“A Geek’s Life”
Problem:
My laptop’s hard drive decided to take a dive today (they all do eventually). To make matter’s worse it’s one of my main computers (can’t live without this one for too long).
Solution:
1. Backup clone of the laptop’s drive (being nearly OCD about good backups I had 3 on hand—2 fully bootable clones and 1 incremental drive). Check.
2. Blank, same sized backup hard drives (I had 2 on the shelf for moments like these). Check.
3. Phillips 00 and Torx T6 screwdrivers (what can I say I’m sort of a nerd). Double check.
4. Spudger (I’m not that much of a nerd so plastic butter knife had to do which continued it’s usefulness afterwards to eat an apple with). Sorta check.
5. Calming music: The Weepies “Say I Am You” album. Check
Outcome:
Up and running again in 20min with zero files lost and no post reinstalls or configurations of any sort thanks to the extra cloned drives. The only downside? I didn’t get to finish the whole album (great album—check it out on iTunes).
Moral Of The Story:
Backup Backup Backup Backup and have a nerd near you if you aren’t one. If the first thing you said after reading this post was, “yeah, but why did it take him 20 minutes” then you are the nerd so hop to it.
20 comments in “A Geek’s Life”
March 6th, 2009 at 11:41
This is hilarious…so you
March 7th, 2009 at 7:50
Biiiiiiiiig Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaalllllllllll, son! We’re talking second grade here!!!
March 7th, 2009 at 9:09
Per my last sentence it’s clear my father is a bigger nerd than me.
March 7th, 2009 at 12:59
1. I hope that plastic knife was used to add peanut butter to that apple. mmmmm… so delicious
2. I love the Weepies!
3. I now feel the need to go back up all my files again, so thanks. go you!
March 7th, 2009 at 14:51
This is Awesome. Uh….I’ll go back up my computer now.
March 8th, 2009 at 1:51
Amanda: Dude I love peanut butter on apples too. You like apples. I like apples. You like peanut butter on apples. I like peanut butter on apples. You like The Weepies. I like the Weepies. Okay that settles it—we were separated at birth!
P.S. my computer was backing itself up while I was tying this so I’m pretty sure this reply is going to make the cut even if something bad happens to my drive. Good luck on your interview by the way!
March 8th, 2009 at 1:55
Lis: Sad but true.
Kerry: Back that MBP up yo!
March 8th, 2009 at 4:35
the plastic butter knife part scares me the most.
March 9th, 2009 at 11:36
Get a PC baby, it only needs its HD replaced every year, yo
March 9th, 2009 at 18:28
Charles: haha! And with Windows the HD replacement isn’t because of a hardware failure, but rather the sheer number of viruses causing the OS to choke completely!
. Regarding Windows record for OS stability I have four words: Windows ME / Windows Vista. Nuff said yo. 
March 9th, 2009 at 22:08
Yo? … son? yo?
March 10th, 2009 at 7:04
whoa. that’s what i call prepared. there are reasons why we do these things; often we go long periods of relative calm during which people refer to us as obsessive and anal-retentive; but then comes the day when it all pays off. my mbp was stolen a few months back, and although i wasn’t up and running again quite as easily, i didn’t lose a file. great idea to have an extra hard drive on hand though. now back to work!
March 11th, 2009 at 9:08
Son … on behalf of all us Pee Cee owners, I want to thank you for keeping this colorful display of Mac Guts up for so long. Do you think you might consider keeping it prominent for, say, another month, yo? Just askin’!
March 11th, 2009 at 17:48
Dad: I wanted to keep this up for awhile to remind you PC people that a gutted Mac is still better than a functional PC. It goes without saying that I’m using the word functional fairly loosely here.
March 11th, 2009 at 21:35
brandon: I hear where you are coming from. It’s days like the one above and like the one you had a few months back that makes me feel justified in being a bit obsessive about doing good backups.
This reminds me that I wanted to elaborate a bit more on this post. I try very hard not to have objects become too important to me, but when those object hold the creative things that we have made it does make it difficult to separate caution and care for these objects from our love for the things they hold—if that makes any sense. In once sense it’s just a stupid computer, but in another sense it is a great deal more than that.
Maybe to everyone else the things I create are just dumb silly crap, but it’s my dump silly crap and a part of me. I guess that’s mainly the reason I am so prepared for disasters like the one I had the other day.
March 11th, 2009 at 22:18
Andrew yours stuff is neither silly or dumb nor crap!!!
Dave and I tell students all the time…. back your stuff up back your stuff up. And when they don’t and something goes wrong people are always in tears and can’t be consoled. No one truly gets "back up" until they’ve lost what they worked so very hard on. All us Geeks have horror stories…that time we didn’t back up and lost something forever.
I try not to be too attached to my things….I would say take the computer but leave the hard-drive please!!!
March 12th, 2009 at 10:34
way to go, andrew. you are seriously prepared. i had that happen last year and happily the drive was replaced under Applecare. but now my machine’s out of warranty and i should probably have that butter knife on hand…
March 18th, 2009 at 10:40
I remember seeing my laptop die on me a while back. I thought I lost everything! I’m so glad my friend was around to fix it all for me! Now I’m out of IL and in WA…on the hunt for a new "nerd," lol.
March 19th, 2009 at 12:48
ACP: good luck in your nerd search in Washington.
. If you ever run into problems in Philly look me up. 
. I hear a great deal of Washington is beautiful so I must check it someday.
April 3rd, 2009 at 20:46
If you don’t already have a recycling plan for your old, worn out lap tops… my dad makes jewelry out of them. I have a lovely medallion from an old floppy disk and a piece of mother board
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