer representative at the UO Bookstore's Digital Duck, said he sees more people being proactive about data storage, perhaps because of past losses. Customers shopping for external hard drives and other storage solutions outnumber those complaining about disappearing data, he said.

Coincidentally, Schubert was grieving the recent loss of his own data. While trying to install a new operating system on his home computer Sunday, he overwrote his existing hard drive, potentially wiping out some or all of his stored data, including music and photos.

"It's like accidentally burning down your house while teaching yourself to juggle fire," he said.

Robert Bennett, a technician at the University of Oregon's McKenzie Hall computer center, said computer owners should establish a maintenance routine for computers and digital devices. Regularly backing up data on external hard drives, flash drives or CDs and DVDs is the only way to protect against information loss, he said.

"It needs to be kind of a habit, like changing the oil in your car," Bennett said.

That might have helped one client, a woman who misplaced her laptop in her rush to get to work on time. She retraced her steps and found the machine in her driveway - flattened by her car as she backed out.

LOST IMAGES

Eugene resident Terri Brazell lost an Olympus FE-170 digital camera at the Lane Community College track on Friday. It was inside a black zippered case. She can be reached at [phone].