Unfortunately, this time it was my computer. Dear Rosinante served me well for more than 2 and half years, and is quite unlikely to resume service, as it is no longer covered by the warranty and changing its motherboard and CPU is likely to be just as if not more expensive than buying a whole new machine.
It started this morning when I turned the laptop on in order to work on my almost-completed-yet-not-entirely-polished thesis. But after flashing the BIOS, nothing happened. After having turned the machine off and on a few times, only to see the eerie lack of the familiar booting sequence repeated every time.
Long story short, I managed to salvage the hard drive from the poor, not even very old thing, and get at the latest version of my thesis (since I hadn’t taken any backup since Friday and was looking at losing a week of work). I have also been so lucky as to have been able to borrow an old Apple iBook from the department of anthropology, thus making it possible for me to continue working with a minimum of delay.
In that way, this is definitely a happy hardware failure story, if there are any such (well, apart from the fact that I need to buy a new computer!). But I must say that this underlines both the fragility of computer hardware and the dependence we come to have upon it. And it can be somewhat scary to realize how easy it is to lose your work.
Meanwhile, Rosinante is now set to join my old computer, Toadstool, on the ever-growing electronics junk heap. And that despite that all its organs, bar its most vital, still functions just fine – yet since its whole body is built around that piece, it cannot be revived in another form.
… So, do anybody know any charities interested in laptop parts?
Rosinante
4/11-2004 – 14-6-2007
