While I was out, I had some laptop trouble.  The tale unfolded in email; over the new few days I'm going to post them...  Here is episode 1:

-----Original Message-----
From: Ole Eichhorn [mailto:ole@aperio.com]
Sent: Monday, March 07, 20051:37 PM
Subject: As the laptop turns (seeking sympathy points)

Feel free to ignore this email if you’re busy :)

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This is a cautionary tale which ends badly.  Read it and be forewarned...


So when last we left our intrepid road warrior (me), he had just discovered a loose connection in his laptop’s display screen; wiggling the screen caused the picture to wobble.  Okay, so call next day support.  That’s why we have it.

So I didn’t get next day support, I got three-days-later support, but at least a guy showed up with a new laptop display.  He installed it, and I asked him to wait while I checked it out.  He was a bit grumpy about this – why is it techs always want to leave immediately after they fix something, they’re just going to have to come back if it isn’t right? - and unfortunately the display had a bright line running down the right side, always on.  No good.  Okay, we need another display.

Next day a different guy shows up with another display.  He replaces the display.  Again I ask him to wait while I check it out, again he doesn’t want to.  So the display looks fine, but the loose connection is still there; wiggling the laptop cover causes the display to wobble.  He says I need a new motherboard!  What:0  I don’t believe this – I think it is a loose connection – but whatever.  So he orders the motherboard and says he’ll be back the next day.

Well the motherboard was backordered so it really took three days.  But anyway this morning first thing he shows up with the new motherboard to install it.  I’m going to make a long and painful story short by saying now I have a fried CPU and a cracked laptop case to go with my new display and new motherboard.  (I secretly believe the original display was fine, and the original motherboard was fine, and this was just a loose connection.  But what do I know.)

So now we have a dead laptop, and a new CPU, new heat sink, and new laptop case on order.  I’m not really sure  if there’s going to be anything left.  Stay tuned.

Of course there is one original part – the disk drive.  You would think with all my experience I would have made a FULL backup of my laptop before this all began.  And I had the best intentions – I even went to Fry’s Saturday and bought a new 250GB drive for my server, so I could perform a FULL backup.  But, well, to make another long and painful story short I spent all weekend trying to get a third IDE drive which is bigger than 128GB  to run, and I did, finally, but it took all weekend, and I didn’t have time to do the laptop backup.

    { By the way, Fry’s has a special on Seagate 250GB drives, $125 with a $50 rebate.  Such a deal. }

Did I mention the tech showed up first thing this morning?  Yeah, I let him destroy the computer before I had a chance to do the full backup.  Bad Ole.  Really really bad Ole.

So now I’m going back to Fry’s so I can buy a 2 1/2“ USB drive enclosure so I can attach my laptop drive to my server and do a Ghost backup.  I am dumb but there is a limit to my dumbness.  (Please don’t contradict me on this :)

Stay tuned for the next installment...

Ole

Continue to episode 2, 3, 3.5...