Over the last few weeks, my notebook computer had started to make some decidedly unfriendly sounds. The hard drive was buzzing and whirring; one day it even whined rather pathetically. The machine, only about six years old, started to slow down appreciably.
I took what I thought were the necessary precautions: various scans and diagnostic programs, undertaken both on my own and with HP guidance. I also uninstalled a few recently added programs, as well as a few older ones I didn't use much. And things got better. Everything was just about back to normal, if slower than before.
Then late this afternoon, without any warning: pffft. Windows wouldn't boot at all. The hard drive just sat and spun, endlessly. Game over.
I'm typing this on my sleek, sexy new HP notebook, which is a lot faster and a lot more functional that the old one had ever been. The keyboard will take a little getting used to; so will Vista. It's an expense I'd rather not have taken on, but there was little choice given the work at hand. Altogether I didn't spend that much, and I'm glad I had the funds readily available. (Merry Christmas to me, I suppose.)
The jury's out as to what might eventually be recovered from the old machine. Honestly, most of the photos were backed up elsewhere, and most of the stored documents were just reviews and articles that have already appeared in print. A few things might be harder to replace. The most recent complete backup disc I made is a few months old, since the CD burner stopped working quite some time ago due to a software issue that HP never managed to sort out.
The biggest loss, I'd say, is my stored e-mail. It'll be a shame if I can't recover those messages. But rebuilding my address book shouldn't take too much effort, so I'm basically up and running. (If I owe you an e-mail, sending me a reminder would be a good idea.)
It was a real panic when it happened. But all things considered, it could have been a whole lot worse. I'm grateful to Best Buy's Geek Squad for getting me up and running in pretty much no time at all. Now, let's see what they can scrape out of the old hard drive...
Steve,
Under the heading of "once bitten, twice shy," please allow me to seriously recommend that you spend an extra $100 or so on an external USB-based hard drive. Get one that is at least as big as your notebook HD, and set your backup software to back up everything to the USB HD automatically, every day. A good one will do an incremental backup, only copying those files that have changed since the day before.
Posted by: DJA | November 18, 2007 at 03:13 PM
Also, you could get a little mac, too, while you're down. Mac!
Posted by: Nico Muhly | November 19, 2007 at 05:09 AM
After 20 years of DOS and Windows, it is likely my next computer will be a Macintosh! Of course, the Dell desktop machine I have at home is built like a tank, thank goodness.
Posted by: Lisa Hirsch | November 27, 2007 at 07:18 AM