You know, when it comes to computers I’m pretty good with ‘em.
So when I notice that someone who shall remain nameless, has a cracked aluminum bezel, (on their laptop, after repeatedly dropping the poor machine) and suggest that it would be an excellent idea to have the screen replaced ASAP.
I’m not making the suggestion just to hear myself talk.
I know of course in the end that I’m going to be called upon to fix it when the system fails. So one could say that my suggesting the repair is an act of pure selfishness. They’d be right and I make no apologies!
However, when a certain someone decides to ask everyone else they know what they think about spending the $800 to get the machine repaired. Then take these other peoples advice, but still do nothing! I can’t help but be a little annoyed.
Especially when these other people;
1 Don’t know the value of the machine
2 Are suggesting that for $800 you can buy a new machine
3 Are forgetting the little extras like larger hard drive, expanded memory, top of the line processor etc.
Yes, for only a little more than $800 you can buy a new machine. A bottom of the line stripped unit that will in fact run but which isn’t a worthy replacement for the unit being replaced.
This is one of those times when I wonder why I even bother.
The cracked bezel led to flexing of the display near the hinge every time the laptop was opened or closed. This led to plastic supports breaking and falling out of the display, further weakening the assembly.
I said “That needs to be repaired now.”
I was ignored.
Then came the day last week when the display was finally so weak that something inside was shorting out.
This caused the computer to randomly hang or reboot.
Then it was “What’s wrong with my computer?”
I’m thinking, “Well DUH!!!”
Turns out that the short in the display damaged the video processor on the mother board. Which in the case of a laptop typically means total replacement of the mother board.
NOW the cost to repair the machine exceeds the cost to repair it!
Humm,
You don’t have to be psychic to see what happens next.
“Oh My GOD! I can’t finish my whatsit for work! What am I going to do?”
Hey, I’m keeping my mouth shut and watching TV. I do turn the volume up on Lethal Weapon 3. The explosions helped drown out the meltdown.
I’ll wait for the panic attack to subside, to be followed by the self loathing, followed by depression, followed by could I borrow YOUR machine?
That’s when I point out that while it might be possible to restore their data to my machine I doubt that I have enough room to accommodate a 750GB drive.
I also point out that my machine has my book, and my client data on it and that I’ve got appointments next week that will no doubt require me to have my machine.
I suggest that the person get in their car and go to the Apple store. When they get to the Apple store, I suggest that they purchase a new machine and that they don’t forget to purchase Apple Care. Then I say buh bye!
That of course is not what happened. OHHHHH NO! Nothing in my life is ever that simple or straight forward.
After searching for a day or so, for any alternative to purchasing a new machine.
The used market provided a nice solution. That can also be read as CHEAP!
Saturday evening a new laptop appeared in the house. Well gently used, it’s in great condition and it’s the next generation up from the laptop that suffered such an undeserved demise.
It sat on the counter, nothing on it’s mind, all night.
This morning I woke the little guy up and started trying to figure out how to restore the backup data without restoring the entire operating system.
I figured it out in no time, then found a nasty little bugaboo.
The other person had 377GB of data stored on the DESKTOP of the old machine. The problem is that the maximum capacity of the hard Drive on the new machine is 299 GB
OOOPS!
Talk about 25 pounds of shit and a 5 pound bag!
First, WHO keeps that amount of data on their desktop?
Then I started poking around and could tell it was mostly video.
Uh oh… it’s probably not the family Christmas.
The restore utility is a utility that restores only a selected set of folders at the user level.
Yes I could restore the desktop folder if I had enough room but I can’t select the important folders in the desktop folder.
At this level with this backup routine, it’s kind of an everything in a folder or nothing affair.
Ok time to get clever!
First I’ll restore everything but the desktop.
Then I’ll see if I can navigate the backups themselves, digging into the data and bringing back only the really important stuff.
NO! not the movies your mother shouldn’t see, I’m going for the work stuff.
Thank goodness for UNIX, Terminal, and FTP.
Since I’m the administrator of the network and of all the backups I can, in an emergency do this kind of thing. To be honest I’d rather not!
When you go digging around on someone else’s computer or in their backups you almost always find something you wish you’d not found.
But here I am…
Cleaning up another mess.
I really need to upgrade the switches on the network to gigabit. Or I could justify a new WiFi router with 600Mb capability.
But none of that is going to help me today. Today it’s slug it out with the infrastructure I’ve got and learn from what’s not working well, what I need to do.
I laugh when I think about it. I’ve got a network here in my house with storage and speeds that most small or even medium sized businesses don’t have.
Maybe I should come up with a way to capitalize on that. Humm another thought for another day.
SIgh, an hour to transfer one of the work folders. It looks like there’s about a DVDs worth of data in that one.
I go back to editing my book, then I realize I could blog a bit and that brings us to here.
I can’t help but notice that we’d never have gotten to “Here” if someone had simply done what I said to do in the first place!
Live but don’t learn seems to be the motto lately!
