This morning, I was in a grand hurry to get to class. I didn’t leave enough time to get to class, so I quickly shut down my laptop, threw my books into my bag, and headed off to class.
As a math major, I don’t have much use for my laptop in class. I just wanted to write my articles during the two hour break between my classes. Well, imagine my surprise when I turned on my computer and found a little red box stating, “Hard Drive Not Found.”
Great. There was not much I could do about it right then; I needed to go to my next class. With a good amount of bull-headedness, I figured that the problem would go away while I was at class. No such luck. I came back, fired up my laptop, and received the same message accompanied by some beeping.
Ok, I thought to myself, time to get some outside help. I consulted my friend, the computer expert, and he had no idea what was going on. Being left with no other option, I called the Help Desk.
After explaining the problem over the phone to the guy at the desk, he said he’d have to take a look in person. Five minutes later at the VCC, he told me that he’d never seen anything like this. We attempted to boot from a disk, with no avail. Frustrated, he told me to go downstairs to the RCR.
First of all, I’d like to thank the people there for the wonderful job they did. They were pleasant, efficient, and addressed the problem quickly. Unfortunately, they did not see the problem either. After taking some screws off and examining the hard drive, hard drive slot, and motherboard, they could not see the problem. I got a loaner from them and some satisfaction that they know how to do their jobs.
So I get back to the office, and plug in the new loaner laptop. Minutes later, the power icon blinks on the laptop, and I hear our surge protector pop. I reset the surge protector, and everyone’s power was restored but mine. I tested the cord in somebody else’s laptop; the cord was shot. Unfortunately, it was after the computer store closed, so I’m out of power until at least tomorrow.
There’s a moral to my story of woe. About halfway through this ordeal, I thought to myself, “This computer thing could not get any worse.” Just remember folks, be thankful for what we have. Sure, my computer situation was pretty bad, but in the grand swing of things, life’s pretty good at RPI.
