.: Inspiron Death Part 1:.

24 April 2007 - 10.24 AM

I woke up, feeling slightly groggy, but otherwise refreshed after a night of restful sleep. By virtue of habit, the first thing I did was reach my hand out of my comforter, to the floor where my trusted old friend laid, my Dell Inspiron 510m notebook to check for work emails, and any updates on ESPN.Soccernet.

That's how I start my day. Everyday for the past 2 years. Hell, I even prowl the web before I give my other half the customary morning kiss.

This morning, however, there was an eery feeling swirling around my room. It sounded more quiet than usual. Deathly silent. There was also a slight feeling of static in the air, coupled with bone chilling cold and heavy humidity. Something evil looms.

I flipped open the LCD cover slowly, as I was not fully awake. Then I hear a strange sound. Soft, barely audible, but it was there nevertheless.

"Tik ... tik ... tik...".

That jerked me up instantly. I have not done any IT support (save for my own personal hardwares) for the past 6 years, but the training I had as a Systems Engineer back in 2001 rushed into my head instantly. You see, just like a medical doctor trained in the art of emergency medicine and procedures, we were trained to identify emergency symptoms in a computer. And this is the biggest one of them all. The cardiac arrest of the notebook.

"Tik ... tik ... tik...".

That distinct sound can only mean one thing: The hard drive is either dead, or dying real, real soon.

Took my hand off the laptop, shell shocked. Panic.

When was the last backup? 3 weeks ago. Any new, important data ever since? Yes. Lots. Holy mother of God. That massive proposal I created for my client last week wasn't backed up. The long hours I put into creating Max's videos. That wasn't in either. Not to mention 3 weeks of emails. Damn, damn, damn.

"Tik ... tik ... tik...".

Windows was still on, but hanged. That is a good sign. No Bluescreen of Death. That means the drive is still partially alive, at least for now.

"Tik ... tik ... tik...".

Okay, I told myself to calm down. I almost rushed to map my laptop to my server shared drive and try to copy all the data to the server and hope for the best. But what did basic training say?

We know that to try and push the limit of the drive further will kill it even faster. We also know that heat is also a problem in situations like these, as the disk's spindle will expand due to heat, and that worsen things. It is also known that the drive have less than 48 hours of operation time left to live, regardless of what one does to it.

So I got the facts. What do I do with it?

"Tik ... tik ... tik...".

I made a decision. And in doing so, I am taking a huge risk, but with potentially high returns..

Slowly, and gently, I carressed the power button. Applied some pressure on it, and turned the whole notebook off.

I lowered the temperature of my room air conditioning to the lowest possible, 16 degrees centigrade. And then I went on to do my daily chores, although for the whole day, my heart was heavy, and I keep hearing the "tik... tik... tik..." repeating in my head.


24 April 2007 - 8.36 pm

Came back, and my room was freezing cold. Almost like the morgue. I gently touched my Dell, running my fingers through the sleek LCD screen. I felt the keyboard keys, and finally I rested my hands on the small touchpad. Looking for signs of life, looking for hope.

Next, I had a decision to make again. Do I move my Dell to my workstation, where I could have nearer physical access to the network switch, router, server and my other notebook, or do I leave it as it is? I decided to move it, after weighing the pros and cons. You see, moving a sick drive is very very dangerous. One very gentle jerk, and you can be rest assure your data's fried.

So I picked up the notebook slowly and laid it on top of my table. I plugged in all the necessary pheriperals. Cross cable into my Acer Aspire. USB connection for the DVD Burner. USB mouse. Power cord.

And I stared at the "Power" button, touched it but not pressing it. I hesitated. I dreaded this moment for the whole day. According to experience, there's a 70% chance the drive won't boot again. Ever.

Slowly, I applied some pressure to the button. Here we go. Moment of truth...


To be continued.........