The Hard Drive Died

The hard drive on my laptop died over the weekend. Even though they are portable, laptops can’t be abused. I believe my nephew has replaced both his and his wife’s laptops since it’s difficult to child proof them from a 4 year old.

JN insisted that we (i.e. he) could reload the needed software from the discs that I still had when I originally bought the laptop. So, Monday morning, I went to PC Warehouse in Cary, got a replacement drive and away we went.

It’s actually easy to reinstall the basic operating system – the confusion comes when trying to figure out which of the many drivers and applications to install. Often, there were multiple choices for the same task (such as wireless controls) and it’s a case of either you know what to install or you don’t and have to guess. JN actually did the vast majority of the installations.

I've been installing other items, such as printer drivers, setting up the email client, re-establishing links to things such as RadioParadise and Rhapsody, etc.

So far, so good.

I wasn’t able to retrieve files from the old drive – but then again, I don’t have any experience salvaging files so that loss was user derived.

It will be time consuming and a pain to reassemble certain files, such as financial records and addresses / contact information – but – not insurmountable.

Other Weekend Stuff

When an area has a successful sports team – it can energize the fans and create a sort of euphoria. That’s not happening in the Triangle. We’re suffering from sensory overload. Kind of a ‘too much of a good thing’ situation.

The Panther’s won Sunday and will play Seattle for the NFC Championship next weekend.

Duke is Number 1 in basketball (actually, not that rare). With NC State and Carolina (past season NCAA Champion) having great records so far and in the top 20.

And the Hurricanes Hockey team is in first place in the NHL.

If it were just one team – the whole area would be energized and excited. But with 5 teams playing so well – the fan excitement is sort of spread out.

It wasn’t that long ago that college basketball and NASCAR were the only sports that mattered in NC. Now with pro basketball, football and hockey – there’s a lot more teams to follow. And, the ACC is gaining ground in college football, which is where I’ve got my fingers crossed.

I enjoy it all.

Watched Ray (very good), We Were Soldiers Once (very very good) and The Village (disappointment) over the long weekend.