I woke up this morning to a funny noise coming from my laptop. A grinding noise, that I had hoped was anything but the hard drive. The machine wouldn’t wake up so I powered it down and the noise slowly ground to a halt. Now when I power it on, I get the grinding noise and a folder in the center of the screen that flashes to a question mark, then finally a giant “NO” sign, you know, the circle with the line through it. That’s computer hieroglyphics for, no boot drive.
I knew it was coming, my little Powerbook G4 is over 4 years old now and certainly at the end of it’s life cycle. Recently I picked up the new iLife 08 and was disappointed to learn that the new iMovie would not even install on it. I knew the end was near, I just didn’t know how near.
I guess there is never really a good time for a drive crash, but this couldn’t come at a worse time, I’ve been at the lake for 5 months now and haven’t done a full backup in all that time. Fortunately I did a partial last Tuesday night when I was in St. Louis, but that was mostly pictures. Due to space limitations, for that past couple of years I have stored my pictures and music on portable external drives, so for the most part that data is safe, but there will be some loss of the most recent stuff. Not to mention, my Quicken data.
It stinks, but the worst part is, now I don’t have a laptop, or the $$$ for a new one. On a good day, I would packing up right now and preparing to head into St. Louis. I could be at the Apple store when they opened and get a new MacBook Pro. But, something tells me today’s not going to be a good day.
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