Crash & Break

I was up reasonably close to 530a and once again woke rested and ready for another day. We slept with the window opened and birds were singing and chirping away from about 4am on. Downstairs, I glanced out back into a mostly clear sky. Looked like another decent day in the offing. Finished sit-ups, windmills and push-ups. Headed to my PC with coffee near 550am. Right away I noticed that my laptop was powered down, and I knew it was up and running when I went to bed. That said, it's done that more than once. I powered it up and waited to log on. Uh-oh! Blue screen of death! That's been happening with regularity over the last few months. However, a reboot and it's up and fine. This time, however, no matter what I did it wouldn't come up. My stomach sunk as the thought of the data that could possibly be lost should the hard drive be the problem. I must've tried rebooting 5 or 6 times, including trying ot boot in safe mode. I made note of the Windows error.

Setting my laptop issue aside for a few minutes, I headed up stairs to wake Mindy. I shared my dilemma with Mindy. She wished me well. I did my best to look beyond my computer issue through meditation and stretching. I then dressed and headed off on my run. I was out the door no later than 640am. It was very nice- 61 degrees. I opted for a thinner wicking shirt. I ran the full 4.1 miles. Day break was apparent from the outset. It won't but another week and I'll be running in daylight start to finish. As one might expect, I thought through my laptop problem during my run and how that would alter my day and week. For starters, it wouldn't make any sense to head to my customer's campus that morning with a crashed laptop. To make matters worse, it was monthly service review day. I decided during my run that I would send them an email sharing my dilemma and plan, which was to head into the office and then do our monthly service review via conference call. That way I could work with our HD in an attempt to repair my laptop.

A bit more... I bought a WD passport external HD last summer but I only hook it up about once every two weeks. Reason being, whenever it's hooked up it slows my laptop to a crawl. I hadn't backed up for almost two weeks. The thought of losing all the docs an email from the last two weeks left me feeling ill.

Was home from my run around 720am. Mindy had scrambled eggs on the stove. It was the first time that she's cooked my eggs in well over a month. Said she hoped it would brighten my day a bit. Thanks dear! I walked the pug then ate my breakfast. Mindy left while the dog and I were out on our walk. The eggs were delicious. Bella dished up some for the pug.

After breakfast, I sent that email to my customer contacts letting them know that I wouldn't be joining them live and in person that day. I then Googled the Windows blue screen error. According to several help forums, the error was supposedly RAM related. Several years back I upgraded the RAM to 4gig (2 - 2gig RAM sticks). I went ahead and removed one of the RAM sticks then tried rebooting. I felt smart! Nope. Same results. Crap! I wanted to remove the other RAM stick and put the one I removed in, but i was sure how to get to the other. The first was accessible from the bottom hatch. The other looked to require removing the keyboard. Rather than really screw it up, I opted to leave well enough alone until contacting the HD from the office.

All the fooling around burned up all the time we had before bus stop time. Bella and I headed out, me still in my running clothes. New riders were at the stop again, only this time with their daddy. Once Bella was safely on the bus, I headed for home and to the shower. Sent my boss and the boss of the peer I was covering for an email sharing my dilemma. After all, I couldn't be very productive without my laptop.

Showered and dressed by 845am, I left for the office around 855am. I wisely took a couple screw drivers and my eye glasses with me to work so I could work on my laptop again if necessary. I called the HD and opened a ticekt right away. The guy that took my call had me try a couple things that didn't help. Said he'd have someone call me shortly. While waiting, I Googled my laptop model and happily found a You Tube video clip clearly showing how to remove and replace the hidden RAM stick. Cool. It was actually very easy. Loosen the screws, move four keyboard clip, and voila! I pulled that other RAM and replaced with the other. Tried booting. Same error. Dang it!

My boss stopped by to offer moral support. He suggested I walk down and talk with the PC refresh guy who was onsite doing scheduled laptop replacements. I n fact, the only reason I didn't schedule mine for this week was the fact that I had the monthly service review to prepare for as well as covering for my peer. I couldn't afford to be out of the water for the day and a half it typically takes to get refreshed ( a new laptop and then all the data moved). He also offered that he would certainly have tons of RAM sticks from the many laptops already refreshed. I doubted that they would consider moving in front of someone who already scheduled a refresh, but borrowing RAM seemed like a very viable option to try. Of course, that was operating under the assumption that both RAM sticks somehow got fried or went bad. That could happen.

I did the monthly service review via conference call at 11am. Went smoothly. We wrapped it up in all of about 45 minutes. Decided to take my boss' advice and walk down and talk to the PC refresh guy. He was located in an office off the loading dock and was busy with three or four others. I waited for an opportunity then introduced myself and shared my dilemma. He was most kind and quickly offered up two RAM sticks to try but went even further offering to do my PC refresh on Thursday provided new RAM wasn't the answer.

Back in my office I swapped out both RAM sticks and then tried booting again. Same problem. Obviously not the RAM. A few minutes later someone from the HD called me back to troubleshoot the problem remotely. Had me try several things, including interrupting the boot-up process and running diagnostics. According to the HD tech, the hard drive was bad, my worst fears come true. Damn it! But she was quick to point out that a bad hard drive didn't necessarily mean they wouldn't be able to recover my data.

When I shared that the PC refresh guy was onsite she made arrangement for me to get my new machine that afternoon. She could get an image installed but he would have to try and recover my data later that afternoon or Thursday. Sounded like a plan to me. She contacted the PC refresh guy and OK'd him handing me a new machine still in the box. I walked down and got it. Sweet!

Got the new machine hooked up to the network then worked with the HD to get an image installed. Basically let it sit for 2-3 hours. I left and headed for lunch. Went to Saturday's at Mill Run and got a haircut. Had Alicia cut it shorter than the last couple cuts. After the cut, I stopped in Jack's next door to check out their pet supplies. I bought nothing. Thunderstorms were moving in from the west. We could actually use the rain to help the lawn, trees and flowers pop. Headed back to the office.

The plan was to wait for the HD to call me back. She didn't call until almost 4pm. From there, it didn't take her long to complete the imaging process. Within all of about 20-30 minutes I was set, minus my personal data files and minus a handful of programs that aren't part of the standard image. IN the back of my mind I was still worried about getting my hard drive data recovered. The PC refresh guy told me he would know by the end of the day if my data was salvageable. Said he would call. He didn't. Adding to my fears, I couldn't recall the user name and password for my WD Passport external HD. I kept that info on my laptop. Duh!

I walked down to see Rob, the PC refresh guy to see if he had any news about my old hard drive. It was almost 5pm and he was gone for the afternoon. There was a facilities guy down there and let me check out my machine. It was up and running and it looked like Rob had the data accessible. I wouldn't know for certain until Thursday morning. Back in my office I spent another hour getting stuff configured on my new machine. I made a list of things that still needed addressed then left for home near 6pm feeling pretty about what I was able to accomplish, especially given the way the day began.

At home, Mindy was busy grilling sockeye salmon. One of our two tiffany lamps arrived via UPS that evening. It was the table lamp. We wouldn't open it until after dinner. Neither kid had any extra-curricular activities that night. While Mindy, Jacob and I ate salmon, Bella had a hot dog. The Sockeye salmon was just OK. Even Mindy thought so. Different than what she usually buys. After dinner clean-up I pulled up work email from my home PC. I needed to respond to a customer's escalation.

After dinner and clean-up, Mindy and I opened our new table lamp. As pretty as advertised. According to Amazon, the floor lamp would arrive Thursday, and then my new desk on Friday. Mindy headed to bed fairly early. Couldn't have been later than 915pm. I stayed up popping some popcorn and watching TV. Bella joined me briefly. I shared some popcorn with her. She poured us a Diet Coke to share, but I wanted only water. She enjoyed the Coke.
She was off to bed by 945pm. I stayed up until just after 10p. Mentally, I was drained.