LonnieOlson

Last night I made the mistake of playing with some very strong magnets near my laptop. Magnets are hard to resist, especially when they trigger the magnetic switch that puts it to sleep. Unforunately I moved the magnet too close to the hard drive.

I heard a single click. Fear strikes! I try to play a track in iTunes since it is already open… Beachball of death! Fear turns to terror. I immediately shut it off, and waited a while, each second seemed like an eternity as thoughts of life without my powerbook streamed through my head.

I figure there is no use in trying to boot it back up. I pop in my Tiger install DVD and boot off of it, so far so good. Launch the Disk Utility. I hear a nightmarish grinding noise from under my left palm. Panic!

After some time passed during the grinding from hell, it stopped and displayed my drive with no volumes contained. Anxiety!

I click on the drive and look at the partition tab and see emptiness. Horror!

Launch Terminal and type _dmesg_ and see ??disk4: I/O Error??. Screach! Wail! and finally depression.

Life without my powerbook is not worth living.

But then I realize this is complete death, but only a kind of amnesia. Too bad it is too late to buy a new hard drive. I quickly get online w/ my _winblows_ box that is normally only running World of Warcraft. Checking site after site for prices on a new drive. This is an emergency, I can’t wait for shipping. So I bought a new 60G drive for pickup at CompUSA. Check their store hours… Damn! They don’t open until 10AM.

It is obvious that I didn’t sleep very well.

The next morning I pack my amnesiac laptop and a few extra tools and *drive* to work. I hate driving. Especially to work. But I am willing to sacrifice my comfort for my beloved “Pi”. The first hour at work w/o my baby was dreadful. Watching the clock every second.

9:45AM… Race to CompUSA and get there very shortly after they open. Run up to the counter and ask for my new drive. Race back to work crack open my laptop.

Damn there are a lot of screws, and at least 14 different types before I get to the battery. Erg. Oh well, no one said brain surgery would be easy.

Finally get the new drive in and Pi all closed up. Booted her up w/ the new install DVD. Wonderful, everything works great!

Now it is time to reaclimate Pi to it’s former life. Unfortunately I didn’t have a full backup (that was planned for the future), but at least I had my home directory tarred up on my iPod.

Install OS, Apps, Software Update, etc, etc. Restore most of my home directory. And hours later I have my baby back. New and improved with an even longer memory (40G -> 60G).

Yay! He’s gonna be just fine.