SOME DAYS

Friday, July 02, 2004

Some days...

it just doesn't pay to get out of bed. The trouble is
that I can't get into bed, never mind out of it!

It all started with my neighbour Lesley. I say "hello" and
we stop to chat a bit. He informs me that his computer won't
boot up and that he thinks he's got a virus. Novel idea, eh?
Imagine. So I volunteer myself right into the box and offer
to have a look at his computer.

Big mistake!

"What exactly is not happening with your computer Lesley?"

"It boots into the system and then stops at the Windows
screen and then nothing."

"Sounds interesting to me Lesley. Let's have a look.
What are you running?"

"Windows '98."

"Got a virus checker Lesley?"

"I don't know."

"How's that again? How can you not know?"

"I just don't. I'm not good at this stuff."

"Have you got a recovery diskette?"

"No, I never made one."

"That might be a problem. I have a dozen of them for Windows 98.
Trouble is, I haven't worked with Windows '98 for several years
and that's going to be tricky. Veddy tricky."

I look a his set-up. He's got not one but two computers daisy
chained on a hub and two hard drives on the system that's not
working. I know nada about working with two hard drives installed.
It's about Masters and Slaves. It's about partitioned hard drives.
It's about -- I'm beginning to not want to know about his problem.
But I am a sucker for a challenge so I tell him to bring his computer
over to my place and I'll kick start it with one of my boot disks
and have a look at what's under the hood using my computer.

Right.

"Can't promise you'll get this back any time soon, Lesley. If I can
boot into your system and get into Safe Mode I'll be able to run a
few things and figure out what's what and who's who in the zoo."

Uh huh.

His problems started, he said, when he decided to go with broadband.
Seems he ran into trouble trying to configure the software that came
with his new high speed modem. But we are using the same service
provider and I had no problem installing anything, so I don't think
that is where the problem is.

So I've got his computer and it's a beaut alright! I take his CPU
apart and open his case.

Dust bunnies! Breeding like mice. Not any more. That baby is as
clean as the day he bought the system. Dust bunnies! I hate dust
bunnies. I think they breed at night when no one is looking and when
you get up in the morning, there they are!

I boot up his system which takes me right to where his problem was.
I shut it down and restart the whole thing and boot up with my
rescue disk. Gets me right onto his desktop.

Let the good times roll. My Logitech Internet Keyboard is on but
I can't type a thing with it. Nada. No problem, I have another keyboard.
Doesn't work either. Futhermore, he has password protected his computer
at log-on and I don't know the password! Forgot to ask him. There's more
than one way to skin a cat, so I set up a different user account.

My keyboard is typing some really weird stuff.
The qnick brown fbx jumps ovxr...won't go any further.

And that's where this ends...
have to go take care of some business.



There's always tomorrow.


Posted by Gwen Beauregard at 7/02/2004 11:01:00 AM