My Computer Against Me

As if the class notes, midterm papers, other school stuff, and getting sick on Halloween wasn’t enough, my computer decided to turn against me.  Monday night, November 3, 2008, I left my computer to download an anime episode.  The next morning, Election Day, the folders on my external hard drive wouldn’t open.  When I tried to copy the anime file to it, Windows Explorer froze, and so did my computer.  After attempting to restart, the computer wouldn’t get past the setup option screen, so I had to turn it off by force and try again.  It kept getting stuck like that a few times, scaring me since I have many important files, including ones for school, on my computer.

A few hours later, my computer started up normally, but kept reporting dysfunction of my external hard drive.  I disconnected and reconnected it several times, but it didn’t help.  I then tried several other methods (restarting the computer, plugging into another USB port, and changing the USB cable), but the problem remained.  Later, I unplugged the external hard drive, then plugged it back in, only to worsen the situation: my computer couldn’t even detect the external hard drive.  All the anime and manga that took months to download are in there! Same with e-mail from years ago as well as some other documents!

I took the external hard drive to the Best Buy Geek Squad on Tuesday, November 11 (Veteran’s Day), and they couldn’t retrive the files, so they had to send it off to the Geek Squad heaquarters.  They told me that it would probably cost over $500 to retrieve my files, and I would have to wait for those at the headquarters to diagnose the problem before they could contact me about the exact problems and prices.  What a ripoff!

I guess all the time and effort I spent copying, pasting, downloading, and saving are wasted.  I could probably redownload the anime and manga files, but some of them are no longer available online.  What’s worse is losing my e-mail files from years ago.  Now I could no longer read the nice e-mails you and others sent whenever I want.  I also lost attacks and unpleasant messages from messagebaords (MBs) and other unpleasant people.  Maybe it’s better that some bad things are gone, but I had saved them for evidence and defense, in case those unpleasant people try to plot things in the future.  Now if those attackers and false friends try to get me in trouble in the future, I no longer have those e-mails and MB posts to prove their behaviors and personalities or defend myself.

To tell the truth, I’m not sure if I want to save e-mail anymore, especially since I haven’t had time to go back and read them for years.  It also takes hours for me to copy and paste e-mail messages to MS Word and save them offline, and I haven’t had the chance to do any of that for a long time.  That’s why I still have e-mails from the past few years saved in my e-mail accounts.  Actually, I only keep longer messages and good forwards.  I don’t save ones that contain only one or two sentences or event plans.  Card and letters by snail-mail are a different story.

I’ve been fearing that I’m the only stupid person who keeps e-mails.  However, now that the older e-mails are gone for good, and I don’t feel like saving e-mail anymore, I’m wondering if I’m the only stupid person who doesn’t want to save e-mails.

After knowing that my files on the damaged external hard drive were gone for good, I really lost hope.  Besides no longer feeling like saving e-mail, I wanted to give up and stop watching anime or reading manga.  However, I began returning to those websites and redownloading.  Actually, all wasn’t lost, because there were files of two shorter anime series that I had also saved on my computer, and I’m planning to put back those up on DVDs.

At the same time, several computer problems had also been happening, such as Windows Explorer refusing to open sometimes, Internet Explorer freezing at some pages, and my computer suddenly logging me off.  Fearing serious viruses and Spyware ruining my computer, I began burning important and irreplaceable files onto CDs and DVDs, and that came with problems, too.  The CD and DVD burning program kept failing on me, but I did manage to get the files burnt.  Windows about 2008VirusRemover were also popping up often and disrupting my computer activities.  Despite my continuous refusal and Norton Antivirus’ blocks, it probably forced its way into my computer.  I asked Geek Squad about it on Wednesday, November 12, and they confirmed my suspicions about it being a new stubborn virus.

Now the computer problems, such as the 2008VirusRemover virus, still remain, so I might have to take my computer in to get fixed.  I think the hated Windows Vista is part of the problem.  Many programs are incompatible with it, and I don’t find it as steady as Windows XP.  Unfortunately, it came with my computer when I bought it in May 2007, and it won’t let users change to Windows XP.  Besides, after February 2007, new computers are build with hardware for Windows Vista only.

By today, November 17, 2008, I have managed to redownload some manga volumes.  I’m also looking for a new external hard drive.  They are cheaper online, but I prefer to go to the store.  I’m not comfortable buying things online, and I like to see the actual product before buying it.  That’s why I’m still debating to save money or see the product before purchase.

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