I'm writing this from my retired iBook.
Yesterday, the hard drive on my newer Macbook failed. I'm guessing it arrived somewhere around December 14, 2007. I tried to open Safari, and it locked up. I rebooted, and then tried to open Firefox and nothing happened at all. Other programs seemed fine, and I was rather mystified. I repaired permissions, no change. I ran the disk verification program, and there was an error. Unlinked sibling somethingorother. So I booted from the install disk and tried disk repair. The disk couldn't be repaired. Tried fsck from the terminal, and things just got worse. Now the computer wouldn't boot normally at all (though I could boot from the install disk).
I called Applecare and spent about 40 minutes on the phone, mostly turning the computer off and turning it back on again, while listening to the tech apologize and say "this is really weird" again and again. I wasn't entirely confident of the dude's skills, but finally, he decided the only option was to erase and re-install of OSX. I have a recent Time Machine back-up, so I agreed. I should've booted into target mode and pulled off my document folder, but by that point, I was in full-on panic mode. He gave me a case number and told me to call back if it didn't work.
Within not much time at all, the install failed, with a large yellow triangle and at least one exclamation point. I called Applecare back and got a very loud, very perky woman who took down my error and went off to "investigate it." By which, I think she meant read all the stuff from the previous call. When she came back, she asked if I wanted to try again. "I don't think so," I said. "Based on everything we've done so far -- and the fact that it took a very long time for the computer to tell me I had a disk on which I could install OSX, I think the disk needs repair."
So Errol is going home to Apple in a few days. I'm wondering if I should try to remove the skin I put on him, or if I should just leave it and replace it if it's missing or damaged when Errol returns.
I'm lucky, though, that Errol's skin is the largest of my worries. Using ana's laptop (the only other computer in the house with TimeMachine installed), I retrieved my documents. They're slightly out of date, but I have copies as email attachments of anything important. Friday, I spent the day in a meeting, so I didn't create anything new. Thursday was a short day, and I basically worked on the presentation I was giving Friday. I have a hard copy of my presentation and of another project I was working on. Any pictures or music from the end of last week would be backed up on my camera or iPod. I am really really lucky.
And I have a backup computer in the form of farley, the iBook G4 I bought in 2004. I can't believe how slow he is, and he's not so happy about playing videos from hulu (his little fan hasn't stopped running since I tried to watch The Colbert Report), but he'll do until Errol comes back from the shop.
It's kind of spring here in Massachusetts. The daffodils lining one side of my yard are in full bloom. The crocuses are finished, and the bluebells are nearly done. The tulips have fat buds nearly ready to burst. Yesterday was the one nice day of the long weekend, so ana and I built a bed for my vegetable garden. The bed is 4'X16' and 10" high, which means I'll be able to grow more than a handful of tomato and chili plants like I did last year. I want to try some different kinds of chilis and some heirloom tomatoes. Maybe some spinach and some leeks. Maybe even a small pumpkin plant (small pumpkins, I mean, not a small plant necessarily). So next weekend, I think I'll hoe up the weeds, put newspaper down, and start adding compost. I'll need to get additional soil and compost from the garden center (or possibly from the city yard if I can figure out how that works). Between my garden and the CSA, ana and I should be set for vegetables through the summer.
Now we just need a chest freezer.
I called Applecare and spent about 40 minutes on the phone, mostly turning the computer off and turning it back on again, while listening to the tech apologize and say "this is really weird" again and again. I wasn't entirely confident of the dude's skills, but finally, he decided the only option was to erase and re-install of OSX. I have a recent Time Machine back-up, so I agreed. I should've booted into target mode and pulled off my document folder, but by that point, I was in full-on panic mode. He gave me a case number and told me to call back if it didn't work.
Within not much time at all, the install failed, with a large yellow triangle and at least one exclamation point. I called Applecare back and got a very loud, very perky woman who took down my error and went off to "investigate it." By which, I think she meant read all the stuff from the previous call. When she came back, she asked if I wanted to try again. "I don't think so," I said. "Based on everything we've done so far -- and the fact that it took a very long time for the computer to tell me I had a disk on which I could install OSX, I think the disk needs repair."
So Errol is going home to Apple in a few days. I'm wondering if I should try to remove the skin I put on him, or if I should just leave it and replace it if it's missing or damaged when Errol returns.
I'm lucky, though, that Errol's skin is the largest of my worries. Using ana's laptop (the only other computer in the house with TimeMachine installed), I retrieved my documents. They're slightly out of date, but I have copies as email attachments of anything important. Friday, I spent the day in a meeting, so I didn't create anything new. Thursday was a short day, and I basically worked on the presentation I was giving Friday. I have a hard copy of my presentation and of another project I was working on. Any pictures or music from the end of last week would be backed up on my camera or iPod. I am really really lucky.
And I have a backup computer in the form of farley, the iBook G4 I bought in 2004. I can't believe how slow he is, and he's not so happy about playing videos from hulu (his little fan hasn't stopped running since I tried to watch The Colbert Report), but he'll do until Errol comes back from the shop.
It's kind of spring here in Massachusetts. The daffodils lining one side of my yard are in full bloom. The crocuses are finished, and the bluebells are nearly done. The tulips have fat buds nearly ready to burst. Yesterday was the one nice day of the long weekend, so ana and I built a bed for my vegetable garden. The bed is 4'X16' and 10" high, which means I'll be able to grow more than a handful of tomato and chili plants like I did last year. I want to try some different kinds of chilis and some heirloom tomatoes. Maybe some spinach and some leeks. Maybe even a small pumpkin plant (small pumpkins, I mean, not a small plant necessarily). So next weekend, I think I'll hoe up the weeds, put newspaper down, and start adding compost. I'll need to get additional soil and compost from the garden center (or possibly from the city yard if I can figure out how that works). Between my garden and the CSA, ana and I should be set for vegetables through the summer.
Now we just need a chest freezer.
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