Crap. Crap. Crap.

[apollinav]

Click the cut if you have any interest in hearing my Microsoft rant.

Sufficed to say I'm out of commission for awhile-ish.

This morning I powered up the laptop to discover it wasn't happening.  I called tech support, and after explaining several times I wasn't going to pay to extend my warranty, as my laptop was still under the original warrenty, and could we please get to the part where we fixed my laptop, I actually got connected to Tech Support.  I had fears based upon an error message that my harddrive took a nose dive.  And I wasn't getting initialization beeps.

So we did a system scan and discovered that it was VISTA that took the nose dive.  Apparently VISTA is a piece of crap.  No shit.

Long story short, I had to restore my laptop to the original factory settings.

Fuck.

I now have to find my Office Suite cd and install that.  No problem. 

But I've lost all my files.  Some of them I have backed up on a geekstick.  Some of them are loaded on googledocs.

Most are gone. 

It won't hold up the next chapter of TGC, but it's still 'not good.'  And the WIP I had nearly 10,000 words written for to post after TGC... gone too.  And it was a dandy fic.

I need chocolate now.  Does chocolate and margaritas go together?  

Oh, and I forgot to mention.  The A/C died last night.  The compressor died, and that could be seriously expensive.  I have fans blowing everywhere just to keep things marginally inhabitable.  I have no idea where I'm miraculously going to pull the money for a new A/C compressor out of, but I'm still more bothered about losing my work.  I could sit in a hot-box of a house and be miserable and sweating as long as I have my fics back.

Comments

[miamadwyn.livejournal.com]

OMG.

Is there no way that somebody can go onto your drive and save/retrieve stuff for you?

I'm not sure there's enough choc or marg in the world to get me through that.

~wibbles~

Did you tell them about your AK47?

[apollinav.livejournal.com]

Apparently that wasn't an option. I wish it had been, but the tech support guys made it sound like that wouldn't be happening. And now that I've reset to original factory settings, that really won't. That's like a total reformat of my harddrive.

I probably should have mentioned the AK47...

[snuggle-slut.livejournal.com]

that's what happened to my laptop three months ago, but I took it to the geek squad and they put all of my files on disks before they restored it to factory settings, it did cost a couple hundred dollars but all of my baby's baby pictures were on that harddrive. i was so angry. and yes chocolate does help

[apollinav.livejournal.com]

bloodyfuckinghell. I'm hearing from you and others that it might have been possible to save my files. But it was under warrenty, so I called them. And they made it sound like there wasn't any files to pull, that the data was just 'gone.' And I took that at face value. I should have tried going to geeksquad or someone for a second opinion.

We took a roadtrip half way across the state so I wouldn't destroy things. It helped me mellow out considerably. But the two top-shelf margaritas also did the trick. And I'm a one-margarita kind of drunk.

[droxy.livejournal.com]

Fuck. I have a hubby who is mean with a hard drive. We back up stuff very very often.

Hugs u and sends u chocolate thoughts.

we tried loading iE 8, since the patch. It will NOT work on any of our computers. But we run XP becasuse we refuse to go to vista.

[limonata8.livejournal.com]

Good for you! I have Vista on my new laptop and I wish I had XP again. What were they thinking?

[apollinav.livejournal.com]

Thanks love. I wish XP had been an option when I bought the laptop. I had Dell make it for me, and I LOVE it. But Vista... not so much.

Still, I'm not quite in a homicidal rage just yet because I had most of my data backed up elsewhere. Not everything. Not all of it. But most of it. I lost a lot of neat crap. And I lost a fic I had spent quite some hours working on. But not everything. So, I'll live. Deep breathing excercises. Lots of deep breathing exercises.

[kariosis.livejournal.com]

I've had that happen more than once so I feel your pain.

I got a laptop a few years ago and it was a nice sleek pretty one, I wanted it to last me a while. It lasted 3 months. I tried to install Real Player and it crashed my whole system. I'm sure you can imagine my level of pissed offness. About fifty of my stories went down the tube and I'm still trying to start to rewrite them all. Most of them Original works. Screw Microsoft, screw it hard with something large and sandpapery.

[apollinav.livejournal.com]

*nods.*

Large, sandpapery, no lube.

I'm just thankful things are still there on googledocs. If that crashed I'd go ballistic.

[limonata8.livejournal.com]

Man, sorry isn't a big enough expression for the suckage that you are going through. I have had to backup my system for my norton weekly and I wondered why on earth it has me do that. Now I know... Vista will crash. Probably very soon.

((hugs)) to go with your chocolate and tequila.

[apollinav.livejournal.com]

Thank you love. Most of it was backed up... not all. But most. I'd be having one hell of a shit-fit if I didn't have all the essentials backed up. But, I still lost quite a bit.

Oh well. There's really nothing more I can do about it. Bitching won't bring my data back. But it is satisfying...

Chocolate Margarita Recipe

[mischievous-t.livejournal.com]

1 1/2 ounces tequila

1 ounce Godiva liquor

3/4 ounce cream

1 tablespoon Hershey's syrup

2 ounces orange juice

SHAKE - DO NOT PUT IN BLENDER

pour into margarita glass rimmed with crushed oreos

Enjoy! Er... Drown your sorrows!

Re: Chocolate Margarita Recipe

[mischievous-t.livejournal.com]

But, put the AK/M16/SOG/Whathaveyou away first.

Re: Chocolate Margarita Recipe

[apollinav.livejournal.com]

Thank you. This looks really promising. I don't think I'd have ever mixed Hershey's and Orange Juice. Although I do like chocolate/orange flavored candies.

No, I ended up taking a roadtrip to get out of the house. We drove a few hours and I got my margarita. I just loaded Office 2007 suite, and now I've got to get ready for the trip I could care less about. I'm not even bringing the SOG.

[irishredlass.livejournal.com]

Ohhh poor yous I do so hate Vista! I have to deal with it at work, but vowed I WOULD NOT have it on my home computer. Fortunately, I have a computer geek for a brother who stripped Vista off my brand new laptop and replaced it with a copy of XP I bought off ebay.

So sorry about the loss of work, but I think you should give that chocolate margarita recipe a try and tell us how it is.

[apollinav.livejournal.com]

I WANTED XP. I did. I asked for it. But I custom ordered the laptop from Dell, and they weren't installing with XP anymore. They're only building with Vista. So I bit the bullet and acquiessed. I wish I hadn't. When it reverts to original factory settings, Vista pops up again.

I'm thinking really hard about the chocolate margarita recipe. I'll be in Phoenix next week and spending time with some old high school girlfriends I haven't seen in ages. That might be the perfect entertainment for an evening.

[irishredlass.livejournal.com]

Hmm with chicken roll-ups that might make for a taste evening treat as you catch up on all the news.

Phoenix is a beautiful city... I was just outside of Phoenix in April for the awards trip I went on. We stayed at the Phoenician Resort in Scottsdale.

I am sooo glad I have a computer geek for a brother, at least he is good for something.

[apollinav.livejournal.com]

Excellent thought, and they don't make much mess, so I'm not likely to make messes in someone else's kitchen. I know that irks me.

I was looking forward to Phoenix. I've never been. But I've got so much on my plate here, it's more of a headache to leave.

[kariosis.livejournal.com]

If it makes you feel better.

[elise-wanderer.livejournal.com]

I've lost huge chunks of stuff before in computer suicides, but do I back up everything? Nah. Still suck at that.

But boy oh boy do I know how godawful that feels!!

Here's some virtual chocolates, which, by the way, go with EVERYTHING, especially Things Alcoholic. Darlin', I feel your pain!!

[apollinav.livejournal.com]

Thank you, m'dear. I feel the love. The chocolate and margaritas have helped to quiet the homicidal rage. I am no longer fantasizing about smashing computers. Though, I LOVE my laptop. It's Vista I loathe.

And, MOST was backed up. Well, for TGC that is. There's a whole brand new fic that is just 'poof,' and I'm so unmotivated to try and rewrite. Perhaps it just wasn't meant to be.

[severewrath.livejournal.com]

Wow. Dell Tech Support is terrible: I'm sorry.

It should have been possible, easily, to get your files off. Booting into Safe Mode should have done it. If you couldn't boot into Safe Mode, then restoring to factory settings wouldn't fix the problem (it would almost certain re-occur).

Actually, it's conceivably possible that you can still recover the files. I'd recommend reading this:

http://www.tech-pro.net/how-to-data-recovery.html

There's a lot of Vista hate here, but honestly XP's more likely to fuck up than Vista. I don't really want to enumerate the reasons why... but I would suspect that Dell Tech Support told you it was a Vista problem because they didn't want to have to deal with the alternative (a hardware problem, which they're liable for). It's really, really, really hard to fuck up a Vista install to the point where it won't boot.

[apollinav.livejournal.com]

Wow. I really had no idea. I took them at face value from what they had said. I'll look into the article.

Thank you for enlightening me.