Lesson 1: Using your computer during a lightning storm is not a good idea.
There was a lightning storm last night—a pretty intense one, in fact. I had just finished watching CSI (in case you’re wondering, I don’t watch that on a regular basis) and I decided to do a few things online. About ten minutes later, my computer froze. Yikes. (Apologies to anyone I was talking to on MSN at the time.) So I pressed “RESET,” hoping for the best, and I see this message:
Invalid system disk
Press any key to continue
“Aiyah~!” I think. Needless to say, the next hour and the better part of this morning have been devoted to hunting down disks, installing programs, and fervently wishing things would work.
Lesson 2: When you need to find installation disks, it will be next to impossible.
There are two drawers in my computer desk. I know I keep the one for Internet on the left-hand side. Lo and behold, it’s not there. Aigh. I find it half an hour later in a box in the right-hand side. What was I thinking?
Lesson 3: Backup often.
I think I lost 10 GB of music last night. I am not a happy camper. Luckily, I backed up all my music about three weeks ago, so I’m only missing the most recent downloads (including F.I.R.’s new album! I hadn’t even listened to it yet.) I can’t think of much site work that can’t be recovered (thank goodness I upload as soon as I finish working on something.)
So far, I’ve re-installed:
Windows XP
Office XP with Frontpage
Adobe Photoshop 7.0
Norton Systemworks
For some reason, sound is not working (I hope my sound card isn’t fried! Not that I could tell anyway) and I haven’t re-installed the printer drivers yet. Or the router, for that matter. *sigh*
Progress report at 12:33 pm: I am working on re-downloading Unlimited, but I’ve installed AVG antivirus (should I go for Sophos instead?) and ZoneAlarm’s free firewall. Oh, and I have Firefox back. I am most incensed, however, that I have lost all my bookmarks. I must have had at least 50 different webpages for language learning and tools. Arrrrgh.
Progress report at 3:01 pm: I think my sound card is fried. Darn. I want to open the case and double check that. Lesson 4: Never buy a computer with an integrated sound card. Or, if you do, don’t leave the computer on during a thunderstorm.