I’m one of those eternally optimistic people who never think the “worst case scenario” will happen to me. I never buy extended warranties on electronics, sign on for the extra insurance they try to sell you when you rent a car or get suckered into buying travel insurance when I’m planning a vacation. That’s all for losers, gloom-and-doomers who think every step they take is just another excuse to step in dog poop. So after the stock market crash wiped out my retirement/college savings and my husband and I both lost our jobs, I guess I should have adjusted my own view, become more cautious and stopped brazenly spitting into the wind.
Right now, I feel like I’m covered in loogies.
On top of everything else that has happened to us lately, here’s the latest: my hard drive crashed. Completely fried and deceased. I now realize I completely ignored the warning signs. My trusty computer was a Mac, after all. Aren’t they practically indestructible? Their clean, sleek forms lull you into a false sense of technological invincibility. I have to admit, my PC never makes me feel that way. It’s kind of like comparing Gwen Stefani and Heather Locklear. One seems smooth, hip and totally in control, out in front of the next trend. The other has held up well through the years and managed to stay relatively current, but really could self-destruct at any moment.
But I digress. Did I mention there were warning signs? Even as the trusty PC lumbered along like the steady tortoise, the Mac was the speedy hare and definitely the favorite thanks to its cool features. But a couple of months ago, we all noticed that the Mac seemed to be getting a little overloaded, asking us to delete files before more could be added.
Did I also mention that the two main users of the Mac are my teenage daughters? For those of you who don’t enjoy the privilege of housing teenagers in your home, here’s a simple equation: teenagers + Mac = Itunes. And Facebook. But Facebook doesn’t fry your hard drive. Massive Itunes libraries do. At least that was a major contributor. But I found out later that my hard drive was relatively puny by current standards—only 160 GB—and really was not able to withstand the amount of data and downloads that were being heaped on.
My bad. I forgot that a two-year old computer is really just one snotty-blow from being a used Kleenex these days.
Anyhoo, after the first signs that the computer was about to blow, came a real hard slap of reality. One night about a month ago, my daughter was on the Mac trying to get on the internet and the screen just froze. She eventually turned the computer off and when it came back on again, there was a grey screen and folder with a question mark in the center, blinking…and blinking. No amount of mouse clicking or rebooting could erase that malevolent, pulsing, question-marked folder of doom.
I ran to the Apple store the next morning. The Genius at the store sucked in her breath when I described the symptoms. It was clear this was terminal—the hard drive was gravely wounded and would not recover. However—I told you bad things didn’t happen to me!—the hard drive still had a pulse and the data could be saved. She recommended a larger hard drive be put in and nodded in a knowing way like Yoda when I mentioned that I had children in high school.
The Mac was scheduled for immediate surgery. The augmentation of my hard drive would take it from a boyishly-bosomed Kelly Ripa to a bodaciously-buxom Anna Nicole Smith overnight. (That’s from 160GB to 500GB for those of you who actually care.) Eureka! My luck was NOT turning for the worse! Could employment and a robust retirement portfolio be far behind?
We got the computer back and WOW! Faster, better, stronger—invincible once again! They even gave me the old, burned out hard drive as a souvenir and mentioned that backing up data once in a while might be a good idea. Whatever! Now all the data that had been overwhelming the old hard drive was just bouncing around in all that 500GB of space!
That was three weeks ago. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
Last Thursday night, the same thing happened. My daughter attempted to access the internet, the Mac froze, then the blinking folder of doom again. HOW COULD THIS BE? I rushed the computer in again on Friday morning and they called me with the diagnosis that afternoon. Actually, before they gave me the bad news, they asked if I had kept the old, almost dead hard drive “souvenir” from when the hard drive was first replaced. Uh-oh. My mind flashed back to the day, about a week after we got the “new and improved” Mac back from repair, where I looked at that old, dead hunk of metal that had started this mess, and unceremoniously dropped it into the garbage. What use other than as a doorstop could it possibly be to me now! (Remember—I don’t ever think “worse case scenario”).
When I confessed to the technician that that old sucker was landfill bound, there was a moment of silence. When he told me that this time, there was no hope of reclaiming any of my data, that the new hard drive had some fatal flaw and would have to be replaced, I was stunned. I was actually at the grocery store at the time and had mindlessly wandered away from my cart as I took in this news. I found myself leaning against a freestanding display of precooked bacon and only snapped out of it when the whole display came tumbling down. I hung up with the repair guy, picked up the bacon, checked out and shuffled dejectedly to my car.
On the way home, I mused over the losses: the Itunes, the homework, the unfinished columns and worst of all…the photograph library. This computer only has two years of files on it and we did make prints of all the pictures, but still, that is a very painful loss.
We get the new, replaced hard drive installed on Monday, and should be back in business. But my sunny outlook on life has finally taken a hit. If losing jobs and crashing portfolios weren’t enough to do it, this event was the final straw. I’m buying an external drive and will actually “back up” my important data.
I really hate to give up my optimistic nature, but all of a sudden the thought of booking a rental at the Outer Banks in August is conjuring up the word “hurricane” in my brain. Did I say I never bought travel insurance? Time to start thinking like a “blinking folder of doom”. At best, a cautionary tale and at worst, an unfortunate reality of the times.
Right now, I feel like I’m covered in loogies.
On top of everything else that has happened to us lately, here’s the latest: my hard drive crashed. Completely fried and deceased. I now realize I completely ignored the warning signs. My trusty computer was a Mac, after all. Aren’t they practically indestructible? Their clean, sleek forms lull you into a false sense of technological invincibility. I have to admit, my PC never makes me feel that way. It’s kind of like comparing Gwen Stefani and Heather Locklear. One seems smooth, hip and totally in control, out in front of the next trend. The other has held up well through the years and managed to stay relatively current, but really could self-destruct at any moment.
But I digress. Did I mention there were warning signs? Even as the trusty PC lumbered along like the steady tortoise, the Mac was the speedy hare and definitely the favorite thanks to its cool features. But a couple of months ago, we all noticed that the Mac seemed to be getting a little overloaded, asking us to delete files before more could be added.
Did I also mention that the two main users of the Mac are my teenage daughters? For those of you who don’t enjoy the privilege of housing teenagers in your home, here’s a simple equation: teenagers + Mac = Itunes. And Facebook. But Facebook doesn’t fry your hard drive. Massive Itunes libraries do. At least that was a major contributor. But I found out later that my hard drive was relatively puny by current standards—only 160 GB—and really was not able to withstand the amount of data and downloads that were being heaped on.
My bad. I forgot that a two-year old computer is really just one snotty-blow from being a used Kleenex these days.
Anyhoo, after the first signs that the computer was about to blow, came a real hard slap of reality. One night about a month ago, my daughter was on the Mac trying to get on the internet and the screen just froze. She eventually turned the computer off and when it came back on again, there was a grey screen and folder with a question mark in the center, blinking…and blinking. No amount of mouse clicking or rebooting could erase that malevolent, pulsing, question-marked folder of doom.
I ran to the Apple store the next morning. The Genius at the store sucked in her breath when I described the symptoms. It was clear this was terminal—the hard drive was gravely wounded and would not recover. However—I told you bad things didn’t happen to me!—the hard drive still had a pulse and the data could be saved. She recommended a larger hard drive be put in and nodded in a knowing way like Yoda when I mentioned that I had children in high school.
The Mac was scheduled for immediate surgery. The augmentation of my hard drive would take it from a boyishly-bosomed Kelly Ripa to a bodaciously-buxom Anna Nicole Smith overnight. (That’s from 160GB to 500GB for those of you who actually care.) Eureka! My luck was NOT turning for the worse! Could employment and a robust retirement portfolio be far behind?
We got the computer back and WOW! Faster, better, stronger—invincible once again! They even gave me the old, burned out hard drive as a souvenir and mentioned that backing up data once in a while might be a good idea. Whatever! Now all the data that had been overwhelming the old hard drive was just bouncing around in all that 500GB of space!
That was three weeks ago. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
Last Thursday night, the same thing happened. My daughter attempted to access the internet, the Mac froze, then the blinking folder of doom again. HOW COULD THIS BE? I rushed the computer in again on Friday morning and they called me with the diagnosis that afternoon. Actually, before they gave me the bad news, they asked if I had kept the old, almost dead hard drive “souvenir” from when the hard drive was first replaced. Uh-oh. My mind flashed back to the day, about a week after we got the “new and improved” Mac back from repair, where I looked at that old, dead hunk of metal that had started this mess, and unceremoniously dropped it into the garbage. What use other than as a doorstop could it possibly be to me now! (Remember—I don’t ever think “worse case scenario”).
When I confessed to the technician that that old sucker was landfill bound, there was a moment of silence. When he told me that this time, there was no hope of reclaiming any of my data, that the new hard drive had some fatal flaw and would have to be replaced, I was stunned. I was actually at the grocery store at the time and had mindlessly wandered away from my cart as I took in this news. I found myself leaning against a freestanding display of precooked bacon and only snapped out of it when the whole display came tumbling down. I hung up with the repair guy, picked up the bacon, checked out and shuffled dejectedly to my car.
On the way home, I mused over the losses: the Itunes, the homework, the unfinished columns and worst of all…the photograph library. This computer only has two years of files on it and we did make prints of all the pictures, but still, that is a very painful loss.
We get the new, replaced hard drive installed on Monday, and should be back in business. But my sunny outlook on life has finally taken a hit. If losing jobs and crashing portfolios weren’t enough to do it, this event was the final straw. I’m buying an external drive and will actually “back up” my important data.
I really hate to give up my optimistic nature, but all of a sudden the thought of booking a rental at the Outer Banks in August is conjuring up the word “hurricane” in my brain. Did I say I never bought travel insurance? Time to start thinking like a “blinking folder of doom”. At best, a cautionary tale and at worst, an unfortunate reality of the times.
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