{scary thundery voice}
DOOOOOOOMMM
My computer hard drive has a terminal condition. It’s dying slowly as we speak. The buzzing comes more often. It gets so hot I am surprised the keys are not melting. Or maybe its the fan. Either way, the thing is dying. A borrowed hard drive did not create a buzzing sound so those who know these things feel 95% sure its the hard drive.
It is a 3-4 year old laptop. It has a certain type of hard drive style they stopped using about 50 seconds after my Visa payment went through (which is the story of my life) So the various computer docs I consulted did not give me much hope that a replacement hard drive could be found.
But one has been found!
A 160GB Seagate of appropriate style has been located. The current drive is only 80GB and is a Seagate as well. It has been ordered & will be here by the end of the week.
Which is why I have this cloud of doom hanging over me.
I have to load a hard drive from the ground up. Operating system, drivers, software…my GOD the SOFTWARE!!! All the little tweeks and fiddly things I have done to this laptop over 3+ years & no longer recall doing or downloading. Little adjustments to get things just the way I like.
I’ve got a huge list of software & serial numbers. Half the software was downloaded & I have no disc for it. I am using a version of ACDSee from 3 years ago. There is no place on their site to download that version. I’ve had to email them with my serial number & hope they hook me up with a link.
Windows Live Writer? Download. Firefox? Download. Audible Manager, Creative Media, Picasa? Dowload, download, download. Anti virus, tweet deck, add ons, plug ins, updates… And I don’t exactly have a rocking cable internet connection.
They have some software at DH’s office that will copy your HD onto another one, but it partitions the new one & of course there are registry issues to deal with and I’m not entirely sure there is enough space to do that on the new drive. I have recovery disks, but will they work on a different hard drive?
So I have this horrible choice to make… do I want to try copying over the contents of my HD and then have to deal with registry issues or do I want to start from scratch and live in download hell for days? The one bright spot is next week is vacation bible school so I will have a couple hours every morning to sit in the library & use their wireless internet to download.
The real feeling of doom I have though is that three months from now the laptop just dies, the fan collapses and the keys melt and motherboard fizzles and I am left HAVING TO DO IT AGAIN!!
Only with Vista!
