Humpty Dumpty crashed

Computers!  I can’t live without one and I hate them when they crash, which is exactly what my hard drive did last weekend.

I couldn’t email anyone, couldn’t get to my files for altered art projects, word documents, files that I need to communicate with our Harley Owners Group members, pictures, music, EBay, family, Google, poems, my mom’s cookbook, and the list goes on and on.  My life altered unwillingly.  

My husband Larry let me use his work computer to do some basic communication for email but it was very basic.  I had no address book.  No paper copy.  I couldn’t even call my family because the phone numbers were locked up on a dead drive.  I cried.  I did have a back up drive but when it was connected to my husband’s computer, the address book was overridden.  I quickly shut it down afraid to loose anything else.

The person in India on the help line for Dell kept telling me he understood, but he didn’t.  I had to listen carefully because even though he said all the right words his accent left me saying, “What?” over and over again.  I told him I had a technician look at the computer and the Code 7 meant my hard drive crashed and died.  He kept asking me what the technician did to my computer.  I told him if I knew that I wouldn’t have called a technician, I would have done it myself.  All I wanted was a new hard drive and a Dell authorized technician to install it quickly.  Finally I told him just give me a supervisor to authorize my new hard drive but I was left on hold again.  Thirty minutes later and I had an authorization number and a number for installation.

The contract installer for Dell who arrived with my new drive did the job in minutes, couldn’t imagine why I was told it would take over a week, and was friendly and courteous.  I even tried to recruit her for our Harley Owners Group since her husband owns a Harley.

Part one:  installed.  Now my friend Jeannie will install my software in a few days and her son Shane will try to retrieve information off my old drive.  

Part two:  Shane retrieved all my data off the dead hard drive, copied my files to disc and then wiped my old drive clean; so clean no one will ever be able to retrieve so much as one little letter.

Part three:  Jeannie and her husband Mike came to our home and the guys talked and Jeannie put my humpty dumpty computer back together again.  

My thanks and gratitude to Jeannie and Shane for fixing what I can only imagine goes on inside a computer.  Their knowledge and skill is just amazing.

Part four:  at about 4 AM I personally had my programs loaded, the additional security up and running, and my art files visible and I can go back to work.

Life goes on.