Wednesday 9 November 2011

BSOD

The Blue Screen of Death.
Luckily, I tend to regularly dump the contents of my laptop onto a hard drive. A couple of days ago, Windows Vista, which I've been using for a couple of years, since the big box thing died, had a little difficulty starting. Kind of like a stroke, actually. Obviously it would be churlish of me to grumble, because it's never done so before, despite the stories about Microsoft's 'Blue Screen of Death'. actually, despite all the stories, I've not seen the BSOD for years, not on my computers. XP used to die in many pathetic or dramatic ways, then claw itself out of the abyss toward the light, but never used to give me that stupid blue screen. Ah well, I thought, rebooting, Vista's got all these clever self-repair tools built in so I'll let it repair the start-up sectors all on its own. Well, it tried, and fell over repeatedly. Then it asked me if I'd like to start with the last known good configuration? Oh yes, I said, whatever it takes... It worked for 24 hours. Next day we tried the same old game again. What caused the fail. As far as I can see, the fail occurred after several abortive windows ".net family" update attempts. At first it said update failed, unknown error. Then it tried again and fell apart totally, bsod. And why, I ask, does it do that. It flashes a blue screen full of text up for about seventeen milliseconds. I'm a phenomenally fast reader, but there was no way I could imprint more than a couple of lines on my retina before blackness and the void. A couple of hours later, we'd tried all the saved restore points. At this point, of course, I could have inserted a ghost image of a good configuration.... Um. If the computer didn't tell me that there was a corrupted file on the disc. I sniffed it, it didn't smell corrupted. I mean, I've eaten smellier things. Maybe it meant the disc had been taking bribes? Snorting coke? Heaven forfend! Which meant a major rummage, to turn up the rescue discs I made when I first got the laptop, using the manufacturer's software. Now it has a 'repair' option, but after a couple more hours of abortive tries, I had to go for the full restore, pithed frog option, in which you wash out any old remaining brain cells with bleach, and write onto a blank and vacant cortex. Poor computer. Lobotomy. By now it's nearly 2 a.m. But I had it running, so I left it downloading 122 windows vital updates. If I had enough money, I'd abandon all my dignity and buy a No No No No.... I can't say it...... a... m...a M... M..... M... No. I can't say it. I just can't give in and buy a sealed box which has been blessed by the celestial fruit-monger. Yes, I mean a M.... Oh damn. If I try say that word that refers to ineffably smug computers which cost ridiculously disproportionate sums, then I just know I'll have a nosebleed.
I have, however, decided to upgrade to Windows Seven. Meanwhile current fresh install of Vista is running amazingly quickly, because I haven't reinstalled all the crap that just sits there in the background, parasitically wasting processor cycles and memory, on the offchance that I'd like to scan something or print or view photos or movies. My browser though. Sigh. I've lost all my bookmarks. A library of resources gone. Oh .....buck-it! I suppose I'll remember some of them, bit by bit. And pictures. Downloaded stuff. Any more and I'll start weeping. And yes. The first person to say "Why didn't you back it up continuously, seeing as you had software to do it?" gets a poke in the eye.

9 comments:

  1. "Pithed frog option". Crack me up.

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  2. like you've always told us...:-)

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  3. Weirdly, I've been having trouble accessing my internet today... using back-up verizon card to write this... now WHAT were you trying to tell me this summer about backing up my hard drive ????....heehee. Go ahead and poke me, I can take it.

    xxx

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  4. I was gong to comment here but if you can't read it then there seems to be no point.

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  5. I was desperately ill. Dying, I think. Oh, I knew what I needed all right. D-D-d-doc-doc-doct...

    But I couldn't get the word out. I was stubborn. So I got a knife and started operating on myself. I kept passing out. I had moments of lucidity but each time I regained consciousness, I remembered less and less. Still, my salvation was crystal clear: Doc... Docccc... doct....trrrr...arrrrgh.

    No way I was going to give in to logic. The correct path out of this idiocy was much too expensive. Thank god for free healthcare, eh? PC health care, even. Someday they will find me lying here and everything will be fine again. They'll patch me up until the next crash. I have hopes that Windows 7 will finally be the cure for the pc plague. AaaaaaHahahaha!!!

    By the by, the first Mac (I have no trouble saying the word) I bought back in 1996 is still working. Slow as hell and never used anymore, but always it worked when I turned it on and never hiccuped and still works fine. The G-3 I bought in 1999 still sidles right along nicely. I used to use it day and night to make advertising tabloids, but it never held it against me. It still works and I can't ever remember a crash. Only the cat uses it now, though, to lie in the sun. Then there was the little bitti mini mac from 2004. Ah, well. You are probably getting the picture. Yeah, still works fine. I write to you on it even now. It doesn't spell all that well anymore. It's successor is on the near horizon. Why? I don't know. It's still faster than I can keep up with, and I've never used enough of it's pitifully tiny gigabyte o' RAM yet to even get it's full attention. But I like new things and I have been saving, so, by god, there will be a new iMac with a ridiculously huge screen on my desk come Christmas. I have another cat that can lay on this one. Cats like to sleep on Macs for some reason. Like to walk on their keyboards, too. Cats don't have any truck with PCs, have you noticed? I have no hopes of it ever actually dying, so I will just give it to another cat. Can't bear to throw it out. Someday, maybe.

    Arrogant? Holier than thou? I guess. But I was already those things long before I bought a computer of any stripe.

    Now, why in crap's name do people waste their money buying a Mercedes? Opels are cheaper. Opals? Opuls? If they still make Opels - I try to think of a name you might be familiar with. Ah. Land Rover. Why in the hell would anyone want to buy a super reliable Land Rover when there are TONS and, um, TONNES of cheaper vehicles?

    I am almost saved up for my next Mac. It has taken me 5 years, but I will have it by this Christmas. In between, I bought 2 HP PCs, a desktop which I don't remember what is in it. Something "X" I think. Old now, yet still new. I've only turned it on a few times. Whenever I think of ditching Macs, I turn it on again.

    The laptop? Well, it is windows 7 but after almost a year now, it too has only been electrified less than 10 times -- because when I start to tell it what to do, it rudely interrupts me with these advertisements from Norton and makes me click and click and click until I forget where I wanted to go in the first place. Then, magically, hoards of new helpful windows open without my bidding. Some offering to sell me protection and others speaking that special precious PC Chinese I don't understand. Then it tells me not to turn it off until it downloads updates I didn't ask for. So much for Windows 7. But PCs are cheap. In every imaginable sense of the word.

    D,,,D,,,,Do...doc...docccccc. Ack! Ack!

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  6. Okay, all y'alls, I get it.

    I'll admit I have a strange yearning for a macbook air. I'd buy it in a heartbeat if I had a smidge
    more disposable income. And I've always liked macs, their design, whites and clear bits, compact and uncluttered. There. I've said it. Quick, Nurse! The thorazine!

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  7. Mr Max's analogy was a guffaw inducer though. He's a lucky chap, obviously never had a Land-Rover.

    We don't buy them because they're supremely reliable, we buy them despite their monumentally unreliable qualities.

    The jokes are too many to mention. Like Irish jokes, they are found elsewhere... but.
    "What does it mean if there's no oil patches beneath your Land-Rover?

    It's empty. Refill it."

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  8. Poor man, I sympathise.
    I once had the blue screen and that meant cash to the PC repair man.
    I have twice had to clear all and start again, so I try to keep a list of the billion favourites/bookmarks but often forget.

    Hope it lives now.

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