It's dead, Jim.

[tinhuviel]

There I was, in the throes of what was promising to be a dandy and relaxing weekend, preparing to type out the notes I've made for The Blood Crown when, all of a sudden, nothing.  My computer just stopped.  It shut down.  It ceased to Be.  Thinking that it may have gotten overheated, even though it shouldn't have since I just had the fan replaced three months or so ago, I waited for a few minutes and tried to turn the 'puter back on.  It ground into action, then suddenly....stopped.  Oh crap, I thought.  The beasties must have done a number on my AC cord and my battery is dead as a result.  I just need to check the AC.  But the power was fine.  I tried a different outlet.  Same result.  My computer wouldn't turn back on at all.  My Inner Obi-Wan began to scream "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooo-oooo-ooo-o-o."

I got the phone and called Best Buy's Geek Squad to confirm that my extended maintenance plan was still active.  It was, so off to Sparkle City I drove, my ailing 'puter in a bag.  It took all of fifteen minutes to turn the computer into the Geek Squad; unfortunately, it's going to take a little longer than fifteen minutes to get it back from the Geek Squad.  The dude who helped me said that it could be two weeks, maybe longer, before the computer is ready to come home.  I asked him what he thought it might be.  One possibility is that the cooling system has gone wonky on it again.  Another possibility is that the mother board may have died.  When he said that, I had to tell my Inner Obi-Wan to shut the hell up.  By then, though, my Inner C-3PO was moaning "We're doomed."

Truer words ha' ne'er been spoke.

Comments

[turelie.livejournal.com]

If it's anything other than a HDD malfunction, you should have no problem getting your data back. My hard drive died a whirring, clicking death several months ago. It wouldn't even boot after 3 tries. Power: Check. Fans: Check POST: Check. Windows Boot? Nuttin' honey.

So...power working, motherboard working (POST), lots of clicking and whirring, but no Windows. *insert sad violin music here*

Fortunately, most of my important data was on my slaved drive...and/or copied to CD when I attempted to reformat my drive. I say attempted because after I saved everything, I couldn't find my win2000 disc.

They must be seriously backed up at your Geek Squad. Weeks? Sheesh. I wish I lived closer, I could have fixed it for ya, lickity split. ^_^

Good luck! Hope it's fixed sooner than they expect.

[tinhuviel.livejournal.com]

Uh...I did hear a whirring noise the day before it died. Should I start crying now?

[turelie.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean to scare ya! It's hard to say without hearing the whirring. :( And...that's not to say the Geek Boys don't have ways to retrieve data. I'm a bit old school still, so the only trick I know is to pop it in the freezer for 30 minutes and then try to copy everything before it dies again. That, of course, doesn't always work. ~_^

Sometimes the boot sector is corrupted and windows won't load then either. In that case, the data is retrievable if the drive is slaved to a new drive with a fresh copy of windows. Win2000 used to repair such things for you, but the newer windows don't, to my knowledge.

I will continue to keep my fingers crossed for you. (sorry if I missed an update to this event, I've been offline for a couple days...)

[tinhuviel.livejournal.com]

No update yet. I'm still waiting on my Geek in Shining Armour to call with good news.

[turelie.livejournal.com]

heheh well, then I shall keep the fingers crossed...tho it makes it harder to type. ~_^

[tinhuviel.livejournal.com]

Do what I do and type with your toes.

[turelie.livejournal.com]

ROFL!!