Withdrawal
There was not time for the computer to cry out or warn me. There was no 2001 - A Space Odyssey reminiscent HAL like pleading. The computer I was using just up and crashed and wouldn't come back to life.
Sure I have this machine of parts running in my bedroom but its not the same. It has no virus protection. It is running Windows 98. It hiccups and coughs and has occasional strange errors that make me think that the next time I try to boot it up the ghost will have fled during the night and all I will have is large paperweight that says IBM Aptiva. (Yes the machine of parts is housed in and made up mostly of the last line of personal computers IBM marketed to the public. The part of me that is brand loyal is saddened that I cannot go out and find an IBM machine on the shelves at Best Buy or Circuit City. ) The Machine has a 4 gig hard drive (and an addition 10 gigs in the drive that I pillaged from anther machine but have yet to purge of un needed / unwanted files). It is slow. It has no printer. I have no games to play on it.
The newer machine is only a couple of years old, well out of warrenty of course, but not exactly obsolete. HP (the makers of the machine) didn't package restore disks with the computer. When the old man opened up the box and found no disks he immediately got on the phone with HP. They told him about the hidden partition on the hard drive. He was well aware of the hidden partition, but what if that too is corrupt? One must contact HP in event that happens. Checking out the Microsoft websites trying to figure out how to make a boot disk or the possible root of the errors I was not able to find anything understandable. MS help is more like MS mind boggle.
So the old man goes to another 98 machine he has in his bedroom and makes a windows 98 bootable CD. We put it in the CD ROM and find that it appears the CPU and memory are working but there are no FAT partitions on the hard drive. I have no idea what that is! I'm pretty sure that these things just don't up and disappear so I'm guessing that we have been the victim of malicious warez. (malware) So bastard invented a virus, worm, whatever that can bypass not only Nortons, but Webroot Spyshield and Spybot Search and destroy resident teatimer and then delete some really important stuff on the drive and the hidden partition making almost impossible to fix without outside assistance and probably forcing us to eventually reformat the hard drive loosing everything that wasn't backed up.
I am not a happy man. While its possible that it was just some random cosmic event or maybe if one is of a spiritual nature and otherworldly event, I'm a fan of the evil hacker theory. I'm not sure why someone would want to release something like that on the internet but I would certainly favor cruel and unusual punishment for these terrible crimes. I'm already going through gaming withdrawal. We may see more writing if it takes a long time to resolve this issue.
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Sure I have this machine of parts running in my bedroom but its not the same. It has no virus protection. It is running Windows 98. It hiccups and coughs and has occasional strange errors that make me think that the next time I try to boot it up the ghost will have fled during the night and all I will have is large paperweight that says IBM Aptiva. (Yes the machine of parts is housed in and made up mostly of the last line of personal computers IBM marketed to the public. The part of me that is brand loyal is saddened that I cannot go out and find an IBM machine on the shelves at Best Buy or Circuit City. ) The Machine has a 4 gig hard drive (and an addition 10 gigs in the drive that I pillaged from anther machine but have yet to purge of un needed / unwanted files). It is slow. It has no printer. I have no games to play on it.
The newer machine is only a couple of years old, well out of warrenty of course, but not exactly obsolete. HP (the makers of the machine) didn't package restore disks with the computer. When the old man opened up the box and found no disks he immediately got on the phone with HP. They told him about the hidden partition on the hard drive. He was well aware of the hidden partition, but what if that too is corrupt? One must contact HP in event that happens. Checking out the Microsoft websites trying to figure out how to make a boot disk or the possible root of the errors I was not able to find anything understandable. MS help is more like MS mind boggle.
So the old man goes to another 98 machine he has in his bedroom and makes a windows 98 bootable CD. We put it in the CD ROM and find that it appears the CPU and memory are working but there are no FAT partitions on the hard drive. I have no idea what that is! I'm pretty sure that these things just don't up and disappear so I'm guessing that we have been the victim of malicious warez. (malware) So bastard invented a virus, worm, whatever that can bypass not only Nortons, but Webroot Spyshield and Spybot Search and destroy resident teatimer and then delete some really important stuff on the drive and the hidden partition making almost impossible to fix without outside assistance and probably forcing us to eventually reformat the hard drive loosing everything that wasn't backed up.
I am not a happy man. While its possible that it was just some random cosmic event or maybe if one is of a spiritual nature and otherworldly event, I'm a fan of the evil hacker theory. I'm not sure why someone would want to release something like that on the internet but I would certainly favor cruel and unusual punishment for these terrible crimes. I'm already going through gaming withdrawal. We may see more writing if it takes a long time to resolve this issue.
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posted by Rich Rosenthal II at 3:21 AM
5 Comments:
I was actually laughing so hard I just had to comment. Love the comment about the computer ghost. Heaven knows I have had to lower myself to those ghostly standards as well. Nothing like going from a top-speed 60 gigger to a crawling (if that) Pentium III with a 2 gig. I feel your pain.
~Mysti
Time for one of those $400 Macs!
Kim
Just kidding, I'm a pc girl.
http://bradley.chicago.il.us/kim/
Sorry to hear that Rich. Good luck!
Oh boy, that made me laugh so hard... I think it's because my dad the 2001 fan has always set up his comps to sound like HAL (error messages say, "I'm sorry Dave...")
There will be no stinking macs on this network! Hmm maybe that ought to be a new point on the Master plan (to take over the world): Operating System Inquisition. Let the Mac purge begin Muhahahahaha (thats an evil laugh).
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