Huh, First time I’ve seen that in a while.

About three months ago, I replaced the hard drive in the other half’s computer. I fought with the system to get a functional operating system on the drive but was finally successful and the other half’s computer was suddenly faster and stable.

I thought, “Cool,” and assumed that I wouldn’t have to deal with computer issues for a while. 

Think again! 

This morning, the other half was sitting there in front of the computer with a very puzzled expression. Innocently, I asked, “what’s wrong?”  There are times when you shouldn’t ask questions!

The other half said they’d tried to use the computer just now and were presented with a white screen and that the computer seemed very warm to the touch. I figured it was nothing, a simple hard reset would bring everything back up and then I could go back to beating my head against the wall in the heinous job search.

This was not to be, no amount of cajoling (a.k.a. swearing), incantations, or holding keys down during the boot up process gives me anything but the white screen. I can’t even get to the built-in diagnostics of the system and those are supposed to be in ROM and therefore independent of the hard disk. In other words, I’m wondering if the computer itself is dead because I should be able to get to something that would aid me in the diagnosis of the problem.

An hour later I’m holding the nifty new SSD drive in my hand, wondering why it “sings” when I try to mount it on my computer. This is a solid state device… There are no moving parts and yet when I plug it in to my system the device very clearly makes a high pitched sound.

At the same time, the device refuses to identify itself to my computer at all. Placing the old hard drive in the other half’s  computer confirms that there is nothing wrong with the computer itself and in fact the machine boots happily.

I contact the manufacturer of the SSD and after a brief discussion am directed to please box up the drive for replacement.  The person I was speaking with (an American) recognized a kindred spirit and was pretty forthcoming. Instead of leading me through all sorts of useless diagnostics (which I’d already done) they responded to my question, “Did I miss anything,” with a laugh and said not that they could tell. 

It was refreshing to not have endless apologies and kow-towing. This was two professionals having a technical discussion about a piece of hardware that had died during what we used to call the infant mortality period. They weren’t defensive and I wasn’t angry sometimes shit like this just happens. It’s inconvenient on both sides but it’s reality and nothing is going to change that reality.

A new drive should arrive on Monday. 

Aside from a slightly long wait on hold dealing with the company was a real pleasure. The long hold time was due to lots of people upgrading their computers who probably shouldn’t have been inside their machines in the first place.  Apparently, a lot of “average” people failed kindergarten blocks and are unable to correctly put oddly shaped plugs into equally oddly shaped sockets. The tech & I had a bit of a laugh over that.

Now, the only problem is getting the OS back on the new drive… 

I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it!