AbsurdBeats

You know how there are things you know you should do because if you don’t do them you’re fucked but you still don’t do them anyway?

Yeah, well, I have plenty o’ experience with that little run-in scenario.

This time around, it was backing up my computer hard drive.

I used to be a champion backer-upper: When I was writing my dissertation I heard a horror story of someone losing a chapter or half her dissertation or something similarly terrifying, so I had copies of copies of copies. I had those crappy little 3 1/2 inch disks in my office, my book bag, at home—and I made print copies (which I kept in various places), just in case.

It was fine.

My next computer had a zip drive (remember those?)—which did me no good when my computer was swiped, because I hadn’t backed up the hard drive between the August purchase and November burglary. I still had all of the disks from copying everything from my old computer, so it’s not like I lost all of my work, but I had done a fair amount of tedious database work which was lost.

Still, when I got the replacement computer, I remembered to back things up. And some time after I moved to Somerville I got an external hard drive and backed stuff on that fairly regularly.

Until it died. Then I putzed about getting another one. I did, finally, then putzed about actually using it, then actually used it. I kept it close so I’d remember to back stuff up regularly, but, you know, I. . . didn’t. Oh, I used it, but not nearly as often as I should have.

Well, I did a disk defrag recently and thought, huh, it’s been awhile since backed my shit up—I oughtta get on that.

And I didn’t.

Then a coupla’ weeks ago my computer began having issues with trying to install an update and thought, Huh, I oughtta back my shit up, just in case.

And I didn’t.

And then a coupla’ days I had that issue with transferring photos from my camera and. . . you know what happened: squat.

So, this afternoon I was on my computer and had a nice long chat with my friend L. on Skype, which meant I’d plugged in my nifty Logitech camera. No problems. I wasn’t feeling great afterwards, so decided to take a nap; when I awoke, I assembled some of my DELICIOUS mushroom-tofu burritos, lifted some weights, showered, then turned on the computer for a delightful evening of Hulu-watching.

You know what happens.

I will spare you all of the details, save the main one: the damned thing wouldn’t move beyond the “Welcome” screen. Repair, restart, stuck. Shut down, start, stuck. Repeat until you’re sick of it, then repeat some more.

Then I thought to get out my netbook and look up what might be the problem, found and tried this and that, then the other thing, then each and all of them again, then something else, then the things I’d done before, and at some point I thought, Hm, I should e-mail GeekHiker with an SOS.

I’m sure he wouldn’t have laughed—much—over the age and un-Apple-ness of my laptop before or while helping me. Still, I thought there was more I could try.

I got information like “memory .DMP in index $I30 of file 449 incorrect” and “The instruction at 0x773D1bcb referenced memory at 0x.00000000. The memory could not be read” and “Bad Image C:\Windows\System32\BCMLogon.dll not designed to run on computer or contains an error” and “System volume is corrupt file system repair completed successfully Error code =0x0 Time takes 271005 ms.”

I have no idea what this means except that it is not good that I am getting these messages.

Anyway, the Windows Support site was actually useful, cluing me into the secret that if you hit F8 just as the computer is booting up you get to these options which just might save you a trip to the computer repair store. More clicking around and trying this and that and nothing working and thinking, Shit, what about a Windows Restore and/or something about mirror imaging?

I was leery, however, because your disk wipes itself before recovering and replacing the wiped info. You do get walked through the steps and can say no before hitting Go, but, man, that seemed extreme.

So I thought I’d try System Restore again. I had tried it before, but thinking it wasn’t working I clicked on it again and it got huffy and “exited the program.” Well, what the hell: I did the same thing again (including clicking on it again), and while I got the exit message, the program nonetheless proceeded to run.

Yay!

I picked the earliest date I could (April 10) because, ah, shit, reasons, but it didn’t want to go back to April 10, so I tried April 24. And it ran. And it completed. And it restarted.

And it booted past the Welcome window! Whoo hoo!

The first thing I did?

Plugged in that hard drive and backed my shit up.

Happy ending, five hours later. I’ll take what I can get.