The Death of Spleen's Computer

[Spleen]

So I left my dorm at 8:00 PM for a concert I had to play at. My roommate left at 9:00 and before he left noticed that my computer was on and cheerily running its virus scanner.

I got back at 11:45 to find a black screen with startup options: Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Networking, Safe Mode with Command Prompt, Last Known Good Configuration, Start Windows Normally.

Okay, Start Windows Normally. I got the Windows logo and then a flash of gibberish on a blue screen, and then suddenly my computer was restarting from the beginning, and brought me to the screen where I started.

Last Known Good Configuration. Same thing.

Safe Mode. Same thing.

Shit.

My friend Kit called me back; I'd just called him a couple minutes before to see if he wanted to hang out and play video games or something. "Hey, Kit. I was calling before about hanging out, but now I need something else. My computer died on me."

"Bring it over," said the consummate expert.

Kit did things and accessed screens I have never seen on a computer. He removed one RAM chip and then the other, tried things with and without my hard drive, ran tests he could not explain. A program Kit applied was unable to find my hard drive, much less scan and repair it ("Most likely, it's not that the hard drive's too broken for the program, but the program's obsolete for the type of hard drive you have.") With neither a hard drive nor RAM chip in the computer, it still found itself unable to do the things Kit wanted it to (I was surprised that it was even able to turn on without RAM, but Kit told me that the BIOS can run without it), so the diagnosis was that some internal part - motherboard, perhaps, or processor - was dead.

"Well what about my files?" I asked. After all, what is my computer to me but the contents of its hard drive, ways to manipulate them, and one of a series of tubes? So Kit plugged my hard drive into his best computer (of the five he has at school) with a USB cable (please not that this is an internal hard drive...Kit has in a box under his bed in his dorm the random plugs he needs to turn an internal hard drive into an external USB hard drive). The computer began to freeze up when it attempted to read the drive, and Kit canceled the action.

"That's not good," Kit said. "Okay, you have (gibberish gibberish) hard drive connection, and the only computer I have with that is this one."

"No, Kit. Don't take my hard drive out and put it in your computer! That's too much."

He did it, because he's a good friend. The program that wouldn't work on my computer worked on his, and found errors on the drive almost immediately.

"Let's go get ice cream," Kit suggested.

Returning nearly an hour later with a pint of strawberry ice cream for me and toffee popcorn for Kit, it was still running. "How long is this gonna take?" I asked.

"Well...this four-hour estimate here is how long it would take to check a perfectly functional drive," Kit said. "As for yours, I'm going to see where it is in six hours, and if it's not past the first couple sectors, I'm going to pronounce it dead. So...here, play StarFox, I know you've never played through it before." After a couple missions: "Wow, I can't remember the last time I saw someone play through this poorly. You're taking the worst possible route."

"Thanks, asshole, it's my first time."

"No, you can't do a barrel roll to avoid that attack, you just gotta dodge to the upper left of the screen."

So after I beat Andross, we checked and it was pretty much where it was before. "Come back tomorrow," Kit said.

So it's tomorrow, and no word yet; Kit's phone is off. I did leave his dorm at 3 in the morning; that might have something to do with it.

I called my mom today and told her what happens and she's checking on the warranty. Either way, we gotta get me a new computer, whether my files are gone or not. I'll likely order it the second I find out whether mine was warrantied. The computer will likely take 2-4 weeks to arrive.

What this means is the following:
I will be all but entirely absent from AIM until I come home for break on 12/17 and gain access to my old shitty laptop (which I'll probably be wiping clean and reloading from scratch after I take off what I need from it (which isn't much)) and the family desktop.
SE5 will have to wait until I have a computer good enough to play it again; I was gonna stop during finals anyway, so not much change.
MC: Night of Too Many Dangers is on hold until I get home.
It's gonna take way longer to get the character sheet for my Planescape alternate to Idran.
My notes for my tabletop game are now only in my head.
I'm depressed and annoyed.
All my porn is gone and I may have to face the humiliation of buying a Maxim or something.
I'll be playing a lot more video games between now and when finals start; fortunately, a couple hours before my computer died, I bought a used copy of Ocarina of Time at the local game exchange.
Me, Joe, Kit, and maybe some others are all going to the Air and Space Museum tomorrow. Anyone from the area wanna join us?
I'm going to fail all my finals 'cuz my notes are gone.
Still depressed and annoyed.
My knees hurt because there's no chair in front of my roommate's computer right now and I typed this entire thing on my knees.
I finished a whole pint of ice cream last night and now I feel slightly ill.
I took a shower for like an hour today because I had nothing better to do but that and text the girl I'm seeing until my roommate woke up (with a huge hangover and a lengthy memory gap).
I'm ordering some Chinese food because my last meal was at 6 PM last night.
This post is becoming long and ranty.
I should probably clean my room.

[Molokidan]

You have my condolences, Spleen. If my hard drive suddenly died like that, I am quite confident that I wouldn't be as calm as you were about it...

[FF Fanatic 80]

...well, I think I know what I'm doing when I get home from work tonight >_>;


That sucks man =/

[Spleen]

The hard drive that has everything I've done since I got the computer almost two years ago and most of the important stuff I've done since age 13 is still irrecoverable by anyone except a company of specialized professionals (who will be contacted over break), but new information came to light that caused Kit to believe that the problem was in the hard drive only. Well, after purchasing and installing a brand-new hard drive in my computer, everything is running normally. So a lot of what I said above is now okay again.

Shit I'm missing:
All of my and my friends' D&D sheets, except those I happen to find hard copies of when I get home (which are probably going to be very few, as my bedroom was remodeled) and those I put online
Almost two years of chat and IM logs, including the majority of logs in Metro City and Strangeness in New York and information about the characters in Night of Too Many Dangers
Several of the D&D books I got recently (I don't know which ones yet; I did have nearly all of them on a flash drive, so they're safe)
D&D eTools, which makes NPC generation six bajillion times faster.
Everything I'd need to either restart TUOB or start something new in the setting except what's online (which is a lot, to be sure)
The real names of the six bajillion RL friends I can't identify on my buddy list
The identity of the man who really shot JFK
Some music; most was on my external hard drive
All my freaking ROMs and saves, several of which were near completion (fortunately, my cherished 100%-completed Kirby Super Star is on a cartridge) and the far-reaching campaign of the Caphar Protectorate in Space Empires V
The notes I was gonna use to pass my finals (turns out I didn't need them because I'm hardcore awesome).
My backup copy of Darkknight's immortal soul
Freaking Microsoft Word. I don't have Word right now, isn't that ridiculous?
My really cool desktop theme. I miss my blue steel-colored windows and awesome font.
My hit list. Dammit, now I can't remember who I was gonna kill.
Porn.

[Ganonfro]

Lets face it Spleen, the porn is the main thing you lament over. It was last, but certainly not least!

[Spleen]

;_;

[Kai]

Well, Brian and I have copies of most of your D&D books (I think) and what we don't have you could get from Zemyla, I'm sure.

For word processing you may have to deal with the new version of OpenOffice.org's stuff.

RP logs: You know I've probably got all that. Catch me on AIM or poke me to keep my archives updated. I updated them a few weeks ago, and they're still at http://kai.rpgww.org/Logs/ .

If there's anything else I might have, let me know.

[Capntastic]

Hey is there any way to get that log folder non-spiderable? Every few months one of my friends makes a fake screen name to C&P stuff from RPs I've been in at me. Thanks in advance!