BSOD

The 'blue screen of death', they call it. It's a lovely little device that lets you know your computer is a goner.

Why mention it? Because I was greeted by one when I turned on my computer Saturday.
I was on my way out of town, so I didn't think all that much of it. I figured that when I had time I could sit down and figure out what went wrong and how to fix it.

I get back Sunday night, go do my Fowler show (which was awesome this week, by the by), grab some beers with the cast, come home, and see that the BSOD remains. No time to worry about that. I get some rest.

I wake up Monday. Time to temp all day. I assemble furniture fresh out of the box from the Chinese factories for a furniture company sample show. Then I run some errands, have a Cowlick show, and head home.

Screen: Still blue and deathy.

No worries. I'm sleepy from a long day. Snore. Snore.

From 7:30 this morning until sometime after noon I try to figure out what's wrong and how to fix it. I get the standard Dell runaround and they pretty much tell me that I have to buy a new hard drive and start from scratch.

I say, how much will that cost? They say at least $150. I ask what the dimensions of the hard drive are so I can shop around. They won't tell me. The guy refuses.

Me: "You won't tell me what size hard drive my laptop requires?"
Him: "I told you, 40 gigabyte, 60 giga..."
Me: "No. I mean the dimensions. Inches."
Him: "I won't tell you that."

The guy then tries to tell me that only Dell hard drives will work in my laptop. Horsecrap. Dell doesn't even make hard drives, to my knowledge. They use Hitachi or Samsung or whatever parts like anyone else.

I tell him I want to speak to a supervisor.

He hangs up on me.

Eventually I get a guy who helps me partition, format, and reset my existing drive. Worked like a charm, but it wiped out all of my notes from Dallas, all of my old work emails, and anything else I forgot to back up on my existing hard drive.

Great. Square one. Still, at least it's a square.