One Of Those Tech Unfriendly Days

Last night the hard drive on my computer started making a strange clicking/clunking sound. Never did that before. After it happened, the computer seemed to go to sleep for about 5 seconds. When I woke up and turned it on, the sound started happening more frequently. I tried a few things to fix the drive but it only got worse. Eventually the computer didn't even recognize the drive altogether!

Thankfully I had copied all my critical data off the computer. So when it died, I was safe. However, I still needed a new one to get back to work. So I walked down to my local NCIX to see what they had in stock. My old one was only 30GB. I was hoping for something in the 60 - 80GB range. No suck luck with what they had on hand. So I settled for a 160GB model; much larger than I required but time was of the essence.

After running a few more errands I got back home and immediately set out to restore Windows XP onto my computer. It's pretty much been an all day affair ever since. Much of the time there's nothing to do but you still have to sit near and watch for prompts. Thankfully I had a second computer to work on.

The next time you ask a friend or family member to fix your computer - for whatever reason - keep in mind that it may take them 10+ hours to do so. The going rate for such work is usually $75 per hour. Just something to think about!