On 11/13/07, Stephen A. Lawrence <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > OrionWorks wrote: > > Jed sez: > > > >> Georgia is suffering from the worst drought in recorded > >> history. Gov. Sonny Perdue of Georgia along with "various > >> religious and political leaders" prayed for rain this > >> afternoon at the state capital. A small number of atheists > >> and people who oppose mixing church and state protested. > >> > >> Rain was predicted today, and it was cloudy earlier, but > >> the weather is beautiful & clear, despite the governor's > >> best efforts. For once this season I am happy to see clear > >> skies. Except that I fear people will blame the atheists! > >> > >> - Jed > > > > Last night my PC started acting up in an ominous way - taking forever > > to reboot. I Dunno... Might be a prelude to a major hard drive crash. > > Or gremlins. > > > > Tonight I may sacrifice a chicken and sprinkle the blood over the tower. > > Poor chicken! > > If you've got personal data you care about on the machine, you might > also consider getting a USB drive and copying it off, just in case. > They are astonishingly easy to set up (remove from box, remove cable > from the little plastic bag it comes in, figure out which end fits in > the socket, turn drive on, *done*). > > May not help much with rebuilding the system if it smokes the internal > HD, but if you've got all your personal stuff backed up, at least all > you'll lose will be time (and money, of course). > > I've got a rather nice tape drive here, courtesy of the company I work > for, and I never use it any more. I do all my backups to a couple of > USB disks. They were no more expensive than a few more blank tapes > would have been.
Fortunately the mystery was resolved last night. One of my external USB2 hard drives had been left on, sort of as if it had been left in a phantom state. Apparently Microsoft's XP O/S can get a little confused during the shutdown and start-up process when external devices are left on. Damn inconvenient! Appears to cause my system to temporarily hang, sometimes for several agonizing minutes, while it thinks about what to do next. No animals were harmed during the investigative process. However last night's meal... Mmmmm... you gonna eat that drumstick? PS: Getting back to Jed's original comment. I think we had rain over the weekend in Madison, Wisconsin. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com
