I had set aside yesterday to write about our recent trip to the cottage. My computer had other plans. Shortly after starting it up yesterday morning, I found myself staring at a blue screen of death. The message appeared to be one I’d seen before so I didn’t think much of it. Last week, I noticed that my laptop’s battery indicators kept flashing meaning that the battery was probably on its way out. I ordered a new one and hoped that it wouldn’t die completely until the new one arrived.

When the problems started happening yesterday, I figured it had something to do with the battery. Eventually, the computer restarted only to give me a strange message about the profile being corrupt and unable to load. When it got to the home screen, I knew something was up; it was like the computer was wiped clean. The desktop background was a generic image, most of my desktop icons were gone and I kept getting the “Take a Tour of XP” prompt.

I managed to get online using Firefox, but all of my bookmarks were gone. I did a search for the error message I’d gotten about the corrupt profile and saw that it’s a common XP problem. I took note of the steps outlined on Microsoft’s site and restarted the machine in the hopes of starting it in safe mode. Again, my computer had other plans.

I was never able to get to the Administrator account through safe mode because the system kept stalling on a system file. I must’ve shut it down and tried at least five times before giving up and logging back on with the ‘temporary’ profile Windows had created for me.

Back online, I began searching for the particular system file that kept hanging. The solutions offered varied, but most suggested installing the XP disc and doing a recovery – and risking data loss. Unsure of what to do next, I stepped away from the computer and did some laundry. I didn’t even think I knew where my copy of XP was and even if I did, I wasn’t entirely confident about running a repair or install.

I thought back to the last time I had computer trouble I couldn’t fix myself; I found a decent repair guy who was honest and didn’t charge me an arm and a leg. I decided that I’d keep searching for a solution and if I couldn’t figure it out myself, I’d look up my old friend.

Some time had passed and when I returned to the computer, I saw that the system had gone to the log-in screen and there before my eyes, the Administrator account was listed. Not wasting any time, I clicked on it and the machine automatically went into safe mode. I did what had been suggested and created a new profile.

I then spent the rest of the day moving the files (my music, pictures and other files I use often) to the new profile. It took some time, but I managed to get it all back. That was the good thing about the entire process, nothing was lost (I have backups so that wouldn’t have been the end of the world) but everything was where I could find it so moving it over wasn’t too terrible.

Tonight, I managed to get my Firefox and TweetDeck customizations back. My next venture is figuring out how to get all of my iTunes customizations back – all of my playlists and ratings have been wiped because the machine considers it a ‘new’ library.

When the trouble first started yesterday morning, I was none too impressed. Suddenly, every Mac commercial I’d ever seen made perfect sense. Once I started to muddle through, I realized that it wasn’t too bad. I’ve had this machine for over four years and this was the first instance of trouble I’d had with it. My old piece of crap HP Desktop broke down four times in three years, all hardware related issues.

I still have some more file moving to do, but it’s nothing too crazy. Funny though, when I first got the blank desktop yesterday I let S know that all of my stuff was gone. She replied with, “I need to back-up my shit!” She immediately plugged in the external hard drive and began backing her things up.

In a time of agitation and frustration for me, she still managed to make me smile.

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