And her head has no room

[sovay]

In which I pay for all of yesterday's grinning. There's karmic balance; there really is. I have a migraine, but there is a greater problem: my iTunes library has eaten itself. No music. I'm not quite sure how this happened, and it puzzles me greatly, but I think my computer and I are both heading for the doctor's in the near future.*

On the bright side, the ever-impressive eredien has created livejournal icons from The Cuckoo, so that I now have a terrific icon of Psholtii looking pretty much the way I feel right now. I need a paid account just so I can support my growing icon habit.

Also, since I got into an offline argument about Keats yesterday, am I wrong? Are there reasons I should really like him? I'll give him "La Belle Dame Sans Merci," because I have a soft spot for demon lovers a mile wide, but otherwise I'm mostly left wanting to read Matthew Arnold or Swinburne or any other Romantic but Wordsworth. Distract me. Please.

*I didn't mention before that a few days ago, my mail program also cannibalized one of its own folders, and I lost pretty much all of my writing-related correspondence since 2003. This was not such a disaster, since I'm obsessive and paranoid when it comes to certain areas of my life, and so I had most of the files backed up. I don't think there's anyone's address I lost that I couldn't get back one way or another, and important things like contracts and acceptances and edits are all recorded elsewhere. But I really, really don't want my laptop to crash and take something actually vital with it, say, this lecture I'm working on for Wednesday, or all of my finalized stories since 1999, so . . .

Comments

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[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

If the problem begins again after a clean system and software install, the next possibilities are:

2. Your hardware is corrupted.
2A. Worst case. Your disk might be bad. Use the Disk Utility functions to test it.

Bad disks are far rarer than they used to be, but not unknown.

If your disk tests bad: You have backups. You will need to get a new disk. You can use an external disk (my preferred backup mode) to toddle along until you can afford to/take time to get this. If you are still under warranty/Applecare, Apple owes you a new disk. (They may fuck your computer up putting it in, but I do not recommend that you try this yourself unless you are experienced in playing Operation and in taking apart interesting fiddly bits of computers.) Absolutely have backups, backups, and more backups before sending it off to Apple. If your disk tests bad and you do not have warranty/Applecare coverage, buy a new computer.

2B. Very worst case. Something on your board is bad. I had a lemon 700 that had a bad processor---and apparently 90% of 700s had a bad processor. It subtly, slowly corrupted everything running through it, in an iterative process, until the file broke. I had weird bugs like dictionary entries disappearing, files vanishing, crashes without end. It took more than a year for Apple to admit this was unacceptable. They did send a new computer after breaking, successively, the latch, the Airport antenna, the screen... all whilst trying to fix CPU that was bad by replacing the disk, the motherboard, etc. Went through three motherboards. All bad.

A bad chip is nearly impossible to detect with standard testing utilities, and no one does component-level repairs.

So, if the other stuff does not work, buy a new computer. Seriously. Use it while you badger Apple to fix the old one. Apple will not provide a loaner. Buy a refurb from them; they're cheaper than new and better-tested, so more likely to be solid. Sell it if/when you get your computer back in working order. I'm quite serious. I assume this is a tool you need every day.

If you still have Applecare/warranty coverage, you can call Apple and spend some time with their tech support people. Keep copious notes of anything, however trivial, they say to you; note down any tests they have you do and the results. This can save time if you have to call again and they try to run you through the same hoops.

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[sovay]

Thank you for this: you didn't have to, and you're amazing.

Re: exceeded comment length, sorry, here's the rest

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

C'est rien. If someone can benefit from my suffering, it is not in vain. I have still not figured out what practical use my "blind" 900 iBook can be to me....