Pragmatics win. We'll play best two of three...
There are definitely times when I wish my knowledge and skill sets were based more in the practical world than in the theoretical. About two months ago, my computer started to malfunction in small ways. It started small, with a couple of weird windows stop errors (commonly known as the ‘blue screen of death’ errors). Under normal circumstances, those are errors you shouldn’t be seeing, so I noted their type and character and went on with my business, hoping that a pattern wouldn’t develop.
A pattern, of course, developed. Soon, the occasional errors cropped up more and more frequently. About three weeks ago, they started happening at random’ish intervals, but I never got longer than about a half-hour on the computer without having to restart the machine. Needless to say, that interferes with almost anything you want to do on the computer.
Finally, I decided it was high time I diagnose the error and fix it. My investigation revealed that there was a problem with the hard drive. The Microsoft web site indicated that the stop errors I received indicated an imminent hard drive failure (an unexpected, but not uncommon, hardware error), and recommended replacing the drive.
For two weeks, I madly backed up everything I could, purchasing a 25-pack of CD-RW’s for the occasion. After a crash erased several pages of a thesis, I opted to do all of my computing from the computer lab at the law school. I even went out and priced hard drives of equal size to mine and was disappointed to find that they run between $125-175.
Well, my brother stopped by for Thanksgiving, and I had him take a look at the computer. In only a few minutes, he removed the case of the CPU, diagnosed the real culprit, and moved the Serial ATA cable from one slot on the controller to another slot. Done.
The computer is now fully repaired. I suppose I can at least take consolation in the fact that I now have my whole hard drive backed up on about 40 CD-RW’s.
A pattern, of course, developed. Soon, the occasional errors cropped up more and more frequently. About three weeks ago, they started happening at random’ish intervals, but I never got longer than about a half-hour on the computer without having to restart the machine. Needless to say, that interferes with almost anything you want to do on the computer.
Finally, I decided it was high time I diagnose the error and fix it. My investigation revealed that there was a problem with the hard drive. The Microsoft web site indicated that the stop errors I received indicated an imminent hard drive failure (an unexpected, but not uncommon, hardware error), and recommended replacing the drive.
For two weeks, I madly backed up everything I could, purchasing a 25-pack of CD-RW’s for the occasion. After a crash erased several pages of a thesis, I opted to do all of my computing from the computer lab at the law school. I even went out and priced hard drives of equal size to mine and was disappointed to find that they run between $125-175.
Well, my brother stopped by for Thanksgiving, and I had him take a look at the computer. In only a few minutes, he removed the case of the CPU, diagnosed the real culprit, and moved the Serial ATA cable from one slot on the controller to another slot. Done.
The computer is now fully repaired. I suppose I can at least take consolation in the fact that I now have my whole hard drive backed up on about 40 CD-RW’s.
posted by The Academian | 2:32 AM
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