The unthinkable has happened. My trusted, beloved laptop, which has served me faithfully for almost three years, has died. I suspect it’s a problem with the motherboard. While I was in Jordan, the power cord sometimes had trouble making contact with the contacts in the power socket on the back. Now, it’s almost impossible to recharge my batteries. I’d replace the part, but apparently it’s glued onto the motherboard, and besides that, the USB ports have stopped reading my flash drives, which makes me think that the problem is much bigger than just the power contacts.
So I’ve lost my laptop. This is no small thing. My computer is practically a part of my soul, like a sword to a samurai. With it gone, I feel…lost. The most valuable material possession I have in this world is my data–my journals, my stories, the things I’ve written–and all of those are on my laptop.
But get this. When I knew for certain that my laptop was dying, I did an awesome little trick. I turned it off, unscrewed the bottom, pulled out the hard drive (the physical hard drive), put it in a 2.5″ enclosure that I bought last year, and accessed it from the FLSR computer like a normal USB mass storage device. My freaking hard drive. And then I transferred ALL of my data (the important stuff at least) to the FLSR computer, where it is now.
Boo yeah! Not only is all my data–my stories, journals, and writings from the last three years of my life–safely backed up in a place where I can easily get to it, but it didn’t cost me a dime. The enclosure cost me about $30, but I’ve had it for a while. If I were to take my laptop into a store to have the data pulled off of the hard drive, it would cost my upwards of $400. Youch! But because my computer is a PC, I can take it apart and put it back together again by myself if I have to.
Now I have to save up for a new laptop. I could have the motherboard replaced, but I think I’m reaching the point of diminishing returns with this computer. It’s expensive to replace it, and once I do, something else is going to fail. Besides, after three years, it’s about time for a new computer.
In the meantime, I can do everything I usually do on public computers, except for photos and podcasts. If I’m lucky, I can figure out a way to do my photography in one of the computer labs on campus (the photo safari is down! It’s so sad!), and I have an old desktop that I might set up in my room for downloading stuff. We’ll see how it goes.
But my data is safe! Woo hoo! I am SO relieved.
