Computers -- what a puzzle!

I sat down at my EFM office desk this morning and moved the mouse on the computer that I had left on all night. Nothing. I moved it again, and again. Nada.

I turned the computer off and watched the light flash on the CD drive, then the one on the floppy drive come on and stay lit. The monitor screen showed the name C----- in big letters. But the boot-up wouldn't advance from there. I turned the computer off and on again. And again. And again. Woe.

At 9:00 I walked in the door of a local computer shop, PC under my arm. I told them what was up and they said they would have it checked by this afternoon. I left the shop with a measure of dread. Was my hard drive gone? Was my data lost? Had I backed up my hard drive? Silly question! Of course not! Who does? We ALL should!

I made my way through the day using my laptop, the shop didn't call, and my dread grew. After a late-afternoon meeting finally ended, I phoned the repair shop and the guy said, "It's sitting on the workbench . . . " -- and I thought sure it was in pieces, strewn across the surface -- ". . . and is running fine." Huh?

Well, as it turns out, these things, said one tech, can "Hiccup," and when they do the best procedure is to unplug the thing for several seconds, then plug it back in, and the going should be good. He also agreed with another tech who had told me on the phone that one of my peripherals might be bad. If I don't get a boot-up tomorrow, I should unplug everything except the monitor and keyboard and try again. If I get a boot up, turn off the 'pooter, plug in one peripheral (printer, maybe?) and try again. And keep on until I find the bad guy.

So, I guess I'll play around with it in the morning and see. In the meantime, I'm glad the HD is all right and that my data's not lost and that I don't have to worry about backing things up for awhile. Uh. Er. I mean, that I have another chance to back up my data before I REALLY have a bad threat!