Lunacy Unleashed

Notes from the field in the War on Spam

It’s dead, Jim

My computer finally gave up the ghost this afternoon. As a few of you are aware, it’s been giving me video problems for quite a while, and today, it’s decided it doesn’t want to give me anything at all.

I’m quite sure all the data on the hard drive is safe, but I can’t access it.

As you might expect, this is going to put a big dent in further development of Bad Behavior. Not to mention everything else I do.

From a couple of quick searches, it seems it would cost about as much just to replace the laptop’s motherboard as it would to replace the laptop entirely. (Not to mention involve a lot more work disassembling it, installing a new system board, and putting it back together.) Either way, it’s money I don’t really have right now.

So at the moment, pretty much everything is on hold. I’ll post more updates as the situation changes.

January 3, 2006 - Posted by | Bad Behavior, Personal, WordPress

8 Comments

  1. […] I’ve suffered a hardware failure on my computer and thus further updates to this site will be few and far between until it’s been resolved. I’ve posted further information for those of you interested in all the hairy details. […]

    Pingback by It’s dead, Jim - Homeland Security or Homeland Stupidity | January 3, 2006

  2. I so know how you feel right now now. The LCD on my laptop went bezerk and it would be better to buy a new laptop than to replace the screen itself. So I just go around plugging my laptop to any monitor I find. Lucky that still works. A little better than my LCD screen though I have to give.

    Comment by Edrei | January 4, 2006

  3. Edrei, I always thought something was wrong with you. And all this time it was just your computer.

    Hm, one of my readers sent in a $15 through PayPal with a note of well wishing. If you also want to contribute, feel free.

    And you can read the companion posting at Homeland Stupidity.

    Comment by Michael Hampton | January 4, 2006

  4. Take the laptop apart. Buy a USB Hard Drive enclosure for 2.5″ hard drive (not expensive). Put the Hard Drive in there, check it out, and see if it reads on another PC.

    Comment by Brad Warbiany | January 4, 2006

  5. I think you can get a converter so that a laptop hard drive can be read in a regular PC. I seem to remember that USB enclosures require a certain type of filesystem… but I could be wrong.

    Comment by Mark Jaquith | January 7, 2006

  6. There are realatively cheap adaptors which convert the 2.5″ HD IDE connector into a “normal” HD IDE connector, plus “5.25” power”. So the latop HD can be built into a desktop PC. The adaptor should be under $10 (1,60 EUR at Reichelt, pictures here: http://www.reichelt.de/bilder/web/C610/ATA44.jpg).

    Such an adaptor saved my ass quite a few times already.

    External USB 2.5″ HD housings should work as well. They do not need a special file system. However, some of these devices do have problems with HDs > 128GB!

    Anyway: you (and your data) have my best wishes.

    Comment by Klaus | January 10, 2006

  7. Yes, I’m well aware of both the adapters and the enclosures. I have one, in fact. The data is all safe, but I can’t do anything with it.

    Comment by Michael Hampton | January 10, 2006

  8. […] Here is the link: Michael Hampton’s Blog Here is the link: Akismet: Spam Karma State -John Havlik […]

    Pingback by Mtekk’s Crib » Blog Archive » New Breed of Spambot? | January 30, 2006


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