I Love/Hate Computers

I had a catastrophic disc failure this past week.  

  My laptop was at least 5 years old so I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that it finally gave out.  When the technicians opened it they also found internal damage resulting from several overheating events over the years.  Looking at the cost of a new disc plus labor to get it working again was discouraging.  My solution was to purchase a refurbished laptop for just a little less than the estimated cost of repair; and send the old one to the scrap heap.

Fortunately I’d done a backup about a week and a half earlier.  Backup is one thing, restoring is something else again.  It worked – mostly.  I seem to have most of my critical data. The key word is “most”.

“Hate” isn’t really the right word. It’s more like frustration and anxiety. How much will I have to recreate from scratch?  Do I have all the CDs I need to get back to where I was? Did I save all the .exe files for software I downloaded?

The answer to that last question, unfortunately, is no. There are a couple I didn’t save so I’ll need to go back to find the right IDs and passwords so I can download them again without having to pay for them again. Lesson learned. ALWAYS save it locally.

It has been a few very frustrating days but I think I’m mostly back in business. Today is Sunday – I think I’ll just watch football and play solitaire.