farmdoc's blog post number 562

The Blue Screen of Death. How apt its name is. When you get one, it means something’s wrong with your computer. So terribly wrong that the operating system shuts it down. I got a BSoD last Sunday night – when I was in the next room on the phone with Sweetheart Vivienne. We spoke of something that prompted me to look up something on my computer. That’s when I discovered the BSoD. I rebooted, but a clicking, grinding noise came from the front left corner where the hard drive is, and I couldn’t boot past the initial BIOS screen. Suddenly my heart began to race, my mouth went dry, and I felt sick. I quickly ended our phone call. Then I ran the BIOS diagnosis program which told me it didn’t recognise a hard drive. For the next 30-45 minutes I tried and tried to boot, but the noise occurred each time, and no hard drive was recognised. What a disaster – because I hadn’t backed up some of my data for a month (though I back up some of it each day). I phoned my beloved again, and she gave me the names and numbers of some Melbourne firms who retrieve data from dead hard drives (for about A$1,000). Disconsolate and upset with myself, I went to bed. All night I tossed and turned and worried. Yesterday morning my beloved phoned to see how I and my computer were. I said I was so upset I couldn’t get out of bed to try the computer, but I was 100% sure the hard drive was dead. I asked her to send ‘happy week’ emails to our girls on my behalf. Then, half-heartedly, I pressed the computer’s Start button. And lo and behold – it booted normally! No noises. Just a perfect boot. I couldn’t believe it. I spent the next hour backing up what wasn’t but should have been backed up. And I phoned my beloved to tell her she’s a witch. What happened? Who knows? I don’t. Ah Sweet Mystery of Life. All I know is that it scared the bejesus out of me. And in the next few days I’m getting a portable hard drive which does automatic backups.