yes indeed, look you see. as you may well have clocked from that outlandish and outrageous introduction, this is, to be sure, one of them computing like digital posts what i do from time to time. one of them ones that i do, from time to time, to help out those what, like me (a bit) know "a bit" about computers and that, but far from all required knowledge as and when something goes wrong.
and, in this instance, things went quite wrong. my pc, one of them "desktop" or if you like "tower" things, sort of kind of went right ahead and died. well, maybe not. if we are to use medical terminology, it all went into a sort of comatose, vegetative state, as in "lights on nobody home" was what happened when i switched it on.
how then am i able to write this if the pc is dead? well, this all happened just prior to Christmas, when i tried to change a DVD Recorder drive, but there is no evidence to suggest that action in itself was the fault. since then i have been using one of them "laptop" or if you will "mobile computers" to do all of this stuff on.
but did i get the tower fixed? well, that would rob me from telling and you of hearing the whole story, would it not. however, yes, i am still typing all of this on one of them more mobile computing devices, which should tell you enough.
first then, a history. maybe wallow in some nostalgia, or otherwise engage in sentimental hygiene once more. as i recall this pc is around ten years old, purchased either in late 2009 or quite early in 2010. the funding of it was interesting. my former, and much beloved fondly recalled place of verk, had a jolly good idea to issue us staff some shares and that. however, the regulators and the tax man took quite a different approach, and so my employers were more or less forced to purchase from us the shares what they had given us gratis. it so happened that i required a new pc at the time, so before anyone else could step in and do something or other with shares, cash, etc, i went ahead and invested.
despite the fact that this tower had travelled far, and i had not done much to maintain it or look after it in any way ("disc defrag" and "disc clean up" just take too long), it had been a pretty good servant. excellent, in fact. sure, it had got ludicrously sluggish and slow for the last year (or two), but i just chose to ignore that. also i ignored the wheezing sounds it made from time to time, and by from time to time yes of course i mean "whenever it was on". so yes it came as quite a shock when it just flat out stopped working for no apparent reason, right after i changed the DVD Recorder drive some four times within the space of five days.
that is an image of inside the tower then, and yes of course in the greater glory of Commodore 64 mode. whereas i was, am, comfortable doing stuff like adding a DVD Recorder (obviously), adding RAM (whatever that does) and plugging in a video card, what goes on with the "motherboard" and the hard drive were, are, something of a mystery. and it seemed like it was the hard drive that was the issue, for when i powered up and some lights came on the front of the tower the one light of note which did not was the "HDD" one, which i took as being the disc drive with the operating system and data on. oh, dear.
what to do, then. i took out "bits" and put them back in, to see if that would make the whole thing magically work, then. no, it did not. some consideration was given to popping along with it all to one of them computer and pc menders, but that is quite risky these days. one can never be sure if them pesky, mischievous Russian hackers might have sneaked some mucky, filthy videos and images on to my computer without me knowing about it. about, say, 300GB or so of the stuff. whereas i would totes of course never ever have anything to do with such things, it might be that the mender, and the custodians of the peace in our society, might have a wildly inaccurate interpretation as to how such stuff got on my computer in an entirely unsolicited ways. plus, of course, these days we all keep strictly private and confidential documents of a personal nature stored on such devices.
i just kind of left it in a corner, then, figuring either it would work out how to fix itself, or i would do something with it "eventually". as it turned out, just a couple of months after "the crash", a dear old friend - one who has known me since the 70s - got in touch. i recalled that he was quite the wizard with computers and that. also, that he would be "understanding" of any nonsense placed on my computer by Russian hackers, and could be trusted without question in respect of any personal information.
my enquiry as to whether or not he would care to have a look at it was greeted with a most enthusiastic yes, so long as i obeyed the unwritten code of incidental computer mending. that is, if i wished for my computer to be blessed with his skills, then i must ensure that when his doorway was passed i presented him with three bottles of exotic sounding beer. such terms are something that i would consider most agreeable, and so i presented him with the above.
was this the first hard drive related adventure in error this pc had experienced? not really. it was not all that long after i got it - perhaps a year or so - that a peculiar message came up, giving every suggestion that the hard drive was about to fail, and that i should act now. this i did, after carefully removing any and all files what Russian hackers might have placed on it, by taking it to a mender, as my familiars who might know what to do were on the other side of the equator. quite far over on the other side. in that instance, with it all working, i simply paid the mender to "clone" the apparently about to crash 500GB hard drive onto a shiny new 1TB hard drive, which he did, and it had been all plain sailing since then, right up to it all bombing out.
i should point out, for i know that he is an avid reader, that yes, indeed, i do have another familiar who is most smart with computers. also, he has known me since the 80s. we shall refer to him as Codename Flinty, and of course i would have asked him for assistance and i dare say he would have provided, just that he is about somewhere slightly south of 250 miles from me.
anyway, let us now celebrate the familiar somewhat nearer, who in the interests of fairness we will refer to as Codename Atari, for reasons that would make sense to him and to me if not to some Japanese corporate concern. he graciously accepted the customary offering of three exotic sounding beers, commenting after the fact that the one which appeared to be some sort of tribute to Apocalypse Now was in particular splendid. as it should be.
wasting no time, Codename Atari did all sorts of splendid things so as to understand an work out just exactly what harm or distress had befallen my pc. i shall not bore you with the explicit details, as to do so might give you misleading ideas on how to fix your computer that could make it worse if it is an entirely different issue. but what i will highlight is one of the best things that i have ever seen. Codename Atari, right, took apart one of his computers (he has many), got some special wires out and effectively "jump started" my pc off of that one. it was amazing, man, really cool. but, alas, did not fix the computer.
it did, however, give him valuable, critical information about what had happened, what the consequential problem was and the best way forward. the technical terms are all a bit much for me, but in short either the power supply to the pc or an aspect of the motherboard was "completely f****d", as it were, with a "short" or some loose wiring totally knacking it.
oh dear, i said, and oh no. but not all was lost. Codename Atari said the hard drive was in fact perfectly fine, despite my lack of maintenance and care. in theory all i had to do was purchase one of them "external hard drive cases", pop the hard drive into it, plug it into another pc and extract any and all data that i wanted to from it. presumably whilst doing so being careful not to accidentally copy or back up any files what Russian hackers might have added.
it was so then that i was instructed to leave and purchase such casing. which i did, as can be seen above. as an act of kindness Codename Atari indicated that he could assist me in putting the hard drive into the casing, but further indicated that i should not be a big fanny or a gaylord about it and just have a got at it myself. so, i did.
finding a suitable casing was straightforward enough. Codename Atari provided me with some links to consider, ones that were cases designed for my shape and size hard drive. all i had to do was purchase any of them which struck me as being the right price and the preferential form of delivery. something of a rudimentary review was undertaken by me who did not really know what qualities i was looking for, and soon enough one was purchased for south of £15.
actually the appeal with the one i picked was it seemed to be quite literal "plug and play". the other drives on offer seemed to wish for me to mess about connecting wires and similar within the casing and to the drive. this one featured a simple slot to add the drive on, being not entirely unlike how one might shove a USB stick into a (working) computer.
but yes, when the kit or set arrived i did go a little fanny with it all, contacting Codename Atari and seeing what he suggested. once again the advice was not to be a big fanny and just have a go and setting it up. so, i did.
most happily, it all went together just fine, and powered up with no problems whatsoever. yes it was a little tricky and fiddly to connect it, but no i did not have to use force. also, getting the case to close up after i had taken it apart was a little annoying to, but done.
with that all done, all which remained was to plug the newly created but yet still (hopefully) populated drive into a working pc. in doing so, i had to hope that both the data on the drive was there and available, and that plugging it in to another pc would not somehow total the pc being plugged into, for i am now running quite short of spare computers. off i went, then.
victory! the "new" external drive picked up, and i was able to see all my files (and the ones what presumably Russian hackers put on). well, with some patience. as it turned out there was some 930GB of data on the drive. this took the computer what i plugged it into somewhere north of one hour to "index" or sort and list, as it were. but, all good.
what is there in this story for you, the people, to take away with you? a bit, i guess. should you have a computer what has died, it might be that like me you go "oh bother" at the prospect of the fear that you may not have gotten around to backing up important stuff. this is not so by default. quite a few things can go wrong with one of them computer things. hopefully if this fate or harm befalls you, it is so that luck rides with you, and the information and data can still be accessed.
as for where to next, well i do not know. i suppose at some stage i shall get a new PC, or one of them "refurbished" ones. this will depend entirely on me being able to get a Windows 7 one set up. no, oh no, i am not having anything to do with Windows 10. the very fact that such proper computer luminaries, such as Codename Atari, will not have it within any discernible radius of their own devices pretty much tells another story.
my thanks to all involved with this story, and that does indeed include you, dear reader.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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