Blue Screen of DEATH

Important announcement!!!
My computer has DIED in its SLEEP. So basically, I woke up and went to my computer. I opened the screen and waited for it to wake up. And then I saw it - DISASTER - I got the blue screen of Death saying it was unable to start up.

When I say "my computer" I actually mean the laptop that belongs to my Estonian advisor and I have borrowed this for my stay here in San Diego. It's 3 years old and starts up slowly but when it's working it's quite okay.

Oh, I know what's causing it, I thought. Yesterday it was asking for a restart because it had just installed Windows Updates. It's okay, I'll take it to the lab and I'll have someone start it in Safe Mode so I can do a system restore. That should do the trick. I got it to the lab and it was started in safe mode and for a moment everything seemed to go by plan but then it showed the blue screen of death again. Apparently, it was missing a file, something like hsfp or something like that. It said I need my Windows XP disc to recover my computer. Do I have that here - NO!

I went to the UCSD computer help desk and showed them the warning message I got. The guy there looked at me and looked at the message and said, "this is the file that the computer uses to read data from your hard drive. If the hard drive fries, this is the first file that it can't read because it is the most commonly used file. I can install XP on it, but 9 times out of 10, the computer is still unable to work and even then it can crash again at any moment - lasting anywhere from 2 days to 6 months."

Noooooooooo.... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! MY COMPUTER!!!! NOOOOOO!!!!

So here's the real story - my hard drive is dead and I'm gonna buy a new one. I will also get an external hard drive box for it so I can later just use it as an external hard drive. I just want to have a working computer during my last week here. I can have Win XP reinstalled on it at the technical desk, but with everything else, I'm on my own. I just hope that all the hardware will work properly. I won't have my programs, but I can check my email and continue my blog at least.

Lost data - fortunately not too much of it. I don't usually use this laptop and most of what I had here is backed up in Estonia and I simply burned on CDs to take with me to San Diego. However, I haven't made any back-ups with this computer in San Diego. The data generated during my stay is lost. This includes about 700 images taken with my camera and some files I used as tools when I was working on a website from my computer. Fortunately, I made some updates there yesterday evening and uploaded all the updates immediately.

Right now my fried hard drive is still in the technical workshop - they got the images from my hard drive but they're all corrupt. They're running some repair software on it to see if they can fix them. I'm not too hopeful. The pictures I made in LA are backed up - I copied them on my USB memory stick and Rachel copied them on her computer. And I have been uploading my fave pictures on this blog (thank God for the blog!!!!).

I shall not update the blog during the weekend and even after that it will be tricky. I will do what I can. I will have no computer access for two whole days. I already have withdrawal symptoms just thinking about it. I already bought a book. I shall have so much more time now. I shall live like a caveman for a while - no Internet and no computer. I feel like something is really missing from my life. I shall use this chance to be outside more and spend time just relaxing and watching at the ceiling.