Computer Agonies

Yesterday my desktop computer crashed. Up came the dreaded black screen with grayish letters. The message said something about "config system." All techies whom I consulted greeted this news with solemnity and lots of maybe's and if's.
-----

My computer is now in the repair shop, a reliable facility which will recover the data if at all possible and reload the operating system. If some kind of partition is corrupted, all the data will be lost — documents, lesson plans, grade book, pictures, financial records, the whole lot. Once the operating system and the data, if possible, are restored, I will have to reload and download the software I was using. I spent hours yesterday searching my messy home office for those software disks; I think I've found all of them, but once I get my machine back, I'll be spending hours trying to get the computer back to its former operation.

Of course, I was not fully backed up. I was planning to get my external drive and back up fully on Friday. **sigh**

I'm trying not to go into mourning prematurely nor to be too optimistic about recovering the data.

I am now consigned for a full three weeks to this laptop, which will be backed up as soon as the external hard drive is delivered. Too little, too late, for my desktop.

Lesson learned — the hard way, as usual.

Oftentimes, I feel as if the technology upon which we so rely on is a curse just waiting to happen.