Having been cursed with Windoze and Windoze problems for years, I developed several fail-safes for dealing with major computer failures. First and foremost is having two HD's and an operating system installed on both drives. Better safe than sorry.
Well it happened. Got up this AM and no computer( I leave the box running 24/7 ). Hmmm, thought the monitor looked a bit funny. No muss no fuss. Boot into the backup OS(Windoze 2000 for those keeping score. XP is too bloated for me) and away we go.
The HD, a Maxtor, is dead and out of warranty. Some cursory checks comfirmed the drive is deceased. I am fortunate I moved 20gigs of music to a another computer on my home network a few months ago. No data on the dead drive, just some bookmarks and the other OS.
If your computer is an important part of your world as it is mine, do yourself a favor and dual-boot your computer as I did. It makes a HD crash much easier to deal with.
The aforementioned Maxtor HD has an impending date with several 350gr 45/70 bullets traveling at around 2000fps. Any surviving remnants will be finished with 7.62x39 until my SKS jams(not likely) or until I run out of ammo(not likely either)
ZM
