A week in hell…
Ok so maybe it wasn’t quite like hell last week but it was definitely a week that royally blew. Everything that could go wrong went wrong for me at work. It was just one of those weeks that I wish would just end…. but it only got worse until the weekend finally came around the corner. What really topped things off was the near disaster with my laptop on Thursday morning.
I made some changes to a software application that I had been working on Wed night. These changes were recorded onto a work laptop that night and I left the machine on all night. Thurs morning - I wake up.. close the laptop lid and then bring the laptop to work. When I get to work at 8am, I dock the laptop and lift open the cover..
Nothing.
Umm ok. I guess it the hibernation didn’t work quite right. No problem - just press the power button and reboot the system.
Nothing.
Nothing but a humm… the humm of the heatsink fan unit.. and the hum of the hard drive spinning but nothing else.
After trying to reboot the machine about 20 times, I called IBM Support and feared the worst - that they would tell me that I would have to send the laptop in. What’s worse is.. I really needed the data that was on the hard drive and there were no spare 2.5 inch hard drive adapters around in the office.
Unfortunately they told me exactly what I did not want to hear so I went ahead and tried to salvage the hard drive. Why? The goal was to go out and purchase an adapter to connect to my desktop PC. I didn’t care about the laptop at this point - I really needed the data on the drive.
As the clouds continued to gather, I soon realized that the hard drive was making a strange rattling noise - almost as if there was a loose screw inside. OMG.. could the drive be dead also? With the HD removed, there was no change to the laptop - no POST, no nothing.
I called the folks at PC Mall to see if they offered data recovery if I needed it and yes they indeed do.. at a cost of 200+ dollars. The person on the line then asks me.. “what OS was on it?” and I mention Windows XP and the following response was priceless..
“uh oh.. there’s security on it!.. it’s going to be hard getting the data out!”
So I instantly knew this guy was a joke.. I quickly got off and decided to drive to the PC Mall location in Santa Monica since I really needed to see if the 2.5 inch hard drive adapter would work. 20 minutes later I’m back in the office and about to try the adapter.
Crowds surround my desk and I wait in nervousness.. someone mentions that perhaps I should sell my soul to see if it would help.. I don’t recall making such a deal but lo and behold the drive works and my desktop is able to see the contents of the unit.
I spent the rest of the day recovering my work and crunching along with my work.. but I learned my lesson… Check your code in often.. check it in always and backup your work always.
The week still sucked and I’m still awfully tired now as a new week begins but I don’t think it can get much worse..
