My computer crashed. Blue screen. Fatal error. And me thinking of how many files I lost. I didn't panic though. Called Rob (Bat in Attic) up and asked him what I should do. I used my rarely exercise computer jedi mind meld thing and asked him if it could have been the video card. I was suspicious of that card since I plugged it in. It was no good from the beginning. He told me it could be that, but also the other things it could be. Each one more terrifying than the other. At least to my wallet.
So I untangled the mass of cords under my desk and was appalled by the amount of dust that had already accumulated since the last time I cleaned it. Looked like the moon's surface. Anyway, unplugged the video card and reattached minimal stuff and started it up and wa la, it worked. I am no computer guru, but once in a while my mojo is in tune and I can use the force to do a home brewed computer analysis.
I'm done wasting your time. Please go back to what you were doing.
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Welcome back.
ReplyDeleteCheck the inside of the computer for any orcs or kobolds that have taken up residence inside.
Backup disc, backup disc, backup disc. It is a charm against computer gremlins. I did have a computer that burned on me once from a dust fire, but luckily it still worked afterwards. I felt the scortch marks around the cases air vent gave it character.
ReplyDeleteNothing worse than losing files. I am glad to hear that yours made it through.
Jason: What do you recommend for a backup program? Every time I try to backup everything, it runs aground on those overwrite errors / file in use can't be copied. I tried Memeo, but that program won't run at all.
ReplyDeleteBackup stuff up is murder and tedious as hell. It shouldn't be.
Can you just drag and drop your more important files onto a blank dvd? Most of my stuff is text. Some is pdf but the commercial stuff (like my orders from Frog God Games) are available to me from the company if something happens to my earlier downloads.
ReplyDeleteNormally I just let my Norton Ant-virus program go through the back-up procedure when I run a long scan/drive cleaning.
I haven't run across the file in use problem if I have everything shut-down when I do the Norton backup.
Yep, there are few things scarier than the blue screen. Glad you got it sorted out!
ReplyDeleteNice one, good result and thinking!
ReplyDeleteThat was indeed a good call, Tim.
ReplyDeleteI use Mozy. It's an online cloud backup system that automatically backs up files a couple of times a day in the background. It's saved my bacon twice. Once, when my hard drive just completely died. I was able to replace it and get back up to normal in just a couple hours. I especially like that I don't need to remember to do anything about it. There are a few similar services out there and they are well worth the cost.
ReplyDelete