25
A Sudden Amnesia
When I woke, everything was blank. It couldn’t remember a single thing. It might have been a viral infection, or the heat – but it didn’t matter. I lost my mind.
I left the PC running overnight. I thought I’d wanted to take a short nap – I was working on something important and I didn’t want to lose that momentum. Fatigue got the better of me and I didn’t stir until after day broke. The monitor did not come to life when I shook the mouse. There was no response when I hit the keyboard. After several reboots, the screen came back to the same Win98 DOS shell that told me that the critical files in the registry were either missing or corrupted. I couldn’t boot WinXP from the hard drive.
I panicked. I can’t live without my PC. I tried several solutions – I could boot XP from the CD-ROM (all my data were okay. whew), but I couldn’t repair the installation as I’d forgotten the Administrator password. Desperate, I looked up the classifieds and called a repair man who could provide en-site service support. After several tries, he said,”You have to re-install Windows.”
Which means I’ve got to re-install all the other applications…and that I have to go via the back channels to retrieve the files locked inside my former user profile. It took two fcuking days for me to get the PC back to working condition. The data salvaging operation took up most of the time – copy, paste, delete, defrag. I’ve got Gigs of media (which include ‘artistic’ films featuring Japanese actresses and amateurs) and personal data – especially the digital photos, chat transcripts, and articles that I’d wrote. The hard drive have become an an extension of my memory. That’s where I keep some of the more significant mementos of my life.
I didn’t know what to do with myself when the PC was crippled. Without my internet connection, much less my PC, I’m like the Silver Surfer without his Board and a swordsman who’s broken his sword. 剑断人亡。I felt crippled and without a purpose. I didn’t know what to do with myself.
I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands on my off-days. While waiting for the patches to download/install, virus scans or defrag process to run, I found time to read, clear the snail mails (I found the missing credit card), clean up my room…and talk and eat with my parents.
I could have finished that piece of work and touched it up with icing. Yet, this cataclysmic event provided the opportunity to overhaul that ageing piece of equipment.
I’d gotten that rig four years ago, thinking that it might be a gaming platform. Instead, it’d turned out to be more of a workhorse. So, this time when I refitted the applications – I was more selective, especially with freeware tools that I downloaded off the Net. Now, the system is clean – not burdened by unnecessary applications that slow down the processes.
Although I’ve lost productive time, all was not lost since I got a leaner and meaner machine in return.
Now, I just want to get on with the regular programming.
