Well, I just got off the phone with Odd Man Out and his two-year-old computer is apparently fried. (Along with his recently-completed novel.) Like most of us, Dave is middle-aged, unemployed and freaked out.
Now, I’d like to point out that he’s really a tremendous writer (you know, the kind that really annoys me) and I’ve been looking forward to him finally getting his work to a publisher. (The work which is on that fried laptop.) Well, now he’s pretty much in the depths of despair. So if any of you can feel his pain and want to help, hit the donate button (make sure you include a note) and I’ll get it to him.
No money at this end /*major sad frown*/, but I might be able to offer some kind of assistance re the laptop. What kind of fried? I.e. is the hard drive physically destroyed? If not, what kind of laptop and what operating system? And what’s actually wrong? (As in, it was fine yesterday, and today it won’t boot. Or the hard drive has been making funny noises, and now it does nothing? Or…?)
It’s disconcerting not knowing who is posting individual posts here.
System failure notice. Computer won’t stay on.
So it starts booting, throws out the “System failure” business, and goes dark? Does it start accessing the hard drive or does it say “System failure” right at the very beginning?
What kind of laptop? What was the OS? How old is it? And if the hard drive or CPU or other component(s) have been replaced, how old are they?