Listen my children and you shall hear
The drawn-out tale of my half-worst fear:
Personal documents, music and jive,
Pictures and prefs on my battered hard drive,
Most of ~ 'cept for Desktop—forever clear.

~

(Monday, 11/22)

On Monday afternoon, I was listening to some music for my Introduction to Music course while waiting for my clothes to finish washing when all of a sudden the music stopped. The cursor still moved, but iTunes was seemingly frozen and the clock had stopped. Force-quit didn't work, so naturally I restarted the computer. Unfortunately, the computer failed to start up. It would get to the gray Apple logo and the spinning gear and spin eternally. So, I bring my laptop back up to my room and try to start up from the AppleCare CD. It got to the gray Apple logo and waited there for a few seconds, and then all of a sudden the Apple logo displaced a few pixels right and down; on the left side of the bounding box you could make out where the logo had wrapped around to the other side.

Pants-wetting time had officially begun.

I shut the computer down, did stuff including but not limited to finishing up my clothes and eating dinner, and came back. Lo! The computer started up again. I ran TechTool Deluxe, and it indicated that everything was fine. Odd. However, later that night, I noticed that occasionally the computer would hang, sometimes for a few seconds and sometimes for a few minutes. However, it would always resolve itself after a while with no problem, so I just attributed it to trying to do too much at the same time. I did, however, copy my entire schoolwork folder over to my network share, just in case.

~

(Tuesday, 11/23)

On Tuesday I bought some DVDs, intending to back up files. I made up DVD-sized Toast file listing (not an actual disk image) with various stuff and started to burn a DVD, but Toast spat up a file error of some kind. At this point I realized that I still didn't have a boot CD, so I made a disk image up using BootCD that had TechTool Deluxe on it. Of course, I didn't actually have any CDs handy, so I had to use one of the DVDs. It started up (albeit slowly), and everything seemed hunky-dory. Both Disk Utility and TechTool Deluxe revealed no errors. Furthermore, I didn't have that hanging problem at any point in time that day, so I decided to put off making backups until later, maybe Friday or Saturday.

~

(Wednesday, 11/24)

Wednesday, heh, Wednesday's when the trouble began. The hanging processes, which I thought I had left in the dust on Monday, returned with a vengeance. Every few minutes, I'd have to wait for it to resolve itself. A few times the wait was so bad that I got frustrated and restarted the computer. Other than that, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary (according to Disk Utility and TTD, anyway), so I just figured it was internet load (pretty much all I had did that day was look at a bunch of Flash animations and have IRC open to several channels open to heavy discussion) and let it pass.

~

(Thursday, 11/25 [Thanksgiving])

On Thursday I didn't get on the computer until the later afternoon (due to the Thanksgiving meal I mentioned in my previous post), but when I did it appeared to be more of the same. I did, however, notice that hard drive was making somewhat muted clicking noises that may or may not have been out of the ordinary. I've always been a computer-noise paranoiac: give me a computer that has a shark bite in it and I'll check my mail before doing anything else, but just one errant "... click?..." that I'm not expecting and BANG! I start freaking out. I figure, "Backups tomorrow... backups tomorrow... backups tomorrow."

Later that night I discovered that if I hit the computer somewhat lightly (making a "toonk" sound, not a "tap" or "THUD!") while it was hanging, it would sometimes resolve itself. Here's the last conversation I remember having, reconstructed poorly from memory:

chz16: Hmm, I've discovered a way to stop the computer from hanging.
chz16: Apparently, if I hit it to the left of the trackpad a few times, it'll resolve itself.
chz16: Definitely a hardware problem. I'm calling AppleCare tomorrow.
kiriyamabrx: o_O Have fun with that.
chz16: "Durr... it only works when I hit it."
kiriyamabrx: Hehehehehe.

The last thing I was planning to do that night on the computer was to check some threads on a message board. While loading a few pages the laptop began to hang again. Hitting the computer didn't work, so I tried force-quitting some programs. I eventually quit everything, and it was STILL hanging, so I restarted the computer. Wouldn't restart. So, I whip out the boot CD, run TechTool Deluxe AGAIN, and go take a shower, expecting it to say that everything's fine AGAIN.

No dice. It actually found two errors, one during the surface scan and one during the volume structure test. So, I hit "repair" and go to sleep.

~

(Friday, 11/26)

F-Day. (Oh, that "F" can stand for so MANY things.)

I got up at about 8:00 or so, bright and early so that I can call AppleCare early and get stuff resolved. However, on the edge of hearing I could detect a sound that sounded like... a CD accessing data. An extremely large amount of data, seeing as it wouldn't stop. I went over to the computer and found out that it was STILL repairing... or at least trying to repair, anyway. It was actually stuck on one step and spinning its wheels incessantly. Terrible, awful. Let's ring up AppleCare, shall we?

"y0"
"d00d ur compy is fux0red"
"damn"
"liek backup and shit... then clean install"
"fuck"

Right, so now I need to back up all 20+ GB of my files, preferably as quickly as possible. This immediately poses a problem, seeing as (1) I can't use any DVDs because the only way I can start up the computer is off of one and (2) my network share only has about 118 MB of space. The guy I talked to repeatedly recommended doing something called "target disk mode," which, for those of you who don't know, simply means that you hook up a Mac to another Mac with a FireWire cable and start up one of the computers while holding down the "t" key. Doing so will cause the hard drive of that computer to essentially mount onto the computer for easy, speedy file-copying goodness. It's a shame that I didn't have the $30 6-pin to 6-pin FireWire cable. It's also a shame that every single computer lab that had a Mac was closed and the campus was practically deserted, leaving me with a grand total of 0 Macs available.

At this point, the only viable options were to wait until Monday when the labs reopened or to buy an external hard drive of some sort for backup purposes. It was about that time that I heard the computer say quite loudly, "Five minutes until detonation," so I jumped out of my fourth-story window into the cushy seat of my Formula 1 car and sped off at about 200 mph or so to Circuit City. Flying down the street, I wove between cars, crossing lanes as smoothly as... what's this? A truck! Only mere milliseconds to open the control panel and push the button...

... okay, screw this. I went downstairs to the dorm computer lab, fired up the Circuit City web site, puzzled for a while on the address given in my debit card, arranged a hard drive for pick up, called a taxi, went there, picked it up, and came back. How trivially mundane and unenlighteningly boring.

I got back, probably about 4:00 or so, and hooked up the drive and everything. It mounted okay, so I just DND'd the entire Macintosh HD volume onto my newly christened "Backup Drive." (Evocative, I know.) Took a while to compile all of the files, but after some cogitation it said it would take about a half an hour to copy the sixteen or so gigabytes of (very) roughly 350K files.

Wait a minute... 16 GB? I know last time I totally had more than 20 GB. And I'm fairly sure (65% range or so) that I had closer to 600K files. What's the deal?

(That was a mental thought process, by the way. You'll see more of them in the forced dramatic moment coming up shortly.) Since it would take forever anyway, I decided to let everything copy before I investigated the sudden 20+% drop in file space.

(Yes. You totally know where this is going.)

During the 1 1/2 hours it took to copy all the files (because file-copy time estimates are never accurate), I kept a close eye on what files were being copied, comparing them with my mental recollection of all the file directories. For the most part it copied files in roughly alphabetical order by subdirectories, and near the end I noticed one directory that it seemed to have missed completely. ~/Music. (~ is shorthand for the user directory of the current user of the system, which in my case was /Users/CHz.) So, naturally I check it out.

Wait... it's not there?

Okay, let's check Terminal. Maybe it's invisible or something.

Not there.

Reopen the folder.

Not there.

Restart the computer.

Not there.

Run diagnostics.

Not there.

Not there.

Not there.

The only visible file remaining in ~ was Desktop. Music = gone. Pictures = gone. Miscellaneous documents = gone. Preferences = gone.

Naturally, I freaked out. Big time. Restart, diagnostics, over and over and over again. This continued until I went to sleep. Once again I left TTD on "repair" overnight. This time, I draped my sweatshirt over the computer to muffle the DVD-accessing noises and rotated the bed so that the head was as far away from the computer as possible. By doing this I attempted to stay asleep as long as possible without hearing any noises.

~

(Saturday, 11/27)

I got up at about 11:00 or so, so my plan seems to have reasonably succeeded. As I expected, it was still blarghing and blarghing, so I killed it, shut down the computer, and called up AppleCare to see if they did anything for data recovery. Of course, since I've been around Apple for so long, I know that they don't do anything for data recovery, but I call anyway.

"Apple does not recommend any companies for data recovery."

Duh. Saw that one coming. So, I went down for lunch and then popped into the computer lab to research data recovery places and see where the nearest Apple certified repair thingie is. Of course, there aren't any data recovery places in the area, so I'd have to mail it to another state. And, interestingly enough, the nearest repair place is in Vincennes, which is about 45 miles away or so. Up I go to call AppleCare again, this time to admit defeat and send it in for repairs.

This next part is simultaneously the shortest and longest part of the whole episode, so I'll try to work through it as clearly as possible. This new person told me that, before AppleCare would accept my laptop for repair, I'd have to try a clean install of the system (despite the fact that the hard drive was quite clearly failing and that, if anything, a clean install would probably hasten its demise). And, of course, a clean install would mean that any twittering hope of recovering the lost files in ~. Rather than stopping and thinking, possibly even hanging up and calling back later, I made the snap decision to melt down the sucker. Here's the mental process that hopefully went through my brain:

Okay, first off, I admit defeat. Sure, I could run TTD a few more times, buy a FireWire cable and Target Disk Mode the sucker, etc., but realistically, there's nothing else I can do. Therefore, the fate of my data lies completely out of my hands.

Data recovery is a possible option. However, there is no place in the area, so I'd have to mail it off somewhere. That's shipping, probably both ways, PLUS the cost of data recovery, even if they don't manage to get anything. WAY too expensive.

If I took it in to a repair place, they might, MIGHT be able to do something. However, I have no transportation and the nearest place is 45 miles away. That's a $100+ taxi trip that I'll have to make... TWICE. WAY too expensive.

The only viable option, therefore, is AppleCare. And, with AppleCare, comes data destruction.

R.I.P.

I clean installed, and magically the computer decided to start up again. However, Disk Utility said that the SMART status of the drive was still "failing" (as I expected, what with the HARDWARE problem and all), and the computer was still hanging periodically, so I called back and scheduled a repair. Apparently, Apple would send me a box via DHL that would reach me on Tuesday (overnight delivery, but they don't send stuff out on Saturday so it would go out Monday). I would pack the laptop in the box and schedule a pick-up with DHL, who would come by with the box and return it to Apple. There it would be repaired and shipped back to me. Overall, the process would probably take about a week: overnight delivery, 3-5 days for repair, overnight delivery.

Since the computer was still "functional," I did my normal internet stuff via the applications saved on the backup HD. Hangs and all. When I was finished, though, I somehow had the foresight to decide to save all the logs and preferences for what I had done to the hard drive before I shut the computer down. You know, just in case the computer became engulfed in plasma overnight.

~

(Sunday, 11/28)

Turned out that my decision to copy the preferences and junk was a good one, seeing as the computer refused to start up in the morning. Rather than clean install AGAIN, I decided simply to "screw it" (notice the quotes there to differentiate my colloquial use from its other, more vulgar use) and just leave it for AppleCare.

Thus began my streak of four consecutive nights spent in the Lowers computer lab. I would bring my now trusty hard drive with me to dinner and afterward would walk downstairs to the computer lab and proceed to spend a good 4, 5, 6, 7... (etc.) hours on one of the three Macs (actually, the same one very time) out of about thirty total computers. Throughout this span, the only other people I would ever see using the Macs besides me were people involved in the task of web design, presumably for some assignment that was due in a reasonably short amount of time. And even then, rarely were both of the other computers used at the same time.

*sigh*

The fools.

~

(Monday, 11/29)

Ehh... disregard Monday. Nothing of note happened.

~

(Tuesday, 11/30)

I received the DHL box on Tuesday; actually, more accurately, the DHL box was delivered to the mail room on Tuesday. Across campus. Also, the pick-up would happen at the mail room, not at my dorm. Of course, I didn't know this last part ahead of time, so I didn't bring my laptop with me. Therefore, I'd have to walk across campus, pick up the box, walk across campus, pack the computer, walk across campus, drop the box off, and finally walk back across campus.

Oh, and it was cold. And raining. Fun for the whole family.

Luckily, halfway though walk across campus #3, I met a friend who conveniently both happens to work in the mail room AND was out on a round, and he graciously offered to take the box back for me. Now all I had to do was call DHL and set up a pick-up time.

*call*

"All carrier lines are busy right now. Please try again later."

*later*

"All carrier lines are busy right now. Please try again later."

*later*

"All carrier lines are busy right now. Please try again later."

*etc.*

"It didn't work the first fifteen times, and yet you tried again? Get a life, dammit."

"Wait... what?!"

"All carrier lines are busy right now. Please try again later."

All other phone numbers worked except for that one. Later on I discovered that it was actually dialing before I had finished punching in all the numbers, which was extremely odd, especially since I did remember this time to prepend a 9 because it was an outgoing call. I then hit upon the bright idea to use my phone card and call out. Maybe that would help.

*little girl*

"Umm... your mom isn't by any chance DHL, is she?"

"I'm not allowed to talk to strangers. *click*"

(Okay, it didn't actually happen like that, but it definitely wasn't DHL.)

Later, while in the computer room, I hit upon the even brighter idea of calling the DHL 1-800 number and setting the pick-up that way. And it worked like a charm. DHL was scheduled to drop by the mail room between 1:00 and 3:00 PM on Wednesday.

*victory*

~

(Wednesday, 12/1)

Besides the fact that my computer was picked up between 1:00 and 3:00 PM, nothing particularly interesting happened on Wednesday either.

~

(Thursday, 12/2)

Thursday started off like a generic Thursday: woke up at about 11:00 AM, went to calculus, and had lunch. When I got back to the dorm at about 1:30 PM or so, I went to the dorm computer lab check my e-mail. I had an e-mail from mail services indicating that I had a package. Since the DHL box had only gone out the previous day, I figured that I had received a package from somewhere else, but I definitely wasn't expecting one. From anyone. So, I dropped off my stuff at my room and went over.

It was the laptop. Let me break this down for you:

1:00-3:00 PM Wednesday -- Laptop is picked up.
12:20 PM Thursday -- Laptop is returned.
It took less than 24 hours(!!) for the laptop to go from Evansville, Indiana, to the Apple Repair Citadel in Texas, and back to Evansville.

Contrary to what you may have expected (especially considering I'm talking about me here), I was not at all please. In fact, I was extremely worried because I figured that there was no possible way that the laptop could have been repaired in such a short span of time. The first thing I did when I got back to the dorm was not to open the box. Instead, I went back to the downstairs computer lab and checked the AppleCare status to make sure that it was actually serviced. Sure enough, the dispatch page claimed that it had been.

Somewhat contented by this news, I proceeded to open the box (while still down there). Contained in the foam bag holding the laptop was a paper that also claimed the laptop had been serviced. I hit the power button, and the computer starts up and logs into an account called "apple." Still not convinced, I whipped open Disk Utility and checked the SMART status of the hard drive.

"Verified."

... so, apparently... it's back...?

I spent the rest of the day (with an internet break in the evening) and several following days restoring files to the battle-scarred laptop.

~

(After M*A*S*H)

The files that I lost in the hard drive failure were all of the visible directories in ~ except for the Desktop. The most important destructions were my music, pictures, documents, and preferences (technically the Library, so a bunch of shared files were lost as well).

Of these, only the preferences are completely irretrievable.

I lost about 95-98% of my raw picture files, but I do have a sizable number of pictures resaved with smaller dimensions in various places: the CPJ™, miscellaneous LJ posts, etc.

All traces of my music were gone, but luckily a great deal of my music was either ripped from CDs I own or downloaded freely (and occasionally legally) from the internet, so that was a matter of simply making a list of all the music that I could remember. I'm sure that I've forgotten a decent chunk of what I had (seeing as I never exported my library into a text or HTML file), but thus far I've recovered a substantial amount.

My documents are also gone, and there were a great deal of personally created things such as pictures, movies, and school work that are gone forever. However, if you recall, on the Tuesday before the hard drive crash I made a file listing for Toast. This file listing included every single file that was contained in the Documents directory except for my Red vs. Blue archive (which I've since mostly re-downloaded) and the "hard drive" for Virtual PC. I kept this file listing on the Desktop, so as a result I have an almost complete file-by-file breakdown of the entire contents of my Documents folder (which was quite sizeable). Therefore, what can be recovered will be recovered.

And, luckily, two of the most sadistic games known to man, Enigma and Neverball, by some colossal stroke of luck kept their preferences not in the Library but rather in invisible directories directly in ~, directories that I've recovered. This is extremely fortuitous, because it means that I won't have to re-beat all the levels that I had beaten. Phew.

~

And now, the long awaited dorm pictures. Enjoy.


Fear the entrance. FEAR IT!


Panning a bit to the right... we find a grid of windows, of which the third from the left on the top floor may or may not be my own.


And here's the backside of the dorm. The volleyball court has a tendency to become a pond after medium to heavy rains... not that I use it anyway. That annex in the previous picture is the game room...


... part of which is seen in this picture.


Here's the game room from another corner.


This is a closer shot of the trophy case seen in the previous picture.


This is the lounge, as seen from the kitchen. The wooden paneling at the far end opens up to reveal a television.


This is the kitchen, as seen from the lounge.


And, finally, this is my room, with an emphasis on my half. While it would be cool if my bag really glowed like that, it's just a reflection of the flash.


Here's a closer view of my back corner of the room.


And here's my front corner of the room.