“General Quarters! General Quarters! All hands man your battle stations!”<\/p>\n
I don’t hear this call over the 5MC anymore, but yesterday morning felt as if I was back in the stress of GQ. It was 0530 when I woke, and I thought I would try to go back to sleep.<\/p>\n
Until I saw the glow emanating from the office. I stuck my head in and immediately knew I had to go to GQ.<\/p>\n
There, staring back at me from the darkness of my office was the computer screen, frozen in place, taunting me. The victim of another mid-night Microsoft update.<\/p>\n
My heart skipped a beat or two\u2014I realized I had not backed up in a while. Surely, the system really wouldn’t crash, right?<\/p>\n
At stake? Two recently completed books, one of 128 pages, the other\u2014a whopping 338 pages. I did not relish the thought of having to completely re-work them.<\/p>\n
I really <\/em>did not want to explain the delays do the authors.<\/p>\n And then there was the question of all the financial records. And sales tracking. And photos.<\/p>\n This was followed by the guilt of not having emplaced a suitable backup plan. Oh, the plan was there, the problem was the plan was basically inadequate<\/em>.<\/p>\n With everything at stake, it was definitely time to call in the specialists. For $125, they could solve my problems. In a little over 10 days. Problem was, I needed help now! They said, no problem, we can fix it today for $500.<\/p>\n Again, I hear the Klaxon sounding in my head and a sailor intoning us to GQ over the ship’s loudspeakers. I start to get a real queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. This could be bad.<\/p>\n Real bad.<\/p>\n So I have no choice other than “to do what I have to do.” It is time to buy a new hard drive and operating system. And hope I can slave the old drive to the new.<\/p>\n Did I mention I was a little nervous doing all of this? There’s nothing like a little bit of knowledge, shored up with another computer that has access to the Internet.<\/p>\n Cracking into the computer\u2019s case was a little bittersweet\u2014we came across some of Spike’s fur on the inside. He liked sitting hear the warmth generated by the computer.<\/p>\n Inside, I quickly disconnected the hard drive and replaced it with a new 1 terabyte hard drive. After cleaning up the chassis and removing the last of fur left by Spike and Gracie, it was time to close up, reconnect, and install Microsoft 7.<\/p>\n After finishing the clean install on the new drive, it was the moment of truth.<\/p>\n I opened the case once again and re-installed the original hard drive, slaving it to the new one. When I turned on the power, I was disappointed to see the computer did not recognize or read the original drive. Back to the Internet on the laptop and into the manual on the desktop.<\/p>\n After double-checking the cables and connecting one left undone, it was time to try again.<\/p>\n The power came on and\u2014wow!\u2014there they were! All the files from the old hard drive. To say I was one very happy camper is a bit of an understatement. In the deep recesses of my mind, I could hear the petty officer calling out over the ship’s speakers.<\/p>\n “All hands! Stand down from General Quarters!”<\/p>\n -30-<\/p>\n \u00a92011 J. Clark<\/em><\/p>\n Subscribe by email<\/a><\/p>\n Note: Email subscribers, please go to <\/em>my blog<\/em><\/a> to view vids<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “General Quarters! General Quarters! All hands man your battle stations!” I don’t hear this call over the 5MC anymore, but yesterday morning felt as if I was back in the stress of GQ. It was 0530 when I woke, and … Continue reading