0802.11
20:10:26

Bogus Journey.

Jump to Comments In 20 years of posessing a personal computer, I have never once, never ever*, had a hard drive crash on me. Not that it even matters, since I make full backups roughly every monthand have had all of my important documents synced across at least two systems at any given time since about 2003 or so.

Today at about 2130 CET, my Apple MacBook hung after acting erratically throughout most of the day. Of course, this wasn no ordinary hang. Eminating from the chassis was the worst possible sound that can ever come from a computer — the hard drive click of doom. It’s the sound, I think, of the read head constantly seeking track 0 and never finding it. But the sound is unmistakable.

A reboot gave the same result as what happened to Alex’s MacBook not three weeks prior — grey screen, blicking folder icon with question mark. I’m not even treated to the happy mac with a question mark that the old machines displayed when they couldn’t find boot media.

Since I’ve been in Italy, though, I’ve had no spare machine, no easy way to back up my data. In fact, all I have is my last complete backup from about July 2007, and a backup of my homedir that I made in early December before installing Leopard. And, of course, my music, which I fortuitiously synced to my iPod before going to Rome last weekend.

Tomorrow I’m going to see if the Apple store in Rome will honor my extended waranty, and whether or not they’ll try to keep my old hard drive. I need to pay some place like DriveSavers whatever ransom money they want so that I can have my finished papers from last semester and all of my notes from this semester back.

This will definately be the last Macintosh I will ever own, though. I’ve had the thing for seven months, now, and it kicks the bucket? I’ll take something more durable that runs unix from now on, thanks.

*Technically, my 286 no longer boots– one of the ram chips went bad several years ago so it could only run at 768KB instead of 1024, and last summer the proto-IDE (MFM?) controller board seems to have died a death after about two decades of service. However, this seems to be well beyond what was required of that good and faithful computer.

2 Comments

  • NRE: Nazz Read Error
    GMT-0500 18:58:58 0802.12 (Tue)

    That’s too bad. 🙁 I mean:
    1) I’m sorry to hear your hard drive crashed.
    2) I’m sorry to hear that you have probably lost all of your documents from last semester. (What was that bit about backing up everything on a monthly basis since 2003, then? I guess you mean when you’re home in the States.)
    3) I’m sorry to hear that you’ve become disillusioned with this whole Mac revolution.

    Well … maybe not #3. 😀 I’m sorry because you seemed excited, but as one who has not bought into this whole “Macs will rule the 2010s” nonsense and as one who is worried about shoddy craftsmanship on Apple’s side of things (e.g. the MacBook solder fiasco of 2006 or the long-running history of iPod failures), I’m convinced that people are just rushing into this thing because it’s the In thing to have. It’s like Tickle-Me-Elmo, Gak, or POGs, only this time it’s for the college-aged crowd. I dunno. MacBooks seem like the Halo of laptops: very popular with the Greek crowd, and semi-popular with the Geek crowd, but proving to be highly overrated.

    Still, I guess one would have to take a Tickle-Me-Elmo at this juncture over Windows Vista. ¬_¬ *feels bad for the family, but they say they like it, so …*

    I hope school is going well for you. It is not going so well over here at the moment. (Although first semester went well — all A’s and B’s according to Purdue, and all High Passes and one Pass according to IU.) Actually, I’m working on some personal problems right now that are interfering with my studies. I’ll be sure to keep you and Kramedoggimus Maximus posted.

  • I had /have a Tickle-Me-Elmo, Gak, POGs and a Mac (though not a MacBook). All four have treated me reasonably well, though the iBook wasn’t ever quite the same after Italy. I think maybe it had something to do with some electrical current variations? I don’t know anything about that, though, except that everyone’s iPods were kicking the bucket over there, too.

    In any case, the Tickle-Me-Elmo still only says two phrases and the POGs still work. The Gak dried up ages ago, but I still have the iBook and we are very happy.